Breathing, Day 2

I am breathing.

And I am catching myself each time I start to complain, kvetch or whine.  I don’t know if I’m just becoming more aware  of how often negative thoughts try to pop up in my mental landscape or if I was having a particularly difficult morning, presence-wise.  In any case, I got many opportunities to nip negativity in the bud.  Again.  And again.  And again.

Only once or twice did I start to complain aloud. I almost got into a mutual groan and moan fest with Ma over junk mail and telemarketers, but I saw what was happening and stopped.  We changed the subject and I proceeded to email one charity and one publishing house to let them know I want off their mailing lists.  Action instead of whining.

Breathing, Day 1

Just yesterday I said that mornings find me trapped in mind/ego and I work my way back to presence by night.  Not today.  I wonder if becoming aware of that pattern altered it for today.  This morning I had a brief slip when I turned my back on the present moment, but I recovered and the rest of the day was magical.

Ma and I carved three jack-o-lanterns for the front porch.

Patti Digh of 37Days is doing Christine Kane’s challenge to attempt to go 5 weeks without complaining, criticizing, whining or gossipping.  Now I have no illusions that I will be able to succeed 100% every day.  But this is exactly what I am working on right now in my life anyway, so how fortuitous to have others working on it at the same time! LoriLyn of The Dream Life is doing it, too.

For a few days now I have been attempting to become aware every time I am tempted to complain or criticize or offer any sort of inner resistance to what is.  This morning Sylvain admitted to letting something slip his mind, and my first reaction was to get all huffy.  That’s not MY problem.  That’s YOUR problem. YOU forgot. I am NOT going to rescue you.

What?

Who is saying that?  My ego is saying that, that’s who.  A part of me that momentarily wishes to feel bigger than someone else.  The ego wants to lord over him the fact that I can choose to help or not help him out of his predicament.  It’s a power play, nothing more or less.

Oh, sigh.

I did not “welcome the present moment no matter in what disguise it comes.” (A New Earth, p. 201)

When I saw that ego had taken over control of my mouth, I said to myself, “let’s try that again, shall we?”

I took a few deep breaths, told ego to go look for sea shells, grounded myself in my body and responded anew. My day became joyous and effortless from that moment.

====

I so very much enjoyed watching this YouTube video posted by Patti Digh on her blog today.  With music and pictures, it speaks volumes about this very thing and reminds me a bit of Olivia’s video she made on the way to Costco, too.

As long as we’re talking about challenges, I want to share with you that I have given myself a challenge gleaned from…you guessed it…A New Earth.  Someone was showing Tolle a catalogue of spiritual retreats and workshops, asking if he could recommend one or two.  There were many really good offerings in that catalogue.  Yet he said that if you could become aware of your breathing as often as you can remember to do so every day for one year, it would be more transformative than all those workshops and retreats put together.

So that is what I am going to try to do…become aware of my own breathing as many times each day as I can remember to do so…for 365 days.

The Language of Signs

Spiritdoll’s post of today reminds me of something. I was sitting on a bench inside a government building on Friday, a rainy day. I was watching people come in from and go out into the drizzle. My mind wandered to Radiant Woman’s post about the day she found a cross. Another day her husband, while missing her during her pilgrimage on the road to Santiago de Compostela, found a rose quartz heart on the street. Just like that.

I wondered if I looked down at the ground, could I find a cross too?

I looked down at the ground and sure enough… about 8 inches away from my left foot rain water someone had tracked in had filled the grooves where four square ceramic tiles met. The intersection of these grooves of course formed a cross, but the water was darkening an area in such a way that one arm of the cross was twice as long as the other three. I smiled.

I was pondering the way that Tolle’s writing “sinks in” for me.  There is a clear pattern. First I read, then I put the book down. Sometimes I am going around repeating a certain phrase or passage, hoping to understand. My mind wants to get it. But it’s not in the realm of mind where I’ll eventually have the light bulb moment. It’s when I manage a gap between thoughts.

Spirit co-operates with my yearning to know. As soon as I let go of the language and settle down, become aware of my environment…that is when something signals me. It could be the play of light and shadow coming through some trees. It could be a cloud travelling and shape-shifting across the blue field of sky. Something around me and/or in me takes up the role of Zen Master where the words on the pages left off.

I don’t worry if the signposts on the pages don’t always work for me.  I read anyway, then become still and aware.  Out of nowhere will come a signpost that does work for me, that gives me that AHA moment. Sometimes my aha moment is just a small one, making me smile or laugh. Sometimes it is profound, leaving me in a state of bliss for hours or days.

Walking back from the marina today, I was pondering how even road signs and billboards can serve a similar purpose.  Just as I thought that, I looked up at the nearest yellow marquis with black lettering and what it said there left me laughing and laughing:

SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES

APPLY WITHIN

Dream: The Play

Last night I dreamt that a young woman wanted to buy my mother’s old place.  I was going around telling about the wonderful flowers and plants that would come up in the spring.  Seems like the property being bought had a large underground element to it.

In the next dream that I can still remember, I was standing with a group of young women dressed in a white toga or very plain tunic. We all were wearing those. We were up on an elevated stage-like area and down below against an opposite wall sat an older man, also in ancient Greek or Roman garb.  I caught on to the fact that we were in a play.  The young women around me pushed me forward, telling me it was my turn. I had a part and now was the time.  The actor down on the lower level was summoning me to bring him an apple.

I picked up the apple on the table near us and took it down to him.  He wanted me to bite off a piece for him.  I did.  Before he would accept it, he asked me, “what did you have to drink last night?”

I timidly said what was both true and what I thought he wanted to hear: “water.”

He smiled and accepted the piece of apple.  Then he made a speech of sorts.  I started to worry as he rambled on.  Oh, dear! I am in a play and I have not even studied the script.  I probably have lines that I should have learnt!  Everyone else has memorized lines but me. Poor guy might be ad-libbing away right now to cover for all the cues I am missing.

Then he finished his monologue and dismissed me. I returned to the bevy on the upper level.  They crowded around me and praised me. “Good job!” they said.

Shadow?

Sylvain let me know yesterday that he hopes I continue to blog because it helps him understand what is going on in me, and that helps us.  Sure, we talk. But often he says he doesn’t really get it until he reads my elaboration on the blog.

I’ve used 90% of the free MB WordPress gives you.  If I want to keep blogging, I’ll need to pay.  Or I can delete old content, can’t I?  That idea rather appeals to me, since it mirrors real life.  New things come, old things fade into the mist…almost as if they never were.

A few days ago I was reading back through old posts, culling.  I was leaving certain posts alone but deleting the ones I found banal, boring, pointless.  In order to decide what stays and what gets nuked, I had to read.  As anyone knows who has tried to go through old journals or letters, you get sucked into reading more than you’d probably planned.

I found myself re-reading the account of my rat Carlo’s last days on earth.  What astounded me was that I had completely forgotten how he died.  I didn’t remember whether he’d died at the vet’s office or at home, nor did I remember–until I read my own account written at the time–the health issues he had in his last weeks of life.

As I sat and pondered how brief and how easily forgotten his little life was, it brought into focus how true that is for all of us. For this whole world of form.  That night while reading A New Earth by my bedside lamp, I was reflecting on the transience of the world of form.  The fact that I had already forgotten the details of Carlo’s death just a year earlier helped me understand what Tolle was trying to say to me.  It’s fine to enjoy the material world–while it lasts.  But don’t get trapped in it.  There is something else much more real, a dimension that is not transient but eternal.  Only there can we find true peace and freedom from self-created suffering.

===

Mornings are difficult and evenings are very easy.  For some reason, I wake up trapped in my mind.  I gradually work my way back to a sense of peace by nighttime.  Last night, in fact, I had a full-blown mystical experience lying in bed with A New Earth lying face down on my chest.  Tears of joy streamed down my face as awareness settled over me.

This morning I again know fear… fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, …all things that are only possible when I identify with mind and ego.

One phenomenon that can always tug me back toward stillness and peace is shadow.  I stand outside on a day with sun and look at my shadow. What is that?  When I raise my arms, it raises its arms.  Yet it is nothing.  It is the area where sun isn’t.  As my mind tries to wrap itself around what a shadow is, the incessant train of thought chatter is derailed.

Smile. Laughter!

I am grateful for shadows.  They rescue me all the time from my silly mind.

To Blog or Not to Blog

What I spend my (clock) time on all day long these days is something very difficult to put into words. It probably doesn’t belong in words, anyway. (Yet here I go…)

What I would like to convey is that the practices inspired by my reading Eckhart Tolle are working for me. Last night I was reading that what each of us has to decide is: what sort of relationship do you want to have with the present moment? Do you want to make the present moment your friend or your enemy? This is the same as asking do you want to make life your friend or your enemy, because the present moment is all there ever is. The past is no more and the future is a figment of your mind. When it comes, it always arrives as the present moment.

Every day I use a different sign post to point me toward Being. One day I borrowed words from Rick to Olivia, “There is no wall.” I wrote that on my arm in black ink and it helped me all day.

Yesterday it was helpful for me to equate the Now with a space I live in. I am here in my God nature and I am always here in the Now, no place else. The only thing that changes is the scenery that comes and goes inside my sphere of Now. Tolle’s advice is that if you wish to befriend life, it’s up to you to make the first move. Be friendly toward it and it will be friendly toward you.

With that in mind, I decided to say “welcome” to each thought and feeling and event and piece of scenery that entered my sphere of Now. Each day I have a different metaphor to help me because the metaphor itself is but a signpost. If I become too attached to it, it only takes me out of the Now and back into the mind. So I have fresh ones each day.

Yesterday I said to everything that unfolded in the Now, “welcome to my beam of love.” That was my signpost for the day. The Now in which I live out my life was a beam of light or love. I am that beam. Things come into the beam and leave.

“Welcome to my beam of love, hands,” I said to my hands as I looked lovingly at the little creases on the backs of my hands and the way the light hit them.

With ego diminishing, I feel irritation and annoyance probably 5% as often as before. That happens as a natural byproduct of allowing everything to be. But still sometimes I miss the first chance to allow what is to be. In that case, you always have a second chance, which is to allow the irritation to be. When I got irritated with something Sylvain did, I said, “welcome to my beam of love, irritation.”

When my back hurt, I said, “welcome to my beam of love, backache.”

Welcoming the irritation made the irritation dissipate. Welcoming the backache didn’t make it go away, but it made is far, far less important. There is a backache, and that’s okay. It isn’t good or bad. It just is.

====

The thing about this decision…the decision whether to make the present moment your friend or your enemy…is that you have to make that choice again and again and again. One day it will become your natural state, but at first it is work.

Being present and ego/mind/clock time are mutually incompatible. The more you dis-identify from mind and ego, the more you come to the Now and vice versa. The more my ego diminishes, the less interest I have in stories, including my own stories.

Certain blogs no longer interest me and my own no longer interests me. Certain blogs still pull me in, and you can imagine what those blogs have in common. They are written by people learning to be present.

All this is just to say that I have no idea how often or how much longer I might keep a web log. These days it surprises me each time I feel like writing a new entry in this online journal. Perhaps I will continue to be surprised like that for a long time to come. Perhaps I won’t.

I don’t know.

Anthropologie, Oh My!

I awoke with a sharp feeling of dread surrounding the trip to Troy, Michigan to buy shoes.  Sylvain also had anxiety and panic issues this morning.  Did I pick up his panic two floors away? Or were we both responding to the same negative energy cloud?

My first instinct was to cancel the trip.  Maybe my gut was telling me something bad was going to happen.  We talked it over, talked about how the mind can play tricks on you.  I am currently learning how emotion is the body’s reaction to thought and how unreliable (false) thought can be.

In the interest of science and psychology, we decided to go in spite of our sense of dread.  If something really awful did happen, we would learn from it–if we survived whatever catastrophe. Ha.

Somerset Collection is a lovely place–two buildings straddling the highway joined by a skywalk.  I can’t recall ever having been to a mall with valet parking.  There were no doggies in purses and nobody was snooty or snobbish toward us.  In fact everyone was sweet as pie.

My absolute favourite store in the entire place was Anthropologie.  That store came into my awareness a couple of years ago when they offered a series of quilts which were copies of some of the Quilts of Gees Bend then touring textile and art museums across the country.  Visiting their website or leafing through the catalogue is nothing like being there.  The way they have things laid out, the architectural salvage they use as props…oh, oh…it’s all just so adorable.  There’s a footstool with the top that looks like it was hand-embroidered by your eccentric Aunt Nellie, a felted sweater coat with every jewel-tone imaginable, whimsical dresses with rows of tiny self-covered buttons, frocking, tucks and lace, deep violet velvet frocks and lime wool pea coats, embroidered ballerina slippers, dish towels with little birds primitively appliquéd on them. I wanted to lie down on the demo bed under the display quilt and never leave. Do you think they would have let me?

In the end I found my Naots and it was a lovely day in spite of the grey, chilly, drizzly weather.

P.S. Sylvain is going to give his version of today over on his blog.

I Am Good to My Feet

Today was my intake assessment and first meeting with my case manager at Career Development Services. We spent over an hour going over my resume, what tactics I’m using to find employment, whether there are gaps in my training I’d like to address, and so on. She covered everything imaginable, even the question of whether I have appropriate business attire to get me through the first few interviews and first week on the job.

“We’re working on that,” I said. I’ve used some of my savings and Sylvain has helped out so that my entire wardrobe no longer consists of cargo pants from Goodwill and save the earth tee shirts. Now that I have some office attire, the next item on the shopping list is winter boots and some basic black shoes… you know…that can go with a skirt or slacks.

I am not one to stuff my feet into fashionable shoes just for the sake of style. The way I see it, an employee with comfortable feet is a happy employee and a happy employee is a productive employee. But I don’t want the price of comfort to be sinfully ugly shoes, either.

I popped in Shoes 22 while in Waterloo because they carry my favourite brands: Keen, Naot, Clarks and so on. If you’ve ever had a pair of Naots (Lynn who knows Hebrew, please tell me how to pronounce that Israeli brand name) knows that they are the most comfortable shoes on the planet and last forever. When I treat myself to a pair, I lovingly rub protectant oils into them several times a year.

They are not cheap, however. Staring at the price tags that day made me wonder… should we perhaps pop across the border next weekend and see what they cost over there? If I can save $50 times two purchases, our trip would be worthwhile.

My next task was to study the store directory of the mall Sylvain suggested to make sure they carry Ecco, Naot and Birkenstock. What I discovered was that this particular mall didn’t. Neither did suggested mall #2.

Ok, so what happens if I start with the Naot brand name and then find a store that sells it? That would bring us to a mall called Somerset Collection. And if I want Ecco shoes? Again, Somerset Collection. Bingo.
“Hey, sweetie, I found the mall we need to visit!” I said cheerily, telling him the name of the place.

Sylvain smiled. He then sat me down for the warning talk. Was I prepared to shop alongside women who carry tiny doggies in their Gucci bags? He just didn’t see me as the Somerset Collection shopping sort of gal. Me and my cargo pants and save the earth tee shirts.

“But that’s who has my brands.”

He added a few more brush strokes to the picture.

“But they have Ecco. And Naot,” I said, undeterred. “I have money,” I added, not sure if that was the issue.

Still smiling this smile of half amusement, Sylvain said he’d always wanted to see that mall. Hey, it will be an adventure. We can pretend we are anthropologists doing a study of purse doggies and their humans.

Peaceful Passing

Owen died last night.  I feel so relieved that it was a peaceful death at home.

The tradition in Sylvain’s family when a pet dies is to bury it in the backyard.  Before Sylvain even had a chance to talk it over with his Pa and see if he was willing to dig a hole, Pa was headed upstairs to put on warmer clothing so he could go outside and start digging the little grave.

Sylvain brought home a bouquet of Gerber Daisies to honour Owen’s memory.

Owen will be greeted at the Bridge by Bella, Chino, Stella, Luna, Archie, Monty, Carlo and his brother Vern.

Allowing Life to Be

One of the most freeing concepts I’m learning from Eckhart Tolle is to allow things to be.  In any situation, you have three choices.  You can leave the situation, change it or accept it fully. All else is insanity.

Before I left for Arkansas, I was making myself crazy through inner resistance to my current living arrangement.  I resented how difficult it was to get alone time. I spent a lot of time envying others, coveting things that were not mine, remembering how sweet it was where I used to live, fantasizing about how wonderful it will be once I have my own place again.  I cringed every time Ma–who isn’t very in tune with the idea of introverts and our need for space–called my name or “invaded” my space.  My stomach was in knots a lot.

While reading the book, I came to see how I was resisting what is.  The book was telling me, sure, I can leave here once I have a job.  Or I can spend my savings and leave here now. But do not act out of negativity or you will just recreate the same problems in a new place.  First accept, then act.  When you act from a place of consciousness, the whole universe aligns with you and helps you.

When I first read that, I was thinking, “That’s impossible.”  I just didn’t think I was capable of accepting first.  My head was too full of all the NOs.

But I decided I had nothing to lose, may as well give this a shot…being fully present in the Now. Yes, even when I just woke up and do not feel like seeing another human being and yet there are humans in my space while I try to pour a bowl of cereal. Yes, even then. Especially then. Be present.

Tolle gave me an excellent tool. As soon as you feel the slightest irritation, it is an alarm bell.  Wake up! You can be sure you have left the Now and are off in your mind somewhere.  I had many opportunities to test this because I was feeling irritation about a zillion times a day.  Each time I caught myself and brought myself back to Now.  I gave Ma the gift of my full presence when she came up to me during my sleepy breakfast time wanting to chat.

I cannot even describe how this transformed things inside me.  No more knots in the stomach. No more dreading having my space invaded.  This (living here with four other people) is not necessarily forever.  If I decide it isn’t the healthiest living arrangement for me, I will do something else.  But for now, this is what is.  To resist this is to resist life.

The other shift in me that has made the current arrangement easier on me has been a new ability to do whatever I need to do for myself in a given moment without feeling apologetic or self-conscious about it.   I used to take walks when I needed to get out of this house, but I felt guilty.  I worried I was hurting the family’s feelings with my escaping their company for a little while.  I spent the whole walk fantasizing about living somewhere else.  I also hid down in the basement a lot, but in a state of complete negativity, totally overtaken by the unobserved ego and the emotional reactions to the head stuff.

Now I just walk when I need to walk or spend time in my room if I want to.  No big deal.  I catch my mind trying to build a story that triggers a feeling of guilt, I step back and watch it.  I smile at it, and it dissipates.  Then something in my environment will often wave at me.  A Trembling Aspen says, “Hello, I’m here.”  A squirrel crosses my path.  Rays of sun cut through the trees like golden blades, summoning me to the Now.

Shedding My Skin

The dreams about snakes and frogs and skinless people I was having a while back make more sense to me now.  I knew that clothing often symbolizes the personae we present to the world.  Skin, then, would be like the persona we present to ourselves, the one we believe we are. The one that defines us.  Yes, …I am sure now I was dreaming about the sloughing off of my very identity.

In reading Eckhart Tolle’s book the Power of Now and also A New Earth, which I started last week, I see the things with which I had come to identify.  One reason leaving Waterloo was so hard was because I had made living in the urban centre of a funky, intelligent community part of who I considered myself to be.

The books I’m reading have me practising watching my ego in the way in which it reaches out and grabs onto things such as a style of dressing, interior decor, knowledge, IQ, experience and makes them part of who I think I am.  Tolle writes of how we hang onto our stories and make identities for ourselves out of what happened to us or who we know or what kind of car we drive.  I’ve spent the past weeks observing how this works in me.

For a long time I identified myself as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.  That was my story and I clung to it fiercely.  After three years of journaling and analyzing dreams in which I punched and screamed at my step-father, that is not part of my identity.  Something else…another story…moved in and took its place.

Many times over I have allowed a relationship or role to define me.

It’s strange what is happening now.  I no longer mourn the things I recently lost: the cute little house in the funky Uptown area of an intelligent community, the circle of friends, the good job.  Now I watch that part of me that wants to mourn their loss, wants to turn it into a poor me story. I watch the part of me that wants to grab onto something new and make THAT into an identity.

Eckhart Tolle used to say, “congratulations” to those who would come up to him and cry, “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

I don’t know who I am anymore.

For major portions of many days, this is very liberating.  Watching my ego in action does what Tolle promised it would do.  It allows the watcher behind the thinker to emerge. It brings peace.  My problems dissolve as soon as I manage to recognize the thinker or the ego and bring myself into the Now.

Other times the ego outwits me.  I catch myself acting in an unconscious way (identified with the thinker or with my ego) and I judge myself, feel disappointment in myself. That is just the ego sneaking in again through the back door.  I take myself too seriously.  I take this whole practice too seriously and in doing so, give opening again to the ego.

Portions of the day that go like that are not fun.

But I don’t give up because already the rewards of watching the mind and recognizing ego when I can see it are phenomenal.  When I am “in the zone,” situations that used to drive me batty become effortless, even beautiful.

Today I had an interview at a temp agency.  It didn’t go like any interview I’ve ever had before.  I wasn’t in my head beforehand rehearsing answers to a million possible questions.  I just floated in, had a good talk with a lovely young woman, and floated out again. Then it was time to start supper for Sylvain’s family.  No replaying in my mind what I’d said and she’d said and worrying about the possible temp placement that might come my way.  No.

I opened the can of chopped green chiles for the corn casserole, drained them, spread the pieces onto the cutting board and picked out the remaining seeds with the tip of a small knife.  I like starting supper preparations hours earlier than I really need to so that I can do each step slowly and with attention.

When you manage to draw back from ego and see it for what it is…in that moment there is no perfectionism, no social anxiety.  All those dysfunctions are products of the thinker, creations of ego.  When I dis-identify with ego, its creations drop away.  When I’m in the zone and able to dis-identify from those temporal human constructs, all is well.  And according to Tolle, the more I practice this, the more ego’s grip on me will weaken.

Won’t that be nice?

Welcome to the Cove

And now for a tour of the Green Healing House, as I started calling it while I was there. This is where I spent a couple of days and nights totally alone with The Power of Now. And turtles. And sunrise on the misty water.  (Click any photo to enlarge.)

 

Welcome to My Mom’s House

Would you like to take a peek around my mom’s house and the garage she converted to an art studio out back? Click on any photo in the grouping to enlarge.

 

On the Road Again

We spent this evening packing and getting ready to hit the road tomorrow, as he has a conference he is attending in Waterloo.  When we get back, I hope to share the photos I took in Arkansas.

What happened today defied reason.  I used to define myself as a Highly Sensitive Person… in need of earplugs for noisy public places, easily overwhelmed, easily taxed to the max by too much running around, too much doing.  Today we shopped for hours IN A MALL and yet, it was easy.  The weird thing is we didn’t stop for lunch (normally impossible for me).  I just reached in my purse every hour or so for a handful of almonds.  I remained in a good mood all the way to the end of the day.

At the exact points where Sylvain was thinking to himself, “oh no, I’ve pushed my luck too far. Any minute now Kelly is going to have her meltdown,” I was wondering the same thing.  How is it that I’m still grooving along, not ruffled in the slightest by these last-minute additions to the errands?

Doing a good job of keeping that parasitic mind/ego thing in check, doing a good job of staying in the Now.  And what do I discover? Much of that highly sensitive stuff must be tied to my mind.  From the way I feel today, I’d say 10% of it might be physical. The other 90% comes from my mind compounding a minor somatic condition.  When I shut down mind/ego and the stories with which it identifies (as a highly sensitive person with blood sugar issues etc. etc.), I find that much of that from which I was suffering was created by my mind.

I mean I THINK I started out with a real physiological condition, but then mind latched onto it at some point years ago and turned it into part of my identity, turned it into who I am, blew it up and made it bigger. That is what mind does.  It does these things to justify its existence and because doing so has become the addiction of our time, of our civilization.

Or maybe it’s that being out in public is a little bit taxing on my system, but the whole worrying and stressing and over-thinking that used to go on in my head was exhausting me on top of that?

Or a bit of both?

Whichever way you want to explain it, this way sure feels better. Wow.

I Found a Book, a Book Found Me

One morning in the fall of 2005–on impulse–I decided to keep walking all the way to work instead of waiting for the bus. It was garbage pick up day in the neighbourhood I was traversing. About six blocks shy of my place of employment, I spotted Pema Chodron’s smiling face in a blue recycling box on the curb. When Things Fall Apart was face down in a bundle of five books tied with twine. I peeked at the other titles: The Artist’s Way, Vein of Gold, Sacred Contracts, Anatomy of the Spirit. There was another bundle of six similar books also tied with twine. The Power of Now was one of them. I picked up both bundles of barely used books and continued on my way.

As I walked along with eleven books on spirituality and eastern philosophy, I could not help but smile up at the heavens and wonder. Was God sending me for my PhD?

I began reading the Power of Now first and while it captivated me in a way I cannot explain, I found it to be very slow reading. It took me several months to digest. What I didn’t realize then was that I was reading it with my mind. Even though I later listed it among the few books that had changed my life, I had not really gotten it. Where Tolle suggests the reader pause, I paused. But I paused to think instead of pausing to experience.

This time when I reached for the same book to accompany me on the plane and go with me on my silent retreat, I was in a place of despair… a place I’d worked myself into at the mercy of my mind/ego. This time I paused to experience. And this time it took me not six months but two weeks to devour Tolle’s words and bask in the spaces between them.

Each day I worked my way deeper into The Power of Now has been exponentially easier than the day before. The first few days I was catching my mind doing its unconscious mind thing every few minutes. Mr. Hand Puppet was really exhausted by the end of the day. “Judge judge judge,” and “chatter, chatter, chatter,” and “covet, covet, covet.” Or “too much future.” “Too much past!” Whew!

In a few days I noticed I only had to employ Mr. Hand Puppet a few times during the whole day. I was learning to dis-identify from ego, from pain body. I was learning to catch each instance of resistance to what is and bring my attention into that resistance. I was again learning how to live in the Now.

Again? Yes, again. I remember now that this is how it felt after my original awakening when I was not yet 20 years old. I found the Tao Te Ching and knew exactly what Lao Tzu was talking about. I got it, baby. I was grooving on it, too. The more I went with the flow, the easier life became. I was in a state of bliss, completely at peace. I also noticed that when I was in this zone of complete trust, all things seemed to go my way.

Where before there was heaviness, now I am light. The dread and fear and self-consciousness that were my daily companions have evaporated. Before I got on that plane bound for Arkansas, my life struck me as a series of dilemmas and obstacles…a sticky situation I’d gotten myself into and didn’t know where to start to get myself out again.

Life has once again become effortless.

The first few days visiting my mother were a struggle. The second week was easy. I was no longer biting my tongue to keep from nagging her about this or that. When the urge to judge or criticize surfaced, I watched it. I shone the light of consciousness on it and it disappeared.

Two days before I was to return, I was able to enjoy spending time with my younger brother where before I could almost not bear to be in the same room with him. We were laughing and hanging out. Incredible.

Yeah, I found a book. I mean a book found me.

Links for You

To see what I was up to yesterday, check out Annie’s blog.  It was my third time to meet face-to-face with someone whose blog I’d been reading. First was Violet and second was Elspeth, who was in Toronto all the way from Trinidad earlier this year.

In the spirit of doing one thing each day that scares him, Sylvain posted a photo of himself. He also took a photo of Owie for me… to go with the updates I get by phone every day.

Today is my day to run business errands: tell Social Security and the I.R.S. and the County Clerk (Voter Registrar) my correct name and new address. Because I have dual citizenship, I can vote in both countries. I tried doing some of these things from Canada, but often I’m told I have to come in person.

Thank you, Lynn, for urging Annie to blog our visit. That was FUN!

Spitting Woman

When I got to the airport, I was carrying a ball of pain energy. I had grabbed Tolle’s book off my book shelf at the last minute, not really knowing why. Well, the words in that book were like a match and that ball of pain energy was like a pile of dry kindling just ready and waiting to be transmuted.

While I was waiting by my gate for boarding time, I noticed an older couple whose complexion and facial features suggested to me they might have been from Vietnam or Cambodia. I got the feeling from how they moved and clung to each other that they did not speak English nor live here. I think they were visiting someone. The woman had a permanent scowl etched into her face, or so it looked to me through the lens of my culture.

At one point while I was reflecting on the passage I’d just read, the woman walked over to the trash can near me, threw some garbage into it and then horked up a big one and spat it into the garbage can. I was stunned. Some part of my mind reared up and remarked silently, we don’t do that HERE. Another more compassionate side of me answered the first voice and said, Now, now. That is acceptable in her culture. She doesn’t know it isn’t considered appropriate here. I went back to my reading, but was acutely aware that I was harbouring a small dislike for Spitting Woman.

I sat and read then sat and made space for the truth behind the words to come. I was feeling a sort of peace and ease of Being. A knowing came and filled me, a knowing that all is right with the world. Everything that is meant to be will be. I looked around me and found beauty everywhere…in the smallest things. I had a fresh curiosity about my surroundings. Then my eyes would land on Spitting Woman and something inside me shifted back again.

While reading The Power of Now, I taught myself a trick that works really well when I want to silence the chatter in my head. I make my right hand into a little hand puppet and while moving its mouth I say, “chatter, chatter, chatter.” No judgment, just a reminder that my mind is off and running again. Then I pull myself back inside my body, feel my breathing and touch something, acknowledge its Being.

If I catch myself being judgmental of someone else or even of myself, I get mister puppet hand out again and say, “judge, judge, judge.” It stops the judging in its tracks. Wonderful.

We were allowed to board at 11:50. I made my way slowly back to row 9 and took seat F by the window. Put my big rainbow hippie purse under the seat in front of me, keeping my book in my lap. Buckled up.

Here came Spitting Woman following her husband. He kept going past my row but she stopped.

You know the rest. You know she had seat 9E.

She scowled as she buckled and scowled as she settled herself into her seat.

G_d finds irony to be a great educational tool.

I do not and never have feared flying. I know crossing the street or riding in a car is statistically much more dangerous. Nevertheless, there is something about leaving the ground that prompts me to reflect, “what if this flight crashes?” That notion filled me with an even deeper sense of peace. I knew that if we did get the news from the pilot that we were going down, I would want to become as present as possible. I would soak up every bit of the experience of dying. I was practically vibrating with a feeling of love for everyone around me, and knew that should we start to go down, I would stay calm and be able to help others.

Even Spitting Woman.

Especially Spitting Woman.

Waiting for Turtles

Every time I walked onto the dock, I heard KERPLOSH.  Then KERPLOSH and again KERPLOSH.  When I looked over the side of the dock, I saw nothing. I suspected the turtles were returning to the water from somewhere, but from where?

I went back to the hammock to read and reflect some more.  I watched the dock carefully. If I lay there very still for twenty minutes, the turtles would come back. The reinforcement footings of the dock cross diagonally under the boardwalk part. These diagonal two by fours were like little ramps the turtles were using to climb up out of the water and sun themselves.

First one came back, then a second one.  Finally a third turtle crawled up onto a second turtle sun deck, making a group of three sunning together.

I wanted to see them up close.  But the minute I so much as scratched my nose, KERPLOSH! They were gone.

Hmmmm. I know!

I walked back onto the dock as the turtles splashed back into the water.  I positioned myself directly over the part of the dock where they sun and lay down on my belly. I got real comfortable, made sure I had a clear view of those two footings where the turtles would climb back up and then waited.

I am telling you that waiting for turtles to emerge from the green murky water is very centering in the Now. I played a game with myself and told myself that if I allowed my mind to fill with chatter, the turtles could not come back. Only if I became one with the lapping water and dancing sunlight could they manifest out of nothing.

Oh, and I had to remain really, really still.

Consciousness is work, but it’s worth it. It sure beats the miserable alternative. And–good news–it gets easier.

First one turtle shape rose from the muddy depths and began clawing its way up the dock footing. I saw yellow stripes on its head. A second turtle came along and nudged the first one farther along to make room for it to get some sun, too. A third turtle came up the opposite two-by-four and found sun.

I lay there a long time watching the mud dry on their shells.  They blinked and looked about.

My mind could not stay completely out of it and had to tell me that these were not Red-eared Sliders (no red), but might be Mississippi Map Turtles. “Label, label, label!” I observe my mind and return to the Now.

Mike Milks a Goat (and other journal excerpts)

On Tuesday Mom brought Mike up to tour the Heifer Ranch. He might be able to get a volunteer gig there, which would include room and board, so they had to see if it was accessible.

Mike got to milk a goat. Then Mom took him back to Little Rock and BR went back, too, leaving me to my requested alone time. With pushy extroverts, you have to call it G_d time so they’ll respect it and back off, but with fellow introverts you can just say “alone time” and they get it.

——-

In Sylvain I have been sent the love of my life. He embodies every quality I asked for when I wrote my wish list to the Universe and put together my vision board. But… the stresses of living with his parents is putting a strain on me and on our relationship.  I would love to give him the gift of seeing what kind of partner I can be when I’m happy rather than stressed and depressed.  I believe we could take this marriage to a whole new level.

——–

Tuesday evening – at 6:30 Mister Jones came by for his bacon. I don’t want to turn on any lights, want to sit here with the hum of the refrigerator, chorus of crickets, choir of dogs and let the pink sky be my only light.

I had forgotten who I am when I am not depressed/oppressed/suppressed. I am joyful. Full of peace.  At one with what is.

I love life. THIS is my basic nature. This is my natural state of Being.  Thank you, Gd/dess, for this reminder of WHO I AM. It is not gone.

Tuesday night – My first night alone, I reach page 81 in The Power of Now.  Tears stream. YES! I weep. I get it. Even in the house in Windsor, I must remain alert, waiting on my master’s return. You never know when Gd/dess could come calling. you can’t be asleep at the wheel.  Re-read page 81.

This epiphany could not have happened had I not been 100% alone out here. No way.

——-

Wednesday – Mister Jones has taught me to play chase with him.  His legs are about longer than I am tall, so he covers the whole loop in four bounds. He knows I can’t catch him.  WOOF!  Try to catch me, he begs.  I say WOOF back at him and “I’m gonna GETCHA!”  Then I spring after him.  Oh, he loves it.  If I stop, he chases me next. WOOF!

Mister Jones is a fabulous aerobics instructor.

A fisherman is floating by on his small motor boat, casting his line into the mist.

Cows are mooing.

A fish crow says Ah-ah.

——–

IDEA: Sylvain and I should have five minutes of silence once or twice a day–maybe at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, to invite the Divine into our relationship.  Then on Sunday start our weekly check-in with a minute or 2 of silent meditation to centre and ground us in the Now.

The Great Blue Heron is crawking.  There is a five-foot tall spider web by the water. Miracle.

——-

Morning Pages -

Cormorant flew over.  Two Osprey circled the cove while a third one stopped to kite over the water before moving on.  The wildlife out here is unbelievable. We have seen small deer cross the road on three occasions and have seen two coyotes, one dead and one crossing the road in front of the car.

I am learning to return to the Now. Learning to open the door for Being. Be like a servant waiting on your master’s return, ever alert. Keep the lamp burning.

If you, Kelly, are going to live there with bitterness, then it is better for the whole Kosmos that you not live there at all.

Someone put awful brown shutters and a big brown stripe on mom’s old house. Ack.  Ha! Smile. Come back to the Now. “Judge, judge, judge.” Whose world do you poison when you think like that? YOUR OWN! You clutter your own sacred space, your G_d entertaining room, when you judge, chatter, covet, moan, bitch, whine. It is the mental equivalent of having a pig sty of a house. How can you welcome the Host? It’s like being given a free room on earth and I can’t even fit in it, nor can Spirit for all the crap lying and stacked around. Negativity. WOW. Clear it OUT. Find the off switch.

Come to the Now.

Churrr churrr churrr of the Red-bellied Woodpecker.  Teacher-teacher-teacher says the wren. Sun reflects off water and onto the undersides of leaves. Dear BR, thank you for sharing with me…time, words, heart. I used a lot of the Burt’s Bees stuff and I know it isn’t cheap, so I left a little money tucked inside the Woman’s Wisdom book.  Everything is temporal except G_d. Die before you die and realize there is no death. Have no fear. You cannot fail. What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? Sapsucker. Chickadeedeedee. Be still and know that I am. I can clearly see that I am afraid to take risks.

Becky across the road takes therapy dogs to the nursing home. Therapy dogs. Ok, so yes, I can see how I am too timid and paralyzed. With the right environment, an encouraging one, I could break out. Exterminator? Oh, thank you BR for talking my mom out of spraying the bugs. If you open up the wash house door and leave it open for a few hours during the day, the monkey crickets that scare my mom will vacate. There is no need for pesticides.

Blue Jay squawk! Kree kree kree. Quiet now. No traffic noise. One airplane. Uncle Bill would have loved this place. Mister Jones is lying down in the leaves, tired from our romp. I am already so in love with him that to see him hurt would tear me apart. He is watching over us all. He was especially curious about Mike, spent more time sniffing him.

Someone across the road started hammering. It sounded like a mallet on something hollow, resounding through the cove. Mister Jones didn’t like it at all. WOOF stop that.  WOOF WOOF I said stop that.  He had to get up and go take care of it. Mister Jones owns the whole loop. Other dogs are penned and he is not. He takes this to mean he is the overdog whose duty it is to take good care of us all.  And pee on everything.

Heard a Great Horned Owl last night. Yellow-throated warbler creeps along branches looking for insects. Black-throated blue sometimes takes to the ground. Blackpoll is an abundant migrant. Mixed flocks often include kinglets.

——-

I was crouched at the water’s edge with The Wildflowers of Arkansas by Carl G. Hunter (Sandy’s grandfather) when a green anole jumped onto a cypress knee not two feet away.  The turtle noses are sometimes six at once poking up out of the water. The flower in question is Commelina Diffusa (Spreading Day Flower) in the Day flower / Spiderwort family.

Fixed myself an omelette for lunch and ate it on the deck. Mister Jones showed up just in time for the last two big bites. Smart dog.

White-breasted Nuthatch here now. A Red-bellied Woodpecker is knocking on the shed roof. LOUD. Fish Crow, Phoebe, Eastern Bluebirds! Tufted Titmouse, squirrels scolding, chickadees. I feel like I’m in the garden of Eden.

GUNSHOT.

Green Healing House

I hadn’t seen BR in over ten years, and even then we were only casually acquainted. She is using mom’s cabin in the woods for psychological, physical and spiritual healing after a serious illness. It is working.

When mom said BR requested to stay another night in order to visit with me, I did not feel resentment at the loss of one day of alone time. Even though I didn’t really know this woman, I sensed that being with her the first day was meant to be. It had a purpose.

I don’t know what she took away from our time together, but I know that listening to her talk about my mother as her friend was helpful to me. None of my mother’s peers who are authentic people capable of speaking the truth in a tactful, gentle way has ever talked to me about my mother. So this was my first time to have that experience…talking to a friend closer to my age who loves and appreciates her.

There is much to appreciate about my mother. BR pointed out, “she is non-judgmental.”

You can say that again. When I was growing up, many of my friends expressed envy of my funny, fun, supportive mom. I was never afraid to bring anyone home to meet her, regardless of (so-called) race, sexual orientation, or what the person’s parent(s) did for a living. I could have converted to Judaism or Catholicism, could have pierced anything. If it really made me happy, she would not have made an issue out of it.

After we talked about the string of properties my mother has purchased, enjoyed for a while and fixed up either as home or art studio or retreat, only to sell them (sometimes at a net gain, sometimes not), BR pointed out to me that my mother is “impulsive.” Hmmmm, I suppose that is the word for it. I said, “If she were not impulsive, we would not be sitting here in the middle of the woods watching the sun set over the water.”

My mother knows that the place I have named Green Healing House is a gift and a blessing, and that G_d expects her to share it. I am blessed to have a mother who believes in Karma.

——————

A second-hand hammock that was a gift is strung up between a Swamp Cypress and a Black Oak. It is near the water and so receives sun in the morning.

High above, a flock of tiny warblers, chickadees, vireos and woodpeckers pass through twice or more per day. I imagine they are keeping company for fall migration. It is supposed to give me a pang of regret that I can no longer identify one of the species by the two wing bars and call. I am releasing that. I USED to be a skilled birder, and that’s okay. While I’m watching the little birds–more than even at Point Pelee in spring–a Cooper’s Hawk passes over headed northeast toward the other shore.

“I know what you mean about this place having healing energy,” I said to BR.

“You can feel it, can’t you?”

“Yes. I was needing this,” I said.

I told BR a little bit about my current living situation.

“I love them, and they are very good to me…”

But?

But.

I didn’t realize until I got on the plane how I’ve been holding myself in. I’ve been breathing more shallowly. I know the house could feel less oppressive to me if I worked harder on my boundary skills. But the way my skills have been till now, it is not working. I thrive alone and find cohabitating with a whole family extremely taxing. Depleting.

We talked about patterns. We talked about her mom.

It wasn’t compulsive fill-up-the-silence talk, but slow, thoughtful talking with long pauses. Shriiiip, shriiiip, shriiiip, the rug getting bigger. The clock ticking.  A fish flopping out by the dock.