Die-Hard Birders

I don’t know what I was thinking when I signed up for a TESL workshop for today.  My brain doesn’t keep track of dates or numbers; it never occurred to me that I was scheduling away the first day of the Festival of Birds at Point Pelee National Park.  Sylvain was especially chagrined to learn that today was to be sunny but tomorrow rainy.  Unfortunately, I’m the kind of gal who does what she says she’s going to do.  I am a member at large of the Board and had agreed to stay after and help clean up.  Therefore I would not back out of the workshop.

I managed to get in an hour of birding on the nearby Ganatchio Trail before 9:30.  I had  (real birders are not allowed to say “I saw….”  We have to say “I had….”):

• Grey Catbird
• European Starling
• Northern Cardinal
• House Wren
• Red-winged Blackbird
• possible Rusty Blackbird
• Yellow Warbler
• Yellow-rumped Warbler
• Canada Goose
• Song Sparrow
• American Goldfinch
• Tree Swallow
• Barn Swallow
• Ring-billed Gull
• possible Bald Eagle
• Sharp-shinned Hawk

When the workshop ended at 2:30, I texted Sylvain.  Wanna go?  Even though there would only be two hours left to enjoy the park by the time we arrived, we decided to throw some snacks in the van and just go.  We’re crazy that way.

We hit the point first, as I was keen to see the Scoters that had been sighted off the point in the morning. I didn’t see them.  Our list for the park this evening included:

• Common Grackle
• Turkey Vulture
• Mourning Dove
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Great-horned Owl (owlets on nest!)
• Double-crested Cormorant
• Dark-eyed Junco
• Ring-billed Gull
• Yellow-rumped Warbler
• Red-breasted Merganser
• Chipping Sparrow
• Tern (Common or Forster’s?)
• Tree Swallow
• Barn Swallow
• Lesser Scaup
• Warbling Vireo
• Yell0w-throated Vireo
• Palm Warbler
• Pine Warbler
• Field Sparrow

When we finished the point, we had only a little over an hour of daylight left. We ate a quick snack and took off down the Woodland Trail behind the Visitors’ Centre.  This is the same trail where the other day we saw six deer come running through the woods, splashing through the sloughs.  The ante-penultimate birder to leave the woods told us the deer were not far away, so Sylvain zipped ahead to see them while I stayed where I was.  Then I was alone with the setting sun on the sloughs. The leafless branches of the tall trees were creaking and cracking together in the wind.

On this trail we had:

• Black-capped Chickadee
• Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
• Downy Woodpecker
• possible Brown Creeper

By the time we came back out of the woods, there was only one other car in the parking lot.  This is during a time when all the rooms at all the decent hotels and motels in Leamington are fully booked with visitors from all over Canada, the US, Europe, Australia, Asia, etc.  Where was everyone else? Back at their hotel rooms afraid of a little old cold wind? Hmmm.

On Manning Road we got a Red-tailed Hawk.

We plan to go back early in the morning, rain or no rain.  This is the time of year when my laundry piles up and chores just wait.  Off to bed now. Gotta get my 8 hours.

Ojibway Park Today (29 April 2011)

As soon as I pulled into the driveway this afternoon after work, I called Sylvain to see if he was interested in grabbing our binoculars and heading out to look for migrants.  We both subscribe to Ontbirds listserv and have been reading with envy as birders all over southern Ontario file reports of huge warbler fallouts over the past two to three days.

We began the circuit at the wooden bridge and lookout point at the edge of the pond. Is the signage new? I don’t remember the pretty laminated informational signs telling what species you can expect to see here and there. I had just read about the two types of turtles and Green Heron and had said, “Green Heron? I’ve never seen a Green Heron out here before.”  Then I raised my binoculars to check out a crow-sized bird in a tree only to realize it was a Green Heron. Sylvain got a picture of it.

Other species we saw in that vicinity were American Robin, House Finch, House Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Turkey Vulture, White-throated Sparrow (also singing), Northern Cardinal.

At first we couldn’t find any warblers.  As we entered a particular stretch of woods, Sylvain said, “This area should be dripping with warblers.” That’s when we looked up and saw them.  There were mostly Yellow-rumped Warblers, but we had Blue-headed Vireo and Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, as well.

An American Crow passed overhead. A single Golden-crowned Kinglet was flitting about way overhead.

The yarrow is coming up (yummy smell!) and I saw one baby sensitive fern poking up through last year’s dead leaves.  As we came round the back side of the trail system, we heard then spotted a gorgeous male Red-bellied Woodpecker.  In the final stretch we had a group of Rusty Blackbirds walking around in the large puddles of standing water on the forest floor.  Our last two sightings before packing it in were Mourning Dove and Brown Creeper.

We also saw a little Red Bat hanging from a clump of dead leaves that was stuck in a bush. I thought it was dead and touched it with a stick. We took some pictures and then thought we saw it breathing, so we let it be.  Neither of us knows enough about bats to know if this animal was in distress, in need of attention or in need of being left the heck alone. We wanted to alert the Nature Centre staff, but they had already gone home for the night by the time we finished our hike.

glass of lighthouse riesling #2

it was a prof at the university of arkansas at little rock who got me to resume using capital letters. she didn’t believe in chomsky’s language acquisition theories. i thought she was wrong and still do.  she said to me, though, something that stuck.  one day you will make your mark on this world, and it will be for something far greater than refusing to use capital letters.

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today i got my own (western version of the) neti pot.  sylvain got one and told me that nobody who uses it ever looks back.  i tried it and knew i had to have one of my own. what a trip.

today was my day to be with pa at supper time.  after supper i showed him my purchase.

“the solution goes up the right nostril and comes out on the left. then you put it up the left and it comes out on the right side. no word of a lie! i’m going to go in the washroom and do it right now.”

“I want to watch dat.”

i guess if i can wipe his bum, he can watch the snot run out of my face

Grace in Small Things 143

• Today one of the students asked me, “What is Facebook?”  No need to spend any time tonight trying to think up a topic for tomorrow’s lunch and learn session.
• The small grey cat next door to Sylvain comes to visit the back deck when Pa is home for Sunday dinner. Pa used to give her a lot of attention while out raking leaves or puttering in the garden.
• I had a nice visit from a recently deceased friend during my dreams last night.
• These sweet little hand-hammered silver earrings arrived from Aziza Browne’s Etsy shop. The artist put in a personal note of appreciation.
• This is across the street from me.

Get to the Future…Fast!

Eckhart Tolle affectionately makes fun of us and our human habit of wishing to get to the future…fast.  We believe the next moment is somehow more important than this one. And then when we get to the next moment, we do it all over again.

My practice involves not doing that anymore. The task I undertake at the beginning of each new day is to remember to be here now.  All day long.

But this morning I failed. This morning I very much wanted for my interview to be behind me already.  I don’t know why I was so nervous; I don’t recall getting nervous before the interview that landed me in this organization a year ago. Plus this time I knew the interviewers. If anything, I should have been calmer.

But no.

Well, now it is behind me. In the next day or two I will find out if I made it through to round two. Thank you for all your warm fuzzy thoughts. I think it went well.

==============

Another thing that is finally done is the processing, editing and upload to YouTube of a video Sylvain and I made for a friend of mine. She requested that I teach her a bit of Japanese. She didn’t care how much or what… a few phrases would be fine.  Why this took three months is a long story. In any case, tonight I was able to email her the link to Lesson One.

Easter Bok Choy, Anyone?

I went to the nursing home to help Pa with breakfast while Ma started preparations for an Easter meal. After breakfast another resident knocked on the door. We invited her in.  I was leafing through the LCBO food magazine looking for appetizing recipes for side dishes.  The three of us decided that I would make a parsnip dish and a cabbage dish to go with Ma’s turkey. I called to let her know I was bringing those.

An hour later I was standing in the empty parking lot of the grocery store staring at the CLOSED EASTER SUNDAY sign.

How many times in my life have I done that? Too many to count.  I was always that kid looking around wide-eyed, wondering why all the other children were lining up to sharpen their pencils.  Once I joined the workforce, I was always pleasantly surprised when–on a Thursday–a coworker would say, “Have a nice long weekend, Kelly.”

“Long weekend?  Really? Cool!”

I have never been able to remember when holidays are, and I almost always forget that if you are going to cook on the holiday, you have to buy your groceries in advance of that day.

I had already told Ma that I would help out with two side dishes.  Every single chain grocery store in this city was closed for the day.  Then I had a brilliant thought: Muslims don’t do Easter. Maybe the mid-town Middle Eastern markets are open today!

Well, one of them was open, but their produce was sad looking. The zucchinis were limp and asparagus shriveled.  I got back in my car and continued to the Asian food market a couple of miles down the road.  It was open.

They had a nice produce area with huge white daikon roots, bitter melon, mangoes, taro root, Japanese eggplant, carrots, lemon grass and bok choy.  They did not have the ingredients for the two recipes I had picked out.

“A green vegetable is a green vegetable,” I said and picked up two bags of bok choy. I got some carrots, too.

I sauteed the bok choy in a blend of peanut and sesame oil, then splashed a mix of soy sauce and apple cider vinegar in the pan, put on the lid and let it steam a bit. I don’t know about the rest of the family, but I thought the bok choy went just great with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and carrots.

Grace in Small Things 142

• The camaraderie among fellow birders, the way we help each other to spot birds.
• Eight hours together surrounded by trees, sun on our faces and fresh air in our lungs.
• A huge dark mass at the top of a leafless tree that turned out not to be a crow’s nest but a sleeping raccoon.
• Dutchman’s Breeches.
• My pillow.

Early Spring Day at Point Pelee

We counted all the species we saw, thinking the 100-species challenge had started. It actually doesn’t start until April 30, the first day of the Festival of Birds, we later learned.

This is our list, started on the highway leading into the park.

En route: Red-tailed Hawk (walking on a golf course)

In park, at tip: Common Grackle, Red-winged Blackbird, European Starling, American Robin (on nest), Double-crested Cormorant, Canada Goose, Ring-billed Gull, Great Blue Heron, Tree Swallow, Great Horned Owl (sitting on nest), Barn Swallow, Mourning Dove, Northern Flicker, Eastern Junco, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Brown Creeper, Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Black-capped Chickadee (ready to land on us if we had nuts), Yellow-rumped Warbler, Palm Warbler (seen only by Sylvain), Yellow Warbler, Black and White Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Red-breasted Merganser, Bufflehead, Turkey Vulture, possible Sandhill Crane.

DeLaurier homestead and trail: White-breasted Nuthatch, Great Egret, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Northern Cardinal, Mallard, Blue-winged Teal pair, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Hermit Thrush, Downy Woodpecker, Sharp-shinned Hawk.

After we dined at Jack’s Gastropub in Kingsville, Sylvain dropped me off at my place. I walked over to the marina with my scope in order to watch the egret activity on Peche Island. My birding day was topped off when an adult Bald Eagle came flapping past, just a stone’s throw from the pier.

All in all we logged 38 species.  The challenge will be to log 100 species within the limits of the park between April 30 and May 23. Do you think we can do it?

click to enlarge

Grace in Small Things 141

• We see a Common Loon at the marina. What a striking bird!
• “My” lighthouse has a fresh coat of paint. Now it’s all sparkly white on the bottom and glossy carmine on top.
• It’s a statutory holiday and so I sleep late, then make a single cup of coffee to go with French toast.
• I have an interview on Monday for the Teaching Assistant position that I have been temporarily filling for the past eight months, which opened as a permanent position when a colleague left for an opportunity at another organization.
• Magnetic food poetry.

It’s Not Peach Island

Forgive me while I allow my closet prescriptivist a day pass.

I do not understand why French place names and street names in this city are so badly mangled when anglicized. Why is it that English can import words like “cafe,” “ballet,” and even the term “je ne sais quois” without mutilating any of them too badly while people in Windsor cannot (or will not) come even close to an original pronunciation of “Pierre,” “Peche,” or “Ouellette?”

What really freaks me out is when fluently bilingual people raised in Francophone families (I am not naming names), say “Peeree Street” or “Oh-lette” when they are speaking English.

Did you know that the name of the island comes from the word for fishing? It has nothing to do with peaches, people. So do you think you could pronounce it like “pesh” instead of “peach?”

Just for me?

Please?

==================

Kelly:  Can I have a biscotto, please?

Starbucks associate: You mean biscotti.

Kelly: No, I only want one.

Starbucks associate:  blink, blink

Birding the Detroit River Today (April 21, 2011)

Every weekday morning I pass by Bridges Bay Park, Saint Rose Park and Goose Bay Park on my way to work.  For the past couple of weeks, there have always been interesting-looking waterfowl bobbing in the water.  If there were a way for me to pull out of traffic to look at the birds, I most certainly would keep a pair of binoculars in the car in order to do so.  But these little sections of public waterfront are only accessible by foot, so I keep driving.

Today after work I made a point of driving back to check out the scene.

At Bridges Bay Park there were many Double-crested Cormorants and six to eight Bufflehead.  In the water off Saint Rose Park were two pairs of Red-breasted Mergansers, and a couple of Bonaparte’s Gulls.  A handful of Forster’s Terns wheeled and dove overhead. Before I left, a raft of forty or so Ruddy Ducks came along. They were swimming with Lesser Scaups.

When I got back home, I saw two huge white birds slowly flap-gliding away from the marina toward the Ganatchio Trail.  I grabbed Sylvain’s (better) binoculars in time to see that they were Great Egrets.  One settled in a tree long enough for me to put the scope on it, but then flew off.

Tonight is date night. We are staying in to watch a rented movie.

Thank You!

Thank you, everyone, for so many great song suggestions. I spent way more time than I intended to last night watching concert videos on YouTube and reading lyrics.  It was very difficult for me to settle on a song for this particular group of students.

Many of the songs I was attracted to are too hard for this group.  Most of the learners are high beginners or low intermediate. One thing that makes this more difficult is the fact that we only have about 50 minutes together, and the first 20 minutes is devoted to eating and passive listening. That leaves us very little time to activate the schema, do a gap-fill or jigsaw activity and learn vocabulary.

The biggest challenge is finding a familiar enough schema. What is a schema? This is the background cultural knowledge that needs to be activated before you can teach the story itself.  For example, if I show you a photo of the Queen of England holding the neck of a broken champagne bottle as she stands near the front of a ship, you and I know what just happened.  You have the schema for christening of new vessels in your head.

One day an older Eritrean man asked me why Canadian young people often live together rather than getting married. I jokingly told him it was all the fault of the hippies. He asked me who they were. I told him there was a cultural revolution on this continent in the 60s. I pulled up photos of the long-haired young people in tie-dyed shirts making peace signs with their fingers and wallowing in the mud at Woodstock. He stared at the big collage on Google images and exclaimed: “Teacher, some of them are naked!”  I had to explain it all to him. By the end of twenty minutes, he was still peppering me with questions.

My lunchtime students are the type who will not let us gloss over any line or stanza of a song. They want to understand fully and completely…not just the words but the history and culture making up the schema that allows one to understand all the nuances of what is being said.

Because we don’t have a lot of time for in depth cultural talks, I needed to find a song that was very simple and straightforward in its lyrics. Also, because these students are still at a low level, I had to steer away from abstract ideas–keeping to something concrete.

I had to make my choice early enough last night to allow myself time to create the worksheet, so many of your suggestions will be used later with this group or with higher level classes.  I ended up using Billy Joel’s Piano Man for this week.

Today we listened to it a few times through for “top-down” listening skills (get the gist), and then I passed out the gap-fill worksheet where I’d omitted all the verbs.  We listened to the song a few more times while they tried to fill in the missing words.  We just had time to check the answers before the time was up.

Tomorrow we will learn all the new vocabulary words (shuffle, stoned, Navy, real estate, novelist) and listen again. Then I will ask them a few deeper questions, like whether it’s a sad or happy song and why.

Again, thank you for all your help and suggestions. I will definitely be using some of them soon, especially with the level 4 and the advanced class.

Song Ideas Needed

Hello! Can you help me?

The students who come to the lunch and learn club have requested that we listen to a song. I can turn the lyrics into any number of exercises, such as jigsaw or gap-fill.

Today I asked them which genre of music they preferred, and whether they wanted to hear an oldie or a newer song. The only student willing to give her opinion said only, “A good song, a beautiful song.”  I told her that taste is not universal, that my idea of a beautiful song might not be her idea of a beautiful song.   She gave me an incredulous look.

The interesting thing about these students is that you cannot assume for one second that they have heard of and already like certain bands.  In another class, I was going over a list of famous people and discovered that not one single student in the class knew of the Beatles or John Lennon. I brought up photos on the big screen, played a YouTube video of their Ed Sullivan show debut… nothing.  I played “Imagine” and showed pics of John and Yoko.  Nothing. It was all new to them.  That was in a group ranging in age from 20 to 65, all from various Middle Eastern countries.

My class–the one asking for songs–includes five Chinese, a Russian and a Ukrainian.  They range in age from 24 to 70.

My taste veers toward the 60s protest era, old folk and roots music, and classic rock.  I also enjoy classic musicals.  But I’m not sure any of those songs would have universal appeal.

I am thinking about using this one just because of the wonderful message. We can do more than one, so any song I don’t use this week I can use in the future. I have already combed through all the English as a Second Language websites for other teachers’ ideas and came away uninspired.

Ideas?

Grace in Small Things 139

• Through all the material purges I’ve done, I’ve somehow managed to hang onto this old sewing machine that my step-father’s mother gave me in the 80s.  It weighs a gazillion pounds, but I’ve lugged it from place to place. I dutifully oil and clean it regularly. Last year I paid $75 to have it tuned up and repaired.

• While I sewed, Eckhart Tolle’s voice came over the CD player. Sewing is a mindful activity. I lose awareness of time. This is especially true when it comes time for slip-stitching a portion of the garment by hand.

using floor lamp as a dressmakers dummy

• While I sewed and Eckhart spoke, I became more and more aligned with the present moment. Ego became very quiet. When I arrived at a point of realizing that I had made a serious mistake that caused me to have to scrap the entire project, I was aware of a feeling of disappointment that lasted for about two seconds.
• Then I was able to smile.
• Then I slowly and mindfully swept the floor and put all my tools away.  My company will be here soon.

Grace in Small Things 138

• “I’m Kelly, by the way. I live on seven.”  ”I’m Bob; I live on five.”  ”Nice to meet you, Bob.”
• bits of material and thread all over the floor
• breakfast with Pa and his table mate; I can’t always understand what either of them is muttering, but somehow they understand one another just fine
• finally being able to donate blood today, thanks to Floradix (which, by the way, doesn’t have the unwanted side effect of iron pills)
• being able to catch myself and stop myself today just as I was about to react in an automatic and judgmental way to something another person did/said

I Am Not a Body

I thought I’d take one blog post just to let you know how things are going with A Course in Miracles workbook, one lesson per day with meetings on Sundays.  We are more than halfway through the 365 lessons.

This week I start each day with “I Am Not a Body. I Am Free.”  This is powerful stuff if you don’t let your left brain or ego trick you out of it.  Powerful stuff. The course is lifting me to a level of Spirit that is indescribably freeing. I am remembering how to find my own joy in every day, in every moment.

I say remembering rather than learning because I’ve been this far out before. I enjoyed this level of faith (and the accompanying miracles) when I was 20 and was touring western Europe with my thumb out and a rucksack on my back.

It feels VERY good to be ridding myself of the burdens that used to plague me. They are still there to some extent, but they are growing lighter and lighter. They visit my mind less and less often and don’t stay as long.

Sometimes I am tempted to worry about something. Sometimes I start to slip back. But then I read that day’s lesson and I am reminded that I am not a body. There is nothing out there. There is only one one that we all are.

How can you worry about losing something (of this world) when you understand you never had anything to begin with? Nothing is ours. Everything is on loan.  It can go today, tomorrow or in ten years, but it’s going.  May as well release attachment now.

Do you know how light you feel when you reach this understanding?  Oh, my goodness.

Of course I know that much bigger challenges can come at any moment, ones that could truly test my ability to stick with these tools, this practice. But for now I have been given what I need.

What is almost as wonderful as these realizations is the fact that I have a partner who is on the same journey making the same discoveries. He brings me stories from his day, I share mine with him. We are singing from the same song book, same page.  How sweet it is to be understood and to understand another.

For me, the greatest tool for feeling free and completely fearless is this: I take whatever might worry me and play it out in my mind to the worst case scenario. Then I remind myself that even if that worst case were to come to pass, I would still be 100% okay in the present moment. I would still be one with God and one with everything. All would still be right with the world.

Whatever mood you are in today/tonight… whatever thoughts fill your head… can you stop? Can you stop even for 60 seconds and just appreciate being alive? Touch something… the fabric of your garment or the chair you are sitting in. Isn’t that a miracle?

Breathe in deeply and fill your lungs.  Isn’t that something?

Smile.

You are here.  You won’t always have this experience of being on planet earth. Today you have it.  Taste it.

If you are sad tonight, be thankful for it. Once you take off your earth suit and leave the earth school, you won’t get to experience sadness anymore.

So taste it.

As Thich Nhat Hanh says,  ”Breathing in, I know that I am [sad].  Breathing out, I am taking good care of my [sadness].”

This is what I do.  I float one inch above my body; I follow it around all day.  I love participating in and witnessing all the things my body does. I love feeling the cold metal when this body’s hand touches a door knob; I love hearing the sound and feeling the temperature when this body pours a glass of milk.  But I don’t identify with this body. I am not that.

I am not a body. I am free.

Grace in Small Things 137

• being able to get my sweetie his big dream gift for his birthday tomorrow, a larger purchase (even with his mom chipping in) than I ever would have made before “busting loose“
• this story
• breakfast at a diner
• the little tea service area I’ve set up for my Sunday company
• getting out my sewing machine and feeling the itch to sew that I used to always feel at each change of season

From Olivia

The bold ones are the ones I’ve done.

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyland

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch: knitting, painting, drawing…

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (not physically)

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance (but I wasn’t the patient)

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater

55. Been in a movie (no, but I am helping to produce one)

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Read the entire Bible

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life (Actually, I think we all probably have…that’s how interconnected we all are.)

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a lawsuit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

100. Read an entire book in one day

 

Grace in Small Things 136

• I offer you a link to this poem, in its third draft by my friend Suki.
• A warm breeze tousles my short hair today.
• Cheeky geese ask for handouts. I have trail mix on me. They like the cashews, pumpkin seeds and peanuts if I break them up, but reject the cranberries.
• The windows are open.
• My heart is open.

Sand in the Oyster

I’m still thinking about that retreat–the one two out of three friends stayed at for ten days. We were discussing here on this blog how perception shapes experience. I would like to share this passage from the book Radical Presence by Mary Rose O’Reilley. She is talking about a month-long retreat she did at Plum Village.

My spiritual director in the monastery was a German engineer named Karl, a robust man in his sixties, who liked to give advice and gave it with utmost clarity. There was nothing contemplative about our conversations; he was training me. In particular, he was schooling me in the management of irritation. Other sojourners were working on grief or depression; I was merely cold, hungry, and mad at my roommates. At Plum Village I often felt like an oyster dumped onto a particularly sandy bank. Everything irritated my tender skin–the food, the cold, the hierarchy, and most of all other people. The advantage of spending a month at a place like Plum Village is that you can hear the dharma in a sort of laboratory environment, constantly thrown back on the difficulties of practicing it. Spiritual direction consisted of practical help in applying the practice to daily annoyances: shrieking attacks from a Vietnamese sister who was convinced I had stolen her gardening shears, vexation of a roommate who wanted the light on all night.

“Valerie really pushes my buttons,” I might tell Karl.

“The important thing is to remember that they’re your buttons. They don’t exist out there on some cosmic control panel. Therefore your irritation is based merely on an idea of how things should be. A relative idea. You are producing the feeling from an underlying perception that skews your judgment. You have to get at the underlying idea.”

I am thinking about what my friend, the one who returned early, had to say about the 10-day Vipassana retreat. I am also thinking about the time I was graced with the rare opportunity to participate in a Native American rite of purification / sweat lodge ceremony.  Maybe I’ll tell you about that soon.