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The Man

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Since I will be off line a few days, I wanted to leave you with something special.

I have tasted the teachings and miracle-mongering of many revered teachers in my lifetime.

In the end, all the trying we might do hoping for answers to ease our shared suffering and ponder pesky questions like: “What is the purpose of life?” urge us inward, not outward.

Here is an interview with someone I love and greatly admire for his ability to reduce the flotsam into what feels essential and practical.

It is kindof a longish interview but you can take in in in stages like eating a warm and gooey chocolate cake…

The focus in the interview is yoga but you can substitute any old thing: illness or frailty, relationship, politics or choosing an apple from the grocery store..

The point being to access that still place inside us and ask for prompting regarding how to better negotiate this sometimes rugged road we all walk.

Open, listen, receive, trust, move.

Red apple or green one?

See you soon in my new home.

Mission Statement

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“To live content with small means when need be; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy not respectable; and wealthy not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly… to listen to stars and buds, to babes and sages, with open heart; await occasions, hurry never…. this is my symphony.”

-William Henry Channing

Chaos

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If you came to my door this morning and entered my home for the first time, if you were a truly intelligent sort you’d leave immediately..

CHAOS!!!!!! EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Boxes and stuff and melted snow (storm last night) and a freaked out chihuahua and a limping woman and a half eaten avocado and a broken vase and a list of storage space prices and a huge pile of treasures that will blessedly belong to someone else tomorrow after they get to Goodwill…

MY LIFE!!!

MY PRECIOUS LIFE!

It is oozing into other environs..

I know it knows the way.

But I lost the map somewhere in this catastrophe..

Bear with me this next week as I find home..

xxx…

Further

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I’m reading a book right now in which they talk about the mantra of “FURTHER.”

I like it.

Not in a running- away -from- something kind of way.

But more like moving ever toward the sense of something larger than we know.

“The core of goodness,” a wise man named Erich Schiffmann once said.

What I have learned for myself is that when I move from one point to another; either physically as in the relocation I am in the process of making now, or trying out new behaviors or making new marks in an art piece; if I do that from an inner prompting instead of pure rationality, stuff works.

‘Further’ feels awkward at first.

The familiar is giving way to the ‘call.’

Unknown, untested territory.

But what, I ask you, is better than THAT?

Yes, things don’t always work out the way we have decided they should.

If I always got every thing (read: Tom, Dick and Harry..) that I was so SURE were right for me, well… I’d likely be cavorting around in an apron with my mouth duct taped shut and the tires slashed on my car.. (no bitterness, just noticing..)

Because I now have a solid sense of myself as an authentic being, I can trust the the whispers that urge me further.

This trust is an earned thing.. not a given.

Most of the time it’s fun to watch the unfolding of my life into something tuned beautifully to my nature.

Except when it’s not and then, if I have my wits about me at all, I laugh and decide again.

Or cry..and decide again.

Really, it is all about the stretch.

It excites me even in this bone-weariness of moving.

Further, further..into the wild.

Power vs. Force

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I am a very poor dog trainer.

Olivia is confused.

She loves me and wants to protect me from all harm.

Her giant spirit in a little, little package pulls out all the warrior paraphernalia when men approach my door.

If the man wears a cap.. forget it.

Yesterday, David came by.

I met him on my first trip to New Mexico in 1989.

He loves rocks and fossils and is the perfect roadside geology man.

If dinosaur bones get you all atwitter.. he’s your guy.

We began our 20 year friendship watching the world with witness-glasses and enjoying an easy commentary together.

We still do that witnessing thing and still enjoy one another in a ‘chosen family’ sort of way.

He is a painter. Has always gone out into the wilds and moved the pleasure of his intimate connection with nature from his heart to the canvas.

Yesterday he brought me a few paintings to see.

They were spare and and ‘haiku-esque.’

So accomplished in the removal of EVERYTHING non-essential.

The two of us had not seen one another in quite awhile.

So the movement within us both was apparent.

He is far less than I remember.

I am emptying out as well.

What I SAW yesterday, was a man approaching my door.

My friend.

He looked quite the same.

But he was less.

Olivia sensed him and knew he was good.

I had prepared him to be patient as I had my dog at the door, on the lead and ready to make the corrections I am learning to train her away from barking and nipping at strangers.

She wagged and squeaked and wriggled as I opened the door.

No barking…

She had no need or desire to protect me from this person.

I just stood there as he came in and watched the two of them enjoy the recognition of a mutual ’something-or-otherness.’

My sense is that she noticed his pure heart, emptiness and lack of type A ‘I want a particular outcome and I’ll do anything to get it’ kind of human tactic (read: Cathy in the dog training process).

He has POWER in this instance.  A quiet and undefended approach.

I think I see that where she is concerned, I am mistakenly going after FORCE.

Little jerk here, a push-away there..

YUK..

Something about this equation is wrong.

Today, I am going to try to translate what I learned from their interaction into my dealings with my health and well-being.

Instead of attempting to force feed my body with health enhancing activities by rote, I will court spaciousness.

I will let that innate thing come forward without the costuming of effort.

Those clothes are worn and tattered anyway.

Familiar at best, but threadbare and spent.

I am tired and bored today with the ever-so-purposeful-and-incessant-hand-on-the-tiller navigation of life.

The intelligence of emptiness .

This is intriguing territory to me.

Finding Home

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COMING HOME

by Mary Oliver

When we’re driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we’re weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place — the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea —
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything — the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness —
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

*****

I found my new home yesterday..

It is small.

And so bright with SUN!!

And quiet.

My small loveseat covered in white linen will sit in the bay window.

There is a big brick porch.

With chairs and an umbrella.

The walls are smooth plaster.

And the floor is sealed earth.

My dog has grasses and stones and trees to explore.

Without me. On her own.

The kitchen holds only one.

Or two, if you really like each other.

I feel safe there.

It has a presence I recognize and trust.

I can heal there.

I will heal there.

Pressure

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Lately, my sleep pattern is broken into 3-4 segments during the night.

I seem to wake alert, and unable to soften into sleep again, I read.

In the deep of last night I stumbled upon a story about a process in which after cremation, a person’s ashes could be made into a diamond.

One could certainly see this as a tawdry gimmick unworthy of attention.

But it got mine..

The metaphor was breathtakingly overt.

If enough pressure is exerted on a bunch of carbon-based material, alchemy shows up at the door and VOILA! We have a glittering, reflective gem you can take anywhere.

I don’t mean to make light of this technology.

There is a part of me that is completely blown away by this and I see that I make it a bit trivial because it moved me so much.

On the one hand, this idea of purposely exerting pressure upon the fly away ashes of a person and coming up with a diamond seems so right..

It is a demonstration in form of what I feel happening inside myself dealing with this health challenge.

I continue to rise each morning and have an intimate conversation with a body that is stiff and weak and getting more so.

I tell her, moment by moment, that we have it in us to make the next move, with grace even, if we’re lucky.

And when we don’t, we don’t.

We stop and recalibrate.

Eat or rest or stretch or take a pill.

And then do it all over again the next hour or day.

A constant pressure toward what?

Moving forward toward life, whatever that looks like, is what I do.

I am grateful I already know my ‘diamondness’ and don’t need the ring.

Of course, I WOULD BE THE RING so the point is moot..

Inherit the Wind

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I watched an old Spencer Tracy film last night called “INHERIT THE WIND.”

From the Bible: Proverbs
11:29 “He that troubleth his own house shall INHERIT THE WIND: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.”

The theme was Evolutionism and Creationism.

I find it interesting to watch old films take on big ideas..

There is a void of the smokescreen of sophistication and we are able to see clearly and laugh at the innocence of it all.

Because NOW WE KNOW BETTER what our forefathers grappled and groped to discover.

Newness is messy.

And inconvenient.

Because we are a species which LOVES TO KNOW WHAT WE KNOW…

And PLEASE don’t have the audacity to tell us different!

Have we actually come that far from the 1960’s film spouting fundamental bible-thumping vs. heretical free thinking?

I have a lot of people in my life who care deeply for me and are rooting for my healing.

I honestly can not imagine this gritty road without the solace of their support.

My particular healing choices seem to push people’s buttons.

I sense there is the occasional backstory of: “Why can’t she just stick with western medicine?”

Or this: “Does she have to keep skipping around from one healing mode to another? Why not just pick one and stick with it?”

Or: “Her walking seems to be getting worse. She has THAT kind of MS where there is no cure. Oh dear..”

Don’t get me wrong.. I am not in judgement here.

Just noticing that there are comfort zones we prefer to stay within.

Confines that help us relax into complacency, myself included.

The fact is that we DON’T know too much.

We like to think we do because it feels good.

Religions are formed around contemporary cultural valium pills; spirituality, health and politics to name a few.

Really, do things have any chance for change if we are not DIRECTLY AFFECTED by them?

If your leg stops doing what you want it to do, previously held beliefs may be dropped in favor of possibility.

If water stops coming out of the faucet, you can bet you’d leave your complacency about the earth’s precious resources at the corner.

The thing I have come to know is the power of the very state of duality we all share on this planet.

When I am FORCED outside my comfort zone, I see that I love life so much that I kick and scratch my way toward any threads that light up for me indicating the possibility of someTHING outside my sphere of knowledge that will give me more of that thing called LIFE.

THIS IS UNTIDY TERRITORY.

And because I am putting myself first for once in my life, I have absolutely NO APOLOGIES for any mess which ensues.

The Ride

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Havin’ the ride of my life over here..

I sold my home and need to find a place to live before the end of the month, pack and move and stay OK in the midst of it all..

Funny, how part of me thrives on this terrain; unpredictable and full of all possibility.

I see that life opens up so purposefully when I get out of the way.

My attachments are few as I traverse this MS landscape.

Things once cherished drop away making way for the new, unknown, untried.

My ’stuff’ holds no elan.

I decided to have a big ‘Cathy’s Giveaway’ sale instead of expending the energy to have people tromping through my home in a moving sale.

I’ve had ssssssssoooooooo much support over the last few years that it will feel great to just say: “I want you to have this.”

The energetic difference between a desperate and tightly held fist and a soft and openly generous one is a garden I want to tend.

It interests me the things I am choosing to keep around me; favorite mugs I love the feel of in my morning rituals, my art, shells and rocks, a branch covered in white holiday lights I use all year, my grandmother’s photo at age 20.

Simple things. Beautiful things. Heart things.

‘Stuff’, BE GONE!!!!

I want clean lines.

Nothing to obstruct my gaze.

Space, light and a bit of substance.

This will be my new estate.

My new place TO BE.

To BECOME… and keep becoming the woman just now drying her wings.

She needs sun and air and horizons to seek.

To expose her underbelly to the gleam off the lake…

Ordinary

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My life is moving very fast.

The public speaking seminar I just completed was wonderfully inspiring and intense.

My home has sold and I need to find a place to live within two weeks.

I know what to do when the anxiety of ‘too much’ rings my doorbell…

I return to the earth.

Start at square one..

Get dirt under my fingernails.

Sit on it. Smell it. Notice it. Let it take me.

I created the piece shown above from earth I gathered on a trip to Utah.

I travelled solo and was happy just spending a few days lookin’ around and driving..

Wind- in- my- hair kind of thing.

The kind of days when you just look up to where you think God might be and say out loud: “LIFE IS GOOD.”

The day I gathered the materials for this piece, I was driving down the long empty road and had to pee.

I stopped and walked a bit to a somewhat sheltered spot.

There was NO ONE around for miles but I am shy that way..

Walking back to the car I looked down and saw the most gorgeous combination of color: warm rust and seafoam green and a hint of mustard.

There was clay in the soil and it had formed in appealing shapes.

I went to the car and got a pail (ever ready in Cathy’s car) and collected my treasure.

When I return my attention to the earth, the world with it’s trials and confusion and velocity fades to grey as the ordinary and sensual pleasure of dirt opens me to possibility.

My priorities instantly shift into a more sensible order.

And my whole being softens to hear it’s whispered wisdom.

You can’t be loud when dealing with the earth because you’ll likely miss the best parts held between the lines.

Eyes closed, breath soft, senses heightened..

The gifts of the low-down and ordinary…

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