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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

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.

Winter

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Everything about Winter asks me to go inside.

Deep inside.

The cold, snow, irritable people (self included).

As I was brought up in Michigan, I NEED the seasons.

Such a direct reminder of cycles we are a part of.

Bloom, fade, back-to-the-earth, gestate, gather, reach for the light, bloom.

In Winter I gather.

Early in my art career I self-flagellated a lot in judgement of my meanderings in magazine racks and coffee shops and the wilds of New Mexico in my big red truck.

I thought were anyone to know how I spent my days oftentimes, I would be judged irresponsible and lazy.

Quite to the contrary, I now know…

I am a gatherer.

I spend time witnessing, looking, sensing, appreciating, being appalled and back to gratitude again.

After I do this for varying amounts of time, some THING in form appears.

When it was art I was primarily creating, all the gathering would distill into something like the piece above.

These days, healing my body is my chief concern so this Winter’s gathering is taking shape in the form of inspired guidance concerning my quest for wholeness (whatever that looks like).

I am now, after all these years, familiar with and not self critical about this process of mine; gathering then taking extreme pleasure in watching for the form to appear.

This is surely NOT a heady endeavor.

More a softening into the cycle of the seasons in me.

Today is very white and still with a constant light snow.

I have paperwhite bulbs growing an inch per day in a glass vase on my counter.

The only thing we can count on is change.

May as well enjoy the ride.

Thicket

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Two beloved male friends/collectors have taken their own lives in the last few months.

Seemingly highly functioning and fairly contented people have demons we could never even dream of.

My heart hurts.

And yet, I have an odd peace.

It almost feels embarrassing to say it as the expectation is for weeping and horror and countless other displays.

I’m certainly not saying I am immune because I am not.

I loved these two friends deeply.

I also respect them both with all I’ve got.

They were both extremely private men. Highly accomplished in work and play. Neither had children but left magnificent women behind.

Living with the challenges of MS gives rise to having death on your shoulder.

Not in a bad way.

But a way that changes me.

It is a good practice to make friends with death.

Life becomes very real and VERY precious.

One starts to have the feeling that you are LIVING in church, not just attending once in awhile.

Love is not just a yearned-for, imagined fantasy of picket fences and the like.

It is there in the eyes of the forgotten and ordinary if we choose to look.

I have more love in my life at the moment that I could ever have imagined.

I know, without a doubt that my two friends knew I loved them.

Never spoken, perhaps, but a knowing just the same.

If I love them them, I must allow for their choices in life and death.

The peace I experience when in the midst of bereavement exists because I treat death as an inextricable part of life.

I don’t want to go there yet though I have thought of it as an end to the constant and, at times , seemingly unbearable thoughts of THE FUTURE.

But I ain’t there yet.

And so, with death as my teacher, I live.

Until I don’t.

Death really seems to me like a total experience of the loss of the thread to love; for ourselves, each other, the planet and when Spirit is no where to be found.

My tears for my friends are my imagining that they lost that thread or forgot.

But, if I say I love and respect them, I must settle with that knowledge and practice the ‘let-go’ that is so hard in love.

It is pure ego.

I want what I want. Them back here with me to enrich my life like before.

Hmmm… that sounds like it’s all about me…

Dearest Frederick and Doug: I love you and wish you peace. You left your mark on me. I am different and better because of you. You will be missed but I can feel you in my heart whenever I want.  I will try to spread around to others some of the compassion, intelligence, love of beauty and service to many that you both practiced masterfully. It will be so different around here without you. Thank you for the gift of your friendship. I am more and better because of you.

Love, Cathy

Saving Grace

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Last night I watched a film in which James Earl Jones’ character spoke of being ’saved’ three times in his life.

He told the stories of each which were significant moments of support or compassion or something very life-changing that allowed him to continue on the path to becoming the best man he could be.

Some obstacle was removed by another to let him open to his fullest self.

That scene got me wondering about those who have ’saved’ me….

Here they are:

1. MY GRANDMOTHER, Gonnie

She essentially brought me up and tended my spirit. Showed me a secure and loving place to feel safe to begin ‘becoming’. I loved her.

2. TISH VELMETTI, grade school teacher

She took me under her wing as a burgeoning artist from 2nd through 6th grade.
I began to have a glimmer of self-worth because of her care and patient support.

3. LARRY REESIDE, principal of Kingswood school

Mr. Reeside was a first love. He GOT me. I was a depressed and delinquent kid in a girl’s school. I skipped more classes than I went to and disappeared into the neighboring woods to get high with the boys from across the lake. Mr. Reeside was well aware of my antics and lent me a blind eye but his heart was very knowing where I was concerned.

4. JOE LALLY, Boston police officer

I was raped in Boston in 1988. Joe put all the evidence together in a water tight case and the guy was sent to prison for 28 years. He died of a herion overdose two years ago. Joe is now a part of the homicide department because of the work he did on my case. We are still good friends and email regularly.

5. NEW MEXICO began her work on me in 1989 when I left Boston.

She has healed me, kept me company, helped me find ‘home’, let me use her for my art and a good deal of who I am is because of her.

6.   ERICH SCHIFFMANN, yoga instructor

I met Erich when I first moved to Santa Fe in a workshop he taught.  At the end of the weekend, I left to get into my car and began crying and couldn’t stop.  I finally figured out that being in his presence felt like HOME with a big ‘H’.  He somehow helped me experience the largest part of myself and my ‘core of goodness’ as he puts it.

7. CYNTHIA, my mentor

Because of her immense wisdom and guidance I have been able to peel away most of my inauthentic self and now feel like one of the healthiest people I know. I love my life as a direct result of the love and care and teachings she has shared with me.

8. My chihuahua, OLIVIA

Honestly, I don’t really think I knew what true love was until Livvy came into my life. She is a constant teacher, confidant and partner in the light and shadow.
She helps my light burn bright.

9. Cathy Aten, woman becoming..
I will include myself on this list as I now have enough solidity to my being to know a lot of the time how to make choices which move me toward a thriving existence.

Exposure

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It is a strange thing to expose one’s self as I have done in the video I just posted to this site.

I say strange because after I went very public with the film clip, I felt the big “V” word: VULNERABLE!!!

Oh, my God, she says.. people can see how I walk and almost cry and pull it together and don’t have it all figured out and the hardware I use and my home and my shiny skin and… and…….

One of the gifts I have been blessed with in this lifetime has been the ‘whatever-it-is’ that allows me to speak up in a way that helps others really have a better experience of a situation they may never face themselves but find it valuable to know something about.

I have been called up to the plate a number of times to speak when others couldn’t or wouldn’t or chose not to.

After I posted the video yesterday, the little girl in me starts in: “Well… who are you to think you have something of value to say?”

So, I told her that I am just a woman dealing with MS who is tired of hiding and wants to make a difference in some way and the way I think I can do that is to tell the truth.

I know people recognize the truth when it is on the table and I think it gives others permission to follow suit.

Away…away from the cultural template of ‘OK-ness.”

It is a messy, messy business..this living- a- life- thing we are doing.

And yet- how utterly riveting the drama is! The whole darn thing is just plain entertaining when you get your pesky self out of the way.

Snow Fort

When I grew up in Michigan the winters were longgggggggggg…

And grey.

The thing was that we had GIANT snowfalls of two feet, sometimes.

The drifts were spectacular.

When the wind died, I started carving those giant mounds of snow and eventually had an igloo kind of thing.

I created this snow architecture in the neighboring field.

Hidden.

Here, in Santa Fe, we’re having alot of snow but not the fort-building kind.

Those days are past, I’m afraid.

I miss the warm half-light inside my igloo.

It was so quiet yet all the natural sounds were amplified; branches cracking, bird calls, dripping icicles.

I thought I could hear my own blood.

I see now that those days were the beginning of my love of silence.

I seldom listen to music except some Motown in the car sometimes.

If I pick out a CD to play it never seems to match my mood and I don’t want to be drawn away into someone else’s world.

I remember when that’s ALL I wanted… to be taken.

So, these days at home, the most stimuli my taxed nervous system can tolerate is some Renaissance Lute.

It’s interesting how noisy even meditation can be.

So, on this snowy day, I am hungering for that little girl’s snow fort surrounded by yellow winter grasses and a still blue sky, big enough to stretch out in and listen.

Compassion.. or something

 

My dog has taken to copying my movements by scooting across the floor while dragging her right leg behind her.

(I don’t actually do the scooting thing as I AM still upright… blessedly…)

When she first started doing this it stopped me in my tracks.

Was it a submissive ploy to get a treat?

No.

She actually picked her right leg (the choice from which she never wavers) to connect with me in this way.

My right side is my weak side; arm and leg.

When she does this, I am often spirited back to the playground in gradeschool when the bullys would make fun of my overbite or propensity to hit home runs when they weren’t.

A dorky friend would always make sure I knew I was great and good and perfect and not alone.

He would always do this with some private sort of non-verbal attempt at kindness.

He was awkward but did I care?

I was NOT alone out there on the playground!

Someone SAW my magnificence!

Or, at least a little courage.

Is there ANYTHING better than that? Really?

To be seen, truly?

I think not…

So, here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, there is a girl and a dog who ‘get’ each other.

And life is good.

Fish

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When I was quite young, I often stayed with my grandmother.

Near her house there was a lake and the banks were perfectly brambled and muddy.

I found a secret place there and went with my fishing pole of stick and twine.

I sat there for hours, hidden, watching the bright orange giant carp in the pond lazily weaving through the murk.

Never did catch one on my hook.

But one day, I caught one between my two hands!

THRILLING!

But I was on the other side of the lake from my grandmother’s so I started running with this giant orange creature between my hands outstretched in front of me.

Probably took a good 15-20 minutes of running till I made it to the spigot in the bathtub and filled it up and put the fish in.

My grandmother came home and was horrified. We had a little ’sit-down’ right there on the edge of the bathtub.

Her point was that the fish was probably missing it’s brothers and sisters and I might want to think about reuniting them.

I couldn’t believe she wasn’t flipping out in excitement over my feat!

I took the fish back to it’s home (in a pail) and am still thinking about that fish today.

It was a very American thing I did.

I saw. I want. I take.

Totally self-centric.

Yes, I know this is a stretch, this metaphor as I was sssssooooo young and didn’t know better but still, I kinda think it works…

During the holidays I feel a similar kind of energy which takes me so far out of the peaceful and almost ecstatic ‘wriggle-watching’ I experienced with the fish as I just plain witnessed the life happening.

That energy VS…

I LIKE THAT.. I’m gonna BUY that.. My friend will LOVE this!.. This is the PERFECT outfit! I’ll look GREAT… I WANT THAT!!!!!!!! Hurry, We’ll be late… Come ONNNNNNNNN…

Last night, when I drove home from a party the new crescent moon was up.

It made so much perfect sense to me to see her there…adding to herself a little bit, night by night.

She was wise to put herself out of our arm’s reach…

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