Why did I attract that?

Wildflowers by street near downtown San Rafael

My second week in Marin I dined with a friend who’s particularly good at the right listening side of right speech.  We discussed the story of the big blow up that happened before I headed to California (see previous post).  She was the first person to realize that I’d been so upset because I’d been sent a psychic fireball of anger and she gave me a practice to clear it.  The practices I’d already been doing (lots of ho’ o pono pono and energy balancing) along with getting away to beautiful Marin had taken care of a lot of it and her suggestion finished the process.  The part I continue to contemplate is the question to which she kept returning, “why do you think this situation came to you?”

As previously noted I feel an overarching reason for this sudden shift is that I’d been ignoring an intuition that I should quit focusing on movement classes and put more attention on writing.  She accepted that but still came back to the question so I realized she felt there was more.  Looking deeper I could see a pattern that started with my mother’s ornery sister — a thread of people in my life with big stores of anger and unpredictable flashes of rage.  In fact, there were a lot of angry people around me as a child and, though I’ve managed to have lots of lovely friends who don’t indulge in angry outbursts, I’ve generally always had at least one in whom I could see the anger but ignored it in favor of the aspects I liked about the person — much I like I ignored that anger in my relatives.  I’ve known about the pattern for a while.  I realized this time that I’m ready to be done with it.  Even though other friendships along the thread had broken and I’d acknowledged relief to be out of each specific one, I’d never actually decided to be done with the pattern.  No more friends with unacknowledged lava pits of anger for me.

However, my friend continued to ask the question and I have a notion that she’s right, that there’s another level of the why and that one continues to elude me.  I’ve been in this place many times and I find it both fascinating and frustrating; the process of discovery can produce amazing revelations and yet when something eludes my scrutiny it’s maddening.  Whenever I discover a new issue or comprehend an admonition that I created after some childhood trauma, it feels so great.  Only when I know what’s there can I let go of it so every success in searching for underlying causes leads to a greater sense of freedom.  Even when frustrated I know this new way of handing it is so much better than my old way of letting my feelings fester,endlessly blaming the other person and always feeling “why me?”.  So I’m reminding myself this is better while I scratch my head and feel silly that I can’t see what else attracted a psychic fireball to me…

Teaching styles–what kind suits you?

In a neighbor’s yard, Corte Madera

Chatted with a friend a couple of days ago about styles of metaphysical writing.  I mentioned in About This Blog that I got tired of reading spiritual books in which the author writes down to the rest of us, and implies that they have reached some point of completion.  I’ve wound up developing a style in which I use lots of personal anecdotes and openly admit the many places in which I know I fail to live up to the principles I aim to live by.  At the same time I’ve found that a lot of the writing I most enjoy these days on spirituality shares that personal-story, I’m-just-another-traveler tone.

My friend noted that a lot of people want a teacher who presents a front of perfection.  I’ve seen that a lot too although I find it ironic that the flip of that, given that most teachers are far from perfection, is that as soon as those students see one of the flaws in the teacher they often throw out the whole package instead of accepting that wisdom can come from one who is flawed.  Personally, I’ve never trusted teachers who present themselves as complete in their journey and the more I’ve learned the less I believe that much of anybody completes a journey of infinite possibilities in one life — or maybe ever.  At the same time, I do think flawed people can learn lessons well enough to teach others.

In writing I think those teachers tend to stand back and give lessons or advice but give no indication that they may still be struggling with some aspects.  In my own writing I’ve realized that it takes a certain amount of courage to tell those personal stories and to admit  to being just another traveler with my imperfections hanging out.  I used to write about the journey in the “you” form, offering advice to “you others’ who need my wisdom :>) …  As I realized that I preferred reading more personal writing about the journey* I needed to be honest enough to write that way myself but boy it took a while to quit staying back behind the “you” and step forward into being “I”.

The conversation made me curious about how others feel about teachers– do you need yours to seem perfect or can you accept wisdom from someone who may not practice it perfectly?  Do you like metaphysical books written from the royal we vantage (“We as humans tend to…”)  or those who talk to “you” (“You have to look within…”) as if they’re somehow separate   or those who make it more personal and let their flaws hang out, tell personal anecdotes?

* I read plenty of bloggers who write in this other style and I don’t mean to say that I don’t find posts that I quite like; I just find I enjoy the other sort more.

Okay, so I’m just not a Buddhist…

Buddha in the garden at house sit–when I lived here used to look at this from the deck outside my door.

Happened to note that the PBS documentary on Buddha that I managed to miss at home long ago was being run here so I recorded it. Then I was interested to note that I felt like I was dragging my feet about watching it and once I started for quite some time I felt a little bored and as if I “should” watch it but really didn’t want to; I also felt a bit of intuitive push though my inclination was to ignore it. In the end there were a few insights about Buddhism that really resonated for me both in terms of clarifying some things and also in helping me to see for once and for all that I’m really just not a Buddhist.
I was interested in the segment on Buddha’s years on a path of renunciation. Though he ultimately concluded that renunciation doesn’t work it has always seemed to me that a lot of branches of Buddhism imply a need for some degree of renunciation and that has always been part of the reason Buddhism, in the end, doesn’t resonate for me. Might just be the way I’m (mis)understanding but it created a lot of confusion and uncertainty for me in my spiritual path when I studied Buddhism for a few years.
I also had to note that the experts all agreed that the goal is enlightenment and, as I’ve mentioned before, somehow I can’t get that interested in enlightenment. I feel like I’m here now in this body and the point of this journey for me is to understand the fullness of my being–including my higher self–while in this body and on this planet and to walk my path with all the consciousness I am capable of amassing. I get that that might mean that one day in practice I may achieve enlightenment, I’m just saying I don’t care whether I do or don’t.
I’m also aware that a lot of my discomfort is really just about words and phrases. There are a lot of ways that different traditions express the same stuff. Most Buddhist writers just express themselves with words and in a style that for some reason bugs me, although many writings about the Eightfold Path I find to be the best guide to living a spiritual life around. Everything outside the Eightfold Path I struggle with and even some writers about that path leave me cold.
I completely get why millions of people are attracted to Buddhism, practice Buddhism, derive deep satisfaction from Buddhism. I just have to finally accept that something about it — or my interpretation of it — upsets my journey rather than assists it. Because I so like the eightfold path it has been hard for me to get to that place of accepting the one piece and just saying no to the rest. It’s so nice that I “happened” to land on the listing on PBS for this program and felt moved to record it and that I needed to watch. I even got an inner message as soon as I’d gotten past the crucial point I needed to see that I could stop watching–which I was happy to do.
For me this is one of the hardest areas of the journey: deciding when my struggle with some concept is telling me that there’s something I need to address so that I should just face into the struggle and when that much struggle just means I’m not on a path that’s for me. I come from a long line of ancestors who believe that life is hard and a struggle so it’s easy for me to get hooked on a struggle and feel that I should suck it up and forge through anyway so I want to be careful not to just get caught in a tough place because it comes naturally. I also don’t want to sidestep things that could be in my path because there’s something I need to shift. I can see as I write this that this issue also engages my family history of perfectionism–friends have pointed out before that I tend to approach this journey as if I need to do it perfectly. So many lessons…

See also previous post:  Why are we here…  pondering my philosophy

Yonder–where I’m not looking

Where I’m not usually looking…

I finally managed to walk the whole loop that constitutes my favorite walk.  When I get into the park, most of the way I can see a view of the San Francisco sky line.  Somehow that always grabs my attention, off to my right, so I rarely even look to the left.  Today it occurred to me that I should check out the sight lines I normally ignore and suddenly to my left there loomed this gorgeous tree.  So much of life is like that.  At least for me.  I wander around with my focus in one direction and vast amounts of things that are outside my focus are never seen.

Years ago I realized how differently we all focus when in the space of several years I had experiences while walking with a woman (different one each time).  I’d be walking along noticing a sunset or a tree or the architecture of a particularly nice old building when the woman would ask if I’d seen the guy who just flashed us.  In each case, given our world views and especially our attitudes toward crime, I found it somehow not surprising that I was looking at something else and that the particular woman I was with had seen the flasher.  But I’ve always been fascinated about how two people on the same walk can have such different experiences of what’s along the way.

Since I’ve been on this visit I’ve found myself eyeing the bottom of the yard and examining a picture I took last year (the one on yesterday’s post) in the park next door.  I lived in an apartment that used to be a separate part of the house for almost seven years and I’ve done this house sit regularly for quite a few years and in all that time I never realized that when I’m stopping to take a breath in that cool valley near the end of my walk I’m standing feet away from the bottom edge of the yard.

Feet away from the back yard…

So today as I walked along with phone in hand and set on camera I turned in the gully to snap a photo.  The bramble is so thick down there I couldn’t actually get more than a sense of the edge of the yard but just beyond the view in the photo is where the park and the yard meet.  All that time here and that little fact eluded me.

It’s a reminder to me in the study of mindfulness and presence that as I get caught by the too-great flow of information and struggle among the many demands for my attention, there is so much unnoticed – right in my own backyard…

This post if for Jenny Matlock’s AlphabeThursday, which is Y today.

Following guidance down a long and winding road

Close to the end of my favorite walk here you hit this shady spot… ahhh!

For some reason I’m feeling an urge to tell the story of my “guidance” about writing and the twists and turns of it even though I haven’t reached some obvious conclusion –like, project became successful or project was total failure, etc.  This is more the story of a process and an exemplar of how following intuition can become a long and complex journey.  The creating reality and law of attraction teachings often imply that you pretty much focus your vision on something, think some positive thoughts and it will come to pass.  I’ve said before that I’ve found it often doesn’t work that way; this is a story that shows that process can go on for far longer than much of those teachings ever reveal.

I began studying all this “spiritual stuff” in 1985.  A couple of years in, in meditation I was told that I was meant to write and I received images and messages that indicated the writing would be very successful.  Since I wrote short stories all the time as a child and then became good at writing essays and briefs in adulthood, this seemed pretty natural so I started trying to follow a writing path.  Initially I assumed that the book would be about my spiritual journey and I began chronicling my journey [in which I assumed I was taking giant leaps forward into highest consciousness :>) ] in a book entitled “Peeling the Cosmic Onion”.  I struggled with it, wasn’t happy with the pedantic tone I seemed unable to escape and put it aside.

When I went through Nine Gates Mystery School (ninegates.org) I finally realized my hubris and humbly began serious study, feeling that I needed to know a lot more before I wrote a book that could serve as advice for others.  A couple of years later my kundalini experience began and I virtually channeled a novel, Echoing Ancestors.  I went through all the steps to get it published and worked hard to get reviews (got one great one), get it in bookstores, etc.  but all for naught.  Other than friends I don’t think anyone ever bought it.  I felt hugely disappointed but a meditation also helped me to see clearly that given the major health problems I still suffered at the time, I really didn’t have enough energy to match the size of my dream nor enough energy to do all that would be required if my book became bigger.

I loved being back in the world of writing fiction and fairly soon started a second novel, at which I worked diligently for quite a while and then it bogged down.  I could see that the creative writing spark I had as a child had suffered in the years of writing academic and legal pieces but I couldn’t see how to get back there.

Because of the book I started a web site and, having read that you should offer something for free to people who visit, I began to write “Insights for the Spiritual Journey” and once a week or so I put a new one on the site.  After a while when I asked in meditation what I should be doing to earn a living, I’d still receive the answer that I should write, but now in the form of “write the insights”.   I chafed for a while because I wanted to be told to write my novel but eventually I caved. For several years I kept writing the insights and posting the insights and having no readers and developing no interest in the novel.  Eventually, though, I’d written so many that I began to see how to thread it together into a book.  The next couple of years I still worked at other jobs and trying to get workshops off the ground but as much as I could I devoted time to editing and writing new material and organizing until I had a complete book, Insights for the Spiritual Journey.

I tried a couple of places that had been encouraging about the novel but got no interest.  I also did enough research to realize that the publishing game changed to include a requirement for new authors that you show up with a sizable market already in your pocket.  Since I didn’t have one I wasn’t sure what to do.  So I put the book aside and focused my efforts on my yoga and movement classes.  After a while I started having “insights” forming in my head again, but this time shorter and pithier and with a sense of humor.  I wasn’t sure what to do with them so I turned again to meditation and received the answer “start a blog”.

First I had to find out what a blog was.  I found WordPress and set up a blog and, again on advice of my meditation “counsel”, began to do two posts a week.  Which I read and a friend of mine read.  For six months…  All these years I periodically pointed out to the universe that if my purpose was to be alive here on earth and writing that it would be helpful if the writing provided a way to actually stay alive…  I usually received either silence or advice to trust and keep writing.  Sometimes I shook my fist at the sky.  After six months I was tired of posting into nothingness so I did some research on how to get people to read your blog which led to posting more often, subscribing to a growing list of blogs,  expanding the blogging life to hours and hours a week instead of a couple…  I got subscribers and made blogging friends and had more fun but still had no numbers that would be interesting to a publisher or that would attract advertising.

But after a year-and-a-half or so, I realized that in the whole collection of blog posts I had some themes on which there was a fair body of work.  I’d also begun exploring the e-book world and the relative lack of constraints (like getting rid of the 180,000 word minimum) and heard a story of a friend’s friend who wrote little metaphysical books for Kindle and received a $300,000 check for one pay cycle.  That really goosed me into thinking about what I could do with those blog posts.  In the meantime the manual for my continuing ed movement classes had grown too big to be copying and hauling so I learned how to work with Kindle in order to put the manual up so my students could all get it easily and cheaply without the clerical work from me.

I soon saw the first topic on which I wanted to do a little e-book.  I’ve also had some crazy little pieces that have kept floating in my head the last year which are soon to form a second e-book that has a working title of Saying No to Mr. Wrong.  The first one, which I’m working on here in Marin, is so far titled Relating Heart to Heart:  A guide to playing well with others.  I’m excited about them.  And I can see that all these many steps along the journey were what it took for me to develop a style that feels right and like me.  To gather the wisdom and insight to have things to teach that are actually helpful.

I also can see how my trust in the universe always had limits which was why I kept trying to take other jobs and teach yoga and then my movement classes.  And I have to wonder whether I might possibly have reached the writing style, etc. faster if I’d just trusted and followed only what I was guided to do.  But really I believe that it all needed to happen this way.  I feel very good about this little book.  My health is also finally good enough that I could do a signing tour or say yes to giving talks, etc. without facing a probability of collapse.  It’s about 25 years since I first received the guidance that writing was my path.  I’ve worn a lot of other hats and made my living doing lots of other stuff over those years.  I’ve grown and changed and become healthier not only physically but mentally and emotionally.

The recent blow up that finally has me focused on the writing even seems like a blessing in many ways.  I kind of wish I’d followed my intuition earlier instead of reaching the point where the universe felt like it needed to yank the rug out from under me.  But I probably needed that lesson too.  The point of all this is that I really believe the messages I received 25 years ago were true.  I also believe that I had a very long journey to accomplish in order to reach the place where the vision could become reality.  It’s possible that I’m going to discover there are some more lessons that have to happen but right now I’m excited to see what happens when the “Relating” book goes up in a month or two.   More important, I’m really enjoying the process of creating it.  And I promise I’ll be posting about it whichever way it goes…

Related articles

• Contemplating a new normal…. from Marin (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)

Healing Journey Monday: the walking sway and your back

Microsoft Clipart MH900400345

My walking plan for this visit has been askew and for no particular reason, after having done some walking prep in KY first, I failed to take any sort of walk for days after I got here.  I’m not used to walking hills as daunting as these so I have a straight uphill walk that I start with for a few days.  Once I can get all the way up with reasonable ease I start making longer forays.  As I struggled uphill from my house sit yesterday I started paying attention to my walking and realized I was holding my hips stiffly.  I also noticed after 5 minutes or so that I was experiencing some dawning low back pain, which has become a sadly normal part of walking for me — and from comments I hear from others, it’s fairly common to many people.

Once I realized I was walking stiffly (like the straight up and down walk of the lady in the picture), I took a deep breath and concentrated on allowing the flow I’ve worked so hard to achieve get going (see previous post about getting the flow).  My hips began to sway and I felt my shoulders rotating separately from my lower back which had it’s own movement in between hips and shoulders.  And once everything began to move the way they’re intended to move the back pain disappeared.

Just a little healing observation for today.  Let your body flow and it’s less likely to feel discomfort from movement.

Related articles

• Healing Journey Monday: Flowing body, flowing life (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)

 

Contemplating a new normal…. from Marin

San Francisco view from park next door

Time here in Marin always seems to move too quickly–can’t believe I’ve been here a week.  It’s been a very strange time for me. In the couple of weeks before I came out here a lot of things blew up.  From the workshop that was supposed to pay for this trip to a close friendship to a lot of things about how I’ve been earning a tiny living…  I know from reading other blogs that it’s a bit odd for the reader when someone mentions big events like that and then fails to provide more info but I now see why people do it–too many readers know too much and I don’t want to air dirty laundry or create division or “say” something that would reflect badly on anyone.  So my story is about my reaction to the sudden topsy-turvy quality of my life with apologies that I’m not going to say what happened.

Nothing has thrown me for a loop this badly for a long time.  In the couple of weeks before coming to CA I spent so much time feeling paralyzed that I’m amazed I got out here with everything I intended to bring.  None of the practices with which I’ve held equanimity for years helped–and those I only used when I managed to shake off the deep freeze enough to do something.  At the same time from some deep place within I knew that the changes I have to make should have been made a long time ago.  My “guidance” has been telling me for several years to quit putting so much time into movement classes and instead put more effort into writing and I’ve just kept right on teaching.  So part of me feels relieved that I’m free of the enmeshment that kept me trying to teach and somewhere in there I know that all will be well.

For me it’s another instance of realizing that my faith and trust in the universe are pretty shallow.  Since I bought a non-refundable ticket and committed to house/cat sitting I came on the trip even though the means of paying for it disappeared and at moments I wrestle with fear about spending the money at this time.  But, as always, being here is balm to my soul and the paralysis quickly lifted.  I’ve let myself just hang out and do whatever crossed my mind for the first week and watched myself move into a better space.  I can see that it’s time to restore my sporadic meditation practice to a more regular role and that I have to get more disciplined about working on the two e-books that are basically put together in my head.

Of course I have to smile at the part of me that thought spiritual practice had moved me beyond getting dragged into such a deeply emotional response.  It wasn’t anywhere close to as dramatic as it once would have been and two weeks of trauma is nothing compared to the months or years of angst the situation once would have produced.  I can thank many years of spiritual practice and study for the improved response but I also have to note that once I fell into paralysis I did not just naturally pull out the practices and when I did they helped only momentarily (though who can say how much they may collectively have contributed to my improved state of mind…).

In the meantime I’m here in the place I love so dearly and have enjoyed seeing old friends and look forward to a number of visits still to come.  By the time I leave I might even be looking forward to the new life that awaits when I go home.

 

Here I come…

The view from Marin…

Saturday I head off for another house/cat sit in lovely Marin.  Already have a bunch of dates written in for visits with friends–can’t wait!–and in between I’ll be hanging out, walking,  relaxing and working on my next e-book project on the beautiful hill I love.  I’ll be out there with only my new tablet.  Haven’t tried to do writing of any length with it so I’m hazy as to how much blogging I will do (for the book I’ll have one of my trusty yellow pads as I’m a hand writing gal when it comes to books).  I’ll at least try to snap some pix and give you some visuals with brief updates.

 

Veggies, school yards — floating an idea

Microsoft Office Clipart MH900144270

One major talent I have that I’ve probably not used enough is an ability to synthesize lots of varied pieces of information and find a way to put them together into some sort of new whole.  Sometimes I  put it to good use though.  Out of lots of reading about many things and watching news documentaries and substitute teaching, following environmental issues and exploring nutrition I came up some years back with an idea for edible schoolyard gardens that -at the time, at least (haven’t looked for what’s new lately)– had a broader scope than any projects I could find .  For a while I had a partner who was going to help me work on funding and start-up, etc. but life took her in a different direction and while I’m good at dreaming up ideas like this I’m less skilled at execution (especially in the proposal and fundraising departments; know how to do them just don’t like to)  so the idea has languished.   I thought I’d just lay the idea out in a post and float it out into the world where maybe somebody can make it useful.

My interest is mainly in putting edible gardens in poorer school districts though I think the basic plan can work for any school.  I’d like to see funds included to have nutrition, cooking and gardening classes for parents so that interested families can be impacted at home as well as school.  Since many school yards don’t have enough spare space for a garden large enough to feed a whole school every day, I’d add a community garden component that involves the children and parents as well as volunteers.  The aim would be to have enough crops from the community garden to not only supplement the school’s supply but also to have fresh fruits and veggies for the families of children to serve at home.

I know that school districts make a big deal out of the core curriculum and it’s tough to get that to change, but I think a curriculum that ties multiple subjects to the garden project could be created that could be fit within the regular curriculum.  Studies on experiential education indicate that children like to see how the things they’re learning can be applied in life and learn better if they can experience that application of learning.  I can see ways to tie in everything from simple math and health and reading to advanced math, literature, geography, biology, etc. so the schools could have classes within their classes at every level of public education.  Some of my grant proposal thoughts are to get some education profs to work with organic gardening experts on developing such a curriculum so that each subject could be tied to reality by a component related to the garden.

Many schools are too far north to have vegetables very much of the year.  Northwestern’s Center for Urban Affairs (which has since morphed) started a rooftop greenhouse project many years ago that friends of mine were involved in.  I’ve followed along occasionally over the years as it’s changed and grown with technology and I still think it’s an amazing way to bring fresh food to places without enough land.  The greenhouses also reduce energy use in the buildings so the schools could not only have fresh produce in the winter but also save lots of money on heating bills.

My most luxury component came from a series Jamie Oliver did about how schools in Italy provide nutritious fresh meals for the children on reasonable budgets.  I’d love for each participating school to fly the cafeteria workers to Italy to see it in action and then provide classes stateside to help them transition to use the harvest from the garden project.  If not the fantasy trip, then at least the classes –and maybe viewing the Oliver series????

I realize there are lots of pieces.  My thought was a given school district, if unable to get the funds for the whole things at once, could start with a basic plan in consultation with the Chez Panisse Foundation‘s Edible Schoolyard Project and then keep adding components.  I’d like to create a foundation (or see someone create) that would put the whole package together and do fundraising so that schools could come to the foundation and get assistance for funding and implementing schoolyard/community edible garden projects.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten.  All of this came with a bit more thinking and gathering than I’ve spelled out here so I may do another post or two to lay our some of my thinking about specific pieces.  I’m interested to hear suggestions.  Mostly I’m sending this forth with the wish that it may move out into the world and do something good.

This post is for Jenny Matlock’s AlphabeThursday which is “V” this week.

More awards

Several people have honored me with awards in the last few months and I’ve done a very poor job of keeping track of who gave what.  As I noted a long time ago, I don’t do the whole award thing with the endless lists, etc. but I do always feel grateful and I want to shine a light on those who have honored me and urge you to take a look at their websites.  A big thanks to Ivan Prefontaine at Teacher as Transformer (sorry don’t remember award and can’t find it), Eunice at Living and Lovin for Blog of the Year, and Your Inner Feathers by Ruby for a Shine On award which was so pretty I thought I’d put it in:

 

Thanks so much all of you.  If I’ve forgotten anyone, please put it in a comment with a link and you’ll be added.