Morning of my walk to the river with my daughter.

Lessons in death

Today I learned someone died. She was someone I have known for almost five years. She died less than 2 months after being diagnosed with cancer. She was 64 years old.

A week ago I learned someone else died. She was someone I have known all my 37 years. She died less than 6 months after being diagnosed with cancer. She was 89 years old.

At the end of one life, she appeared to be filled with regret, bitterness and misery. At the end of the other life, she appeared to be filled with a sense of satisfaction, completion and fulfillment.

Tonight, before bed, as I sit with a variety of emotions and body sensations running through me (over me), I wonder about each life.

Years ago in ALANON I was taught every life is a teacher, and no one, including the alcoholic, dies in vain. That particular point always stuck with me- probably because it was one of the hardest for me to learn.

Pema Chodron, the Buddhist teacher and nun, tells a story with a similar message. In fact, you can actually watch her tell the story herself if you look her up on YouTube. In the video she tells of a community that had a member who was extremely difficult to live with. Someone who just tried everyone's patience to the core. One day that difficult person left the community (I forget the reason why) and the community rejoiced to be free of this person who was such a thorn in their side. But the head teacher of this community sought out this difficult person to bring them back to the community because this person was the learning opportunity for spiritual growth on virtues such as patience and being nonreactive while experiencing painful feelings like anger & fear.  Virtues all members of the community  needed to learn.

Tonight I will draw from both of my educations, and put together a list of what I have learned from both women's lives. This list is in no particular order and is a combination of both lives combined together.

Let go of the small stuff.
Accept the imperfections of others.
Be bold.
Laugh.
Be mindful.
Don't kick those who are already down and most vulnerable.
Know that sometimes your best will not be enough.
Look for places that the universe is supporting you.
Be courteous & generous.
Be adventurous.
Remember love is abundant.
At some point in your life, live in a place that is overwhelmingly beautiful.
Experience awe toward our natural world.
Don't react based on fear.
Don't wait until your retirement to follow your heart's longing.
Apologize when you are wrong.
Love your loved ones.
Don't be afraid to object even if it makes you unpopular.
Know what you are good at.
Know what you are not good at.
Don't ask permission to take the leap you need to.
Partner up with someone who will be in your corner when you leap.
Travel.
Camp.
Be kind.
Try to trust others.
Respect your elders.
As a woman, don't be afraid to be seen as smart and competent.
Share your knowledge generously.
Give others the benefit of the doubt.
Be curious.
Don't be limited by the isms & small minded prejudices of family and society.
Be compassionate.
Try not to personalize.
Wait a day before you send an angry email.
When you lay your head on your pillow each night, feel good about the choices you made that day.

I invite you to consider what lessons you have learned from the lives of those who have died in your life. The lives you admired & the lives which were at times painful to watch. Both have value. Both teach us how to live our own lives more whole-heartedly.

Finding Refuge

When I have the blues I have the urge to escape. To turn away from my down-in-the-dumps feeling and dissolve myself into food, work or a movie until I can't feel or see myself anymore.

This is unquestionably a learned behavior. I was given food (specifically Chinese takeout) when upset as a teenager. Workaholism was modeled before me in 60-70 hour work weeks. And the whole family got in the ritual of renting 5 or 6 movies from BlockBuster on Friday nights to help us cope with a long and difficult week of work and school.

Now, don't get me wrong. I see nothing wrong with good food (including greasy Chinese every once in a while), a strong work ethic, and getting lost in the storyline of a great film that allows you to suspend reality. What I personally struggle with though is not reflexively escaping any and every moment that is uncomfortable, and using food, work, movies (preferably bad romantic comedies) as a means to that end.

I remember once going to a talk at a local Buddhist organization when I was craving a spiritual community but was between churches at the time, and I heard the speaker share on the idea of "refuge." In the context of the talk the speaker was asking the group to consider the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha as the "three jewels" to take refuge in. I haven't been back to that organization in some time and I don't consider myself a Buddhist, but the idea behind that word "refuge" penetrated deeply inside me that day, and it has stayed with me since.

Buddhist teacher and psychologist Tara Brach, who I've referred to a few times in this blog, wrote a whole book on this topic called "True Refuge." She says "the yearning for such refuge is universal. It is what lies beneath all our wants and fears." The same fears I aim to escape with my food and work and movies, among other things. Ms. Brach, I would guess, would refer to my escapist tool box as "false refuges" because she believes "while they may provide a temporary sense of comfort or security, they create more suffering in the long run."

I tried to avoid my escapist urges this very morning. Mornings have always been difficult for me.  Not sure exactly why, but I seem to have this restless, agitated energy inside me several days out of the week in the early morning. Some days I barely notice it. Other days it feels like quite a burden. This morning was probably somewhere in-between. And food and vegetating in front of the t.v. were both options because the leftover Chinese was in the refrigerator, and it was just me and the baby up in the house, so the remote could have been all mine. But instead, I made a different choice. In the early morning hours I bundled up my daughter and walked her and I down to the river nearby our house.

It was one of those perfect New England early autumn mornings. Clear radiant blue sky. Sun streaming through the maple leaves that have already begun to turn red and orange and yellow- and if you are lucky, all three in one. The neighborhood was quiet save for a few dog walkers and a handful of folks who walk to the local Catholic Church for the early, early Sunday mass.

By the time we got to the river our noses were running a little and our finger tips were chilly, but otherwise we felt warm inside our too heavy coats.  And the walk had been worth it. Standing next to the river, holding my daughter, I felt like I could breathe again. It was like I had not been able to get enough oxygen into the deepest parts of my insides until I reached the river which was surrounded by beautiful woods and moss and wild flowers. But once there, I could feel my chest expanding as I filled up again with life.

I think Ms. Brach would say I took refuge this morning in "presence" which she defines as "the felt sense of wakefulness, openness, and tenderness that arises when we are fully here and now with our experience...It is immediate and embodied, perceived through our senses." Yes. And I would add, that by choosing to take refuge in presence, which for me more often than not is also nature, rather than choosing false refuge in my escapist trap doors, I was able to transcend that restless agitation I had begun my day with. Because when I returned home an hour later, I felt different. Better. Renewed. And I know for certain, that would not have been the case had I not stepped out, rather than crumpled in.

I want to continue to try to do this. I want to continue to seek refuge in times if trouble and uncertainty in a sustainable sanctuary, not a deliciously gratifying mirage. It is difficult though, even when the pay off is well worth it.

So I ask you, what false refuges would you be willing to give up as you too seek true refuge? What might be a first step toward such an endeavor?

Feeling god's presence

For some time now I have thought of the sun as a metaphor for god's presence. Some days she is brilliantly sunny in the sky and I absolutely cannot miss her. Some days she peaks out, then hides behind a cloud or two, and then peaks out again. As if to say, "now you can see me, now you can't, now you can, now you can't." It can feel like a game to see if I can hold god's presence in my mind and heart even when she's not visibly there in front of me.

But then there are the days, like today and yesterday and the day before that, when I don't get to actually see the sun at all. Three days of total cloud coverage and on and off rain. Three days of darkness. I have more trouble on these days. I have more trouble accessing my metaphoric god because I can't see her with my own eyes. I am relying on memory and faith to hold me over until the next moment, whenever that may be, that I may get a fresh dose of god's presence in that oh-so preferable concrete way again.

I was reminded of this struggle yesterday morning with something my five year-old said. He was sitting in the living room in his pj's watching cartoons before leaving for daycare. He was all wrapped up head to toe in a queen sized fleece blanket. Every stitch of him was covered in the warm blanket. But even though this was true, he looked at me and said sadly, "I don't FEEL covered though."  And isn't that just the truth?

Sometimes we KNOW we are covered or held or protected, but we don't FEEL it. I guess that is where faith comes in. But man is that hard sometimes, to be faithful. To look up at the sky and see all those clouds and not just KNOW that beyond those clouds is a gorgeous blue sky atmosphere with a bold yellow sun just sitting in the middle of it, but to FEEL it too.

When I just can't feel god's presence I say out loud: "god, where are you?"  It is usually in this soft almost little girl voice that is reminiscent of times when I was lost as a child at a fair or mall. One time, when I was ten years old I got lost at Disney World! Yes, Orlando, Magic Kingdom, Disney World.

When I was a child, and to a lesser extent now, I did not like roller coasters. Not at all. So when it came time to go on Space Mountain at Disney World I said, "no way."  But my parents and sister did want to go on this ride. The compromise came when the folks who worked at Space Mountain said there was a place for me to sit at the end of the ride to wait for my family.  And so I did. I sat and I waited. And waited. And waited.

Now, I was ten, and if you remember ten, you still don't really have an accurate sense of time passing yet (this was of course before a ten year old would have her own iPhone). So what was unknown to me was that I had waited for over 3 hours. Sitting on a bench in the darkness of Space Mountain watching family after family exit the ride and thinking, "man that must have been a long line!" I was not afraid though. I both knew and felt my parents' presence. I held faith and felt held. For 3 hours I sat. No book. No music. No technology device. No distress. No worry. Not happy per se, after all I did want to get to my rides too. But content just the same to sit and wait my turn.

Today, 27 years later, I marvel at that little girl. Of course the parent in me now says: "what the hell were my parents thinking leaving me alone in Disney World!" But setting that aside for the moment, I  actually was okay. Technically speaking, I was lost.  Yet, I wasn't because I didn't feel lost. Just as my son said, the facts are important and may tell us something about our experience, but equally important, and particularly in the realm of god and faith, is not just the facts but holding a feeling or presence of being held by our parents or god or perhaps both.

Now I must say here, as a college educated psychotherapist and as a parent there is a part of me, a big part of me, that wants to explain-away this Disney world story with facts about attachment theory and the kidnapping of children. But, just for this one moment, if I were to put those 2 other hats that I wear gently to the side for a minute, I would be forced to stay with the fact that it is equally true that I was held and taken care of.  I was in fact not afraid until a Disney World employee said to me in so many words: "Little girl, you are lost. We must go in search of your parents." It was said as an absolute statement, as truth. And I, as a 10 year old, accepted it as truth. At which point panic set in. A feeling I had not experienced until that very moment when someone told me the facts of my  experience, not the other way around. At that point I was brought back to the concreteness of the world and I thought, just as I do now with god, "mom-dad, where are you?"

Contemplating god's presence reminds me of Emerson's writing about what he called "The Over-Soul."

Sometime in my late 20's I began to read the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I don't even remember how I initially got turned on to him because it was before I began to go to Unitarian Universalists Churches (where you also tend to get a lot of Emerson, which I must say, I love), but I remember one of the first things I read was about The Over-Soul.

Now, I must say here that Emerson's writing can be thick. And reading it, I often feel thick, and you may too. But that is okay.  We are not aiming for perfection or an "A" in our spiritual seeking. I try to keep that in mind.  I just try to read and muddle and muse.  Take the bits and pieces that resonate in any which way and leave the rest for another read somewhere down the line. Having said that, here goes Emerson:

"The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's [and woman's] particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart."

"That common heart..." Beautiful.

Emerson writes much more about the Over-soul which maybe we'll discuss at another time. But for now, let's try to notice, and remember to notice, moments of god's presence where we are "contained." Not just when it's easy though when the sun is full and shining bright in the sky. On the endlessly cloudy days too. When our sun that is our lifeline is not visible to the eye. That is the challenge.