Archive for March, 2010
Meditation for Peace
Find a comfortable position, sitting, standing, or lying down. Breathe into your body: in, out, in, out. Feel the energy streaming from a source just above the crown of your head through all of the open chakras, down, down to the soles of your rooted feet, and back up again. Breathe deeply like a tree. In. Out. In. Out.
Check in with yourself as you breathe, ever conscious of the streaming energy that awakens you, and feel the expansiveness of your limbs, the mazy motion of your thoughts as they slowly calm down. Allow yourself to go to those places in your body where you feel bitterness, resistance, even hatred. Go with resolute calm into those places in your body where you feel fear. Surrender to it. Breathe into the shadow, your shadow of fear, and sit with it there, wherever you are. Breathe into the fear, and when you exhale, release it. Breathe again, release. Breathe.
Continue to breathe and exhale deeply, in a relaxed state, and as you do, be conscious of emanating healing intentions to the refugees throughout the world. As you breathe, send spirit aid to the downtrodden and oppressed, the discarded and undervalued, the post-doctoral students of suffering and misery everywhere. Breathe for them, breathe with them, and there they are beside you, their shoulders touching yours, their hands in yours, their eyes looking longingly, lovingly into yours.
Breathe life and compassion into the Mother of Exiles astride the newborn, glittering bay, and feel your breath and the world’s breath fanning the flames of her fearless torch. Breathe deeply in, out, and with her ask for and welcome the tired and the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of teeming shores. Welcome your tempest-tossed, homeless brothers and sisters to the peace of your open arms, and as you breathe in, out, feel your arms effortlessly, lovingly, and confidently wrapping around the globe that cools and heals and hums, infused with your loving-kindness.
Now, with ease and compassion, come back to your sweet self, the splendid image of peace on earth in your heart and in your mind’s eye. Hold it lovingly within, and send it out to the billions who, like you, reach out to all who lift their lamps beside the golden door.
May your day be blessed with light to find your way, and to see the difference that you make.
Human Migration
They say we began before we could
speak, that whether running from some
woolly mammoth or squinting to see into
the sun, we stood erect and began to search.
They say this was a million years ago. Some-
where in Africa, as the long wind with a
thousand scents swept through the high
grass. What they don’t say is that it’s all
been one nameless soul using many lives
in one endless search. It’s been forty thou-
sand generations, skin upon skin carrying
the one soul as far as each could. Following
the call of animals into the interior. Then
drawn into the desert by sand and wind. Then
one of us believed it was north, another west,
another east. And so we split and each was less
for giving up that Oneness. And so we died and
were born; thinking we were beginning our own
search for gold, for love, for meaning, for silence.
But this is how the one soul keeps us going, by
imbuing each of its skins with a guise of special-
ness along the way. So Europe and Asia and
Australia were settled. Like ant hills built
around a hope for buried sugar. And the one
soul kept us moving. By now the movement
alone gave it peace. And closer to our own
time, only forty generations back, the quiet
ones began a slow journey from Japan across
the Bering Straits and down North America.
At each clearing some settled while the restless
kept on. Down the Pacific to South America
where the child of a child met the child of
a child who’d come the other way from
Europe through the New World down the
Atlantic to this small town along the coast
of Chile. And sensing something ancient
and unfinished in each other, they married
and had a child who, once old enough to
walk, stared into the sun and began
to search.
Sunday Snapshots: everyday activism
It’s Oscar night tonight, a practically a sacred event in our household. I live with a movie lover, so it’s truly about watching and celebrating the love of good acting and movies and honoring people—and certain industry jobs—who really only get any attention at award ceremonies.
I was tremendously moved tonight by Mo’nique winning Best Supporting Actress; Mo’nique has a personal history of abuse in her family, and the performance she gave in Precious was the most horrifying and soul wrenching I’ve ever seen on the big screen. In response to a question by Barbara Walters in her post-Oscars special about whether Precious was bad for the black community, as has been suggested, Mo’nique said no, that this is a story that cuts across racial lines, that it’s about all families and women and girls who suffer. In the light of Chelsea King’s rape and murder last month, her comments couldn’t ring more true.
On Thursday I went to an author reading by one of my authors at Seal. The author is a young woman who wrote a book about feminism called Girldrive. She told the audience she wished that more activism could be imbued with spirituality. She’s a 23-year-old woman who thinks that a lot of people who are really passionate about their causes, their ideals, are turned off and don’t get involved because so much activism is just too hardcore.
This struck a nerve with me because I’ve been turned off by a lot of causes specifically because the movements and the people involved not only don’t bring in the spiritual, but often don’t even give space for it. I care deeply and passionately about protecting women, about preventing abuse—through support and education. I so appreciated Mo’nique’s words tonight because in sharing her own abuse so openly, and in being able to say, without defensiveness and just in truth, that these issues are our problem, she’s exemplifying everyday activism. And this is a deeply spiritual woman. In her case it’s a verbal and open relationship with God.
Too often we’re asked to split off our spirituality from our activism, so seeing examples of people who just don’t is quite refreshing. I know there are lots of people out there who are making it work, and I want to hear from you. In what ways are you bringing your spirituality to causes you care deeply about? How are you living your everyday activism?
Vulnerability
Vulnerability can be the most challenging and misunderstood color in the Life Artist color palette. Many of us believe that vulnerability is a weakness and that we’ll be judged harshly for how we feel. Vulnerability is a color that engages our Heart intelligence and builds on the primary heart color of courage, so it’s in truth far less about weakness and more about being real and having the courage to express our feelings authentically.
There is no question that to be vulnerable is exposing, and for many of us this color is dangerous because it’s about intimacy. Intimacy with ourselves and others is hard, and yet the capacity to be vulnerable is one of the most precious gifts Heart intelligence has to offer us. This is perhaps why the French word for heart is “coeur.” When we neglect or avoid vulnerability, we often create outcomes that result form having skipped the beat of our Heart intelligence and having undermined our self-trust and trust with others.
Just today, I found that I had a judgment toward myself for longing for someone special in my life. I felt the feeling rise up and deemed it self-indulgent; I immediately labeled myself victim. As I explored further, however, I saw that my Con Artist was definitely in the hood rather than my Life Artist! I made the choice to embrace my longing, which allowed me to see the needs and depth of my Heart intelligence. I allowed my longing to take me to a deeper emotional truth of disappointment and letting go.
In expressing my vulnerability to a friend, I elevated my self-trust by honoring my feelings and recognizing who I truly connect with in the “coeur.” I was freer to move on and let go of hoping that others who are unavailable in their Heart intelligence might meet me in the ways I wish. We don’t just avoid the so-call “darker” feelings, we also avoid feeling the lighter feelings—like elation over a success, and many other shades in between.
Think about the feeling you most avoid and what gift it may have for you in your life right now. Take the time to explore your Heart intelligence as a pathway to greater authenticity and connection. Then build your self-trust by having the courage to share your vulnerability with someone you care about in your life today. You will be giving yourself and them the gift of intimacy.
Being Awake in the World
It is so hard to be awake. I don’t mean when the alarm goes off, or you’re summoned to dinner, or it’s time to collect your paycheck.
I mean really awake, every moment of every day. Awake so you feel the exquisite birth, life, and death of each delicious second. Yes, every one. I mean it just like that, especially like that.
Of course it’s impossible. The laundry intrudes, the phone, the dog, the child or troubled friend. Everyone and every thing seems to have an issue, and that’s true in the moment, in any moment.
But equally true is the ability to transcend distraction, to declare in any given moment, “I am free of the chattering mind, the unbalancing disturbances!”
In this poem, Mary Oliver speaks to just such a moment, its opportunity beckoning on any given day.
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for—
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
See how playful she is with us through that fifth line—“kills me”—which makes me expect something sad and horrible. Isn’t it so? And am I not thrilled when, in the next line, I hear or read that it “kills me/with delight”? You bet! In fact, I’m laughing, enjoying the sort of deep laughter therapy that only certain kinds of poems can deliver. This is one.
Oliver isn’t finished. No funny-one-note she! The next four lines offer a timeless cliché. Believe me, budding critics and poets in literature and M.F.A. programs everywhere blanche at this sort of thing, but thousands of readers connect with it because they understand the sadness and sweetness of unoriginal thought, which everyone shares, and all of our efforts to turn such thoughts into something else.
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
And then the declaration of a free and joyful woman:
It was what I was born for—
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
Ah, to be born to look, to listen, to lose oneself in a soft world that teaches “over and over/in joy,/and acclimation” and to do so through the ordinary, through prayers made out of grass.
That’s an awareness to aim one’s practice at, and I’m doing just that.
Life Around the Fire
My neighbor and I wave to each other through the trees; though we don’t even know each other’s name. After a snowstorm, we worm our way out. I admit it’s comforting to see another in the open, leaning on his shovel, his breath clouding as he looks again to the sky. There’s something primal in knowing that we each have a fire we huddle around. I love clearing the path to our door and leaving the light on. Of course, if my fire should go out, would he let me in? And for how long? This has been the human dilemma. We struggle with it every time we look away from the homeless. Different cultures have different ways of holding the question. The tribal leader in Africa has no word for orphan. And the Connecticut Puritan trains his daughter in etiquette and social registry. This is still different from the Holocaust survivor who leaves the door open for an angel he’s never seen while guarding against every noise. I lean on my shovel in the snow and my neighbor waves back. For which I am glad. And today, I don’t feel the need to know his name or story. Yet isn’t it in the steps between our friendly wave and our life around the fire that the work of real community waits?
On the far side of this question is the moment Elie Wiesel recalls of the death march he and thousands were forced to make in the ice and snow of the eastern European night; forced to run barefoot for hours toward Buchenwald. In anticipation of the Allied forces, the SS butted and pistol-whipped the emaciated herd on and on. If anyone slowed or stopped, they were trampled. If someone fell, they were shot. In the midst of this inexplicable hell, a poor soul near him stumbled to the hard ground and others nearby fell on top of him. But why? Because they knew he would be killed? Because without thinking they hoped that the SS wouldn’t know which of them to shoot? Because some in their exhaustion were ready to surrender their broken lives to keep the dark bullet from ending his life? There was too much going on and they just beat them all back up; shouting at them to keep on running.
Of all the harrowing, poignant and unspeakable things Wiesel witnessed as a fifteen year old, this small anonymous moment of community is what has stayed with me. I imagine it at the oddest times; while driving home from work, while walking the dog in snow. It won’t let go of me. I think because it is a painful koan that holds the essence of community. Kind and brave as it is brutal, this moment is a testament to the lengths we’ll go to care for each other; if left or pushed to our true nature. In such pain, in such desperate circumstances, in a frame of mind beaten and starved into numbness, what made these men literally throw their sorry lives into a pile of compassion? This is real knowledge we need to understand. For isn’t it also in the space between us and the fallen that the strength of true community waits?
From waving through the trees to sharing food around our fire to throwing our lives down to protect the fallen, the experiment continues.
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