Last:fm

"Things are not what they seem.  Nor are they otherwise."

Not Losing Sight of the Point

I realized that I was trying to make the perfect blog page and stopped... that is not the point. What I want more than the perfect looking page is the freedom, both interior and exterior, to express myself without censoring everything I write. The end result of that censoring is-  no writing and no freedom and no blog. Today, I give myself permission to write the worst junk in America (ala Natalie) and to find my way over time rather than quitting before I ever find my own voice as I have done in the past.  Shut it down so as not to embarrass myself with imperfect writing that lacks creative juice and reader appeal.

Praise to Natalie Goldberg

I just want to put it in writing that my desire to find expression in the written word has been nurtured and strengthened by reading and reveling in Natalie's books. She is my hero! A longtime meditator and writer, she is brave and beautiful- I bow to you Natalie.

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Just in case there is any illusion that the previous post is all there is to say on the subject, I am here to remind myself that it's only a moment in time with all of the difficult emotions that come with such a situation. I am, however, intending to experience as fully as possible the sensations, thoughts, and feelings that arise here in the space of clarity and presence. I bow to you, mother. You have been one of my most powerful teachers. I love you and resent the hell out of you for being so inaccessible. I can't wait to see you next week. Hopefully my practice will sustain me through the up close and personal with all five of us kids and you, with your disintegrating body and your armored heart. The Pretender's song, "Hymn to Her", comes to mind.

Need Masks Fury

For some years now, the hungry ghost realm has become my default setting whenever I feel something difficult around the edges of awareness.  Give me food, money, knowledge, stimulation, distraction of all kinds and I am still insatiable. The need is endless, bottomless, unfathomable to this consciousness.  It runs like a demented software program bent on getting what it wants, thinking that wanting and needing are somehow synonymous.  I want food, money, sex, etc., and if I get it I won't have to feel this deeper need to be in presence with my own experience.  The wanting is a mask for the deeper need.  Not having the need fulfilled brings on a hurricane of monumental proportions- a rage  that has destroyed in the past and threatens to destroy in the present.  Any fool can see that with that kind of weather always brewing, it's best to retreat into the security of the storm shelter where the food and (safety) blankets are waiting to protect me, keep me from getting blown to hell and back.  This brilliant strategy arises to mask the fury of the ever brewing storm with wanting and getting.  It is an effective strategy for the short term but when it becomes a way of life, the sorrow it brings is immense and unending.

I wrote this morning- part of my daily practice- and uncovered this glorious and messy pattern by thinking about my mother.  She is scheduled for surgery in two weeks to shore up the artery heading south from her heart.  She also has a pulmonary embolism and at least two hot spots- her thyroid and her adrenal glands (could be cancer).  She has also been diagnosed with emphysema and COPD after almost 60 years of smoking cigarettes.  It is clear to me that my mother is going to die.  I just don't know when. We are all going to die and most of us don't know when.  It is the natural counterpoint to birth, an intrinsic and necessary part of life.  The gift my mother gives to me is her life in all of it's myriad forms.  I am grateful and I hate it and this is what is arising. The attempt to escape it by going into wanting and getting and never having enough isn't working anymore. It's time to transform this lifelong pattern into wisdom.