Like Words Together

Moving right along...

2010-11-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

Finally, after a long wait in which many other projects were accomplished (including our wedding), I've been setting up my blog on a new site with a dedicated domain.

Please come check out Like Words Together at the new site!

If you have comments to make, please go to the new site. All future posts will be put there.

Why I'm Not "Going Pink"

2010-10-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, October... there's a crisp bite to the air, the leaves have begun to fall, there's 50 pounds of apples in my refrigerator, and I'm once again bombarded by the nauseating pinkness of "National Breast Cancer Awareness Month."

For years it has just been the ever increasing tide of pink consumer crap in the stores, and that has been bad enough. However, for the past two Octobers I've watched cutesy memes take over Facebook. Last year it was women coyly posting the color of their bras in their status updates. When it finally started to come out that bras, therefore, breasts, were the topic at hand I'm sure everyone rushed to donate to the Komen Foundation (more on them later). This year it is the suggestion that we post where we like to put our purses when we get home, e.g., "I like it on the table".

Now, leaving aside my irritation at the assumptions that only women get breast cancer (they don't) or that all women carry purses (they don't), I'm just left with the annoyance that not only does this juvenile status update meme have absolutely nothing to due with breast cancer, but that it uses breast cancer as the reason to make some kind of sexualized joke. How does this puerile humor have anything at all to do with breast cancer? Once again, do you see this kind of nonsense and rush right out to buy something pink or donate money to Komen?

Yes, you might think that I'm being a stick in the mud about this. I mean shouldn't I just lighten up and enjoy the whimsy? Isn't this just a harmless joke used to raise awareness?

To those who might say I'm being shrill and a kill-joy, I say:

Really, is anyone in the western world not aware of breast cancer at this point? Seriously?

If there are people unaware, perhaps it because they are buried under the load of pink consumer crap and juvenile Internet memes that we're bombarded with every October. So much money is spent on enticing us to buy pink M&Ms (yes, really) and BMWs (yes, really) that we're hopefully distracted from the lack of funding that goes to understanding the causes of breast cancer and the utter disorganization of those efforts.

We're so pinkwashed that we hopefully won't notice that many of the companies with products directly related to causing breast cancer are funding our "awareness". Those companies hope that we'll be so charmed by all the pink and whimsy that we won't ask them why the hell they're still producing the crap that is killing us.

Keep in mind that the "National Breast Cancer Awareness Month" was created by a drug company that is now called AstraZeneca. Yes, that's the same company that in addition to producing & hugely profiting off of breast cancer treatment drugs, also profited substantially off the sale of an herbicide known to cause cancer. That alone makes me question all of the happy, cheerful messages designed to raise my "awareness".

I am bashing the Komen Foundation, that sacred pink cow of breast cancer activism, a little bit too. After all, Komen manages to blithely take in thousands in contributions from the very chemical companies who market products that cause breast cancer! They put on these hugely expensive races and events that push mammograms and say nothing about the causes or prevention. This is the very same organization that helps market pink cars while ignoring the powerful link between a chemical produced in the exhaust of cars, benzo(a)-pyrene, that is one of the most powerful carcinogens known and was connected directly to breast cancer by the Peralta Cancer Research Institute in the 1980s. Yeah, go Komen...

What can you do? Well, know your risk and make efforts to reduce it.

There is a lot of evidence that shows that maintaining a healthy weight, getting regular exercise, having moderate or no alcohol consumption, and following a diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains is beneficial.
Buy organic if possible as many herbicides and pesticides have also been linked to breast and other types of cancer. I totally sympathize to the economic barriers to this suggestion and know this is not an option for a lot of people, but if you can, buy organic.
There are known links between r-GBH (recombinant bovine growth hormone - used on dairy cows) and breast cancer.
A healthy vegan diet has many benefits; reducing the risk of cancer is only one of them. Yes, this is one of the many reasons I am vegan.
Get your vitamin D level checked, particularly if you live in the Pacific Northwest like I do. There have been several studies linking low levels of vitamin D to cancer, particularly breast cancer. People in the Pacific Northwest are known for being chronically low in vitamin D.

Check out Breast Cancer Action, an organization I think is doing things right. They aren't busy "going pink", they are demanding action to reduce causes, educate people (not sell them pink crap), and find more effective, less toxic treatments.

BCA also created the fantastic "Think Before You Pink" campaign to educate people as to where the money goes when those pink Tic-Tacs are purchased.

All of this is said from my perspective as the daughter of a two-time breast cancer survivor. Yes, that puts me in a higher risk category and I take it very seriously.

Cup Gazing

2010-10-01T22:30:00.001-07:00

The latest and greatest installment in what continues to unfold for me with this bit from Rumi:

Take sips of this pure wine being poured.
Don't mind that you've been given a dirty cup.

Last week I realized that I had a Tuesday evening completely free. Since I would be busy with Ignite Portland on Thursday I decided to go to the zazen and discussion held on Tuesdays. The leader for last Tuesday had suggested that people bring quotes or short readings that inspired their practice. I brought the Rumi.

When I shared it I commented that what has started to really get through to me are the two words, "Don't mind". These are the important bit, as my teacher had commented to me. When I don't mind the cup is stained, that's when the stains clean themselves. Just recently it has finally felt like I'm in a place where I am starting to get the whole not minding thing.

Fresh off my sharing at the Dharma center this little gem of Rumi's came up during a conversation with PB. How I've been working with it, seeing the cup as my life and the traumatic moments as the dirt on the cup. She offered that perhaps I should consider buying a new cup.

I immediately, passionately said that wasn't the point. I can look at all the ways I tried to keep re-inventing myself during my teens, 20s and into my 30s as merely trying to "buy a new cup". It doesn't work, you cannot buy or acquire your way out of this one. You have to work with the cup you're given.

I said that it also felt that wanting to discard the cup because it was dirty wasn't compassionate. In honoring the cup, using it, it equally honors the person I was. In particular it acknowledges and holds the child I was in loving-kindness. To want to get rid of the cup is to want to get rid of that child and she doesn't deserve that. Besides, that isn't the point.

One of the younger priests in my Zen community once suggested upon hearing this Rumi that "There is no cup."

While that's very Zen and strolls right along that uncertain path called "No Self", it misses the point. The cup, the dirty cup is an intrinsic part. We must have a cup in order to partake in the pure wine that is life.

The point is not minding the dirt.

Not minding that I was hurt doesn't mean I condone it, rather it means I don't see myself as intrinsically flawed because of the "stain" of those events. Yes, those events affected me greatly, still affect me, but they are not an indicator that something is wrong with me. None of it was my fault.

Which brings me to a mug I purchased at SFMOMA in May. The colors and the simple ginkgo leaf pattern make me smile, it was also on clearance in the gift shop (bonus!), and I drink tea from it pretty regularly.

Tea can be a pretty strong dye and in short order my new favorite mug for tea had acquired stains that the dishwasher doesn't affect.

Do I mind? No. Does it affect the tea? Not in the least. Is the cup still completely pleasing to me, stains and all? Yeah, absolutely. It isn't exactly self-cleaning, but I don't mind. Silly as it may seem, given that the stains appear on the mug not out of some act of violence or deception, but still this mug is a good reminder.

This cup holds my tea and if it is a green tea I can even appreciate the stains on it when I'm drinking from it. They indicate nothing more than the ability of strong liquids to leave a mark. It is the outcome of this mug having a life. A perfectly good mug and I like it stains and all.

My life shows the effects of everything that has happened to me. Some of those things leave me feeling pretty sad and hurt. Taken as a whole, I have learned a lot about not minding my life. I even have begun to relax occasionally into even enjoying it, not minding the stains at all.

Dust

2010-09-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

I have been on a bit of a cleaning frenzy since yesterday. The house had become hugely chaotic with stuff not put away. It was just a mess, truly, and bugging both of us. Merely moving some things down to the basement where they belong (yoga props I'd loaned to a Dharma sister) and getting some things taken to our respective offices made a lot of difference. Today I've vacuumed, dusted, sorted, and organized some. That and laundry - I'm kind of tired, but it feels good to have things cleaner.

Amidst all of that frenzy, while dusting, my cane caught my eye. It is mixed in with rolled up yoga mats, hiking poles, and an old paper umbrella. The handle of it was covered in a rather thick layer of dust.

As I cleaned it off I was struck at how long it has been since I've used it. From 2000 until well into 2004 I would use it occasionally when the pain and weakness in my hips would necessitate the extra assist. I purchased a cool, lightweight one with the ability to be broken down like a tent pole. People commented on it a lot for the coolness factor and they were mostly too polite to comment on a woman in her 30s using one. I generally resented the hell out of it but admitted that I really needed it.

I'm not exactly sure when I moved my cane into the cluster of stuff. Sometime in the past couple of years it took up residence with the hiking poles, which feel like an accomplishment instead of an accommodation. My third yoga mat. CK's mat. The paper umbrella I've had for years; I've been pondering how to repair a tear in it and re-purpose into an art project. The cane had an impressive amount of dust on it.

I'm also not entirely sure when I stopped using it, even very occasionally. At some point it just became a thing in my house that I never interacted with. I didn't need it, so I never went looking for it.

What I am aware of is the meaning of that dusty handle. The lack of use, the accumulation of dust as the cane sits next to my scratched up hiking poles is a testament to my Yoga practice and to the hundreds I've spent on one form of therapy, including body work, or the other. Amusingly enough the dust is a rather powerful indicator of progress.

Yeah, there's still a truly mechanical failure I deal with. It does affect me, but now it is just another part of my physical practice. Tomorrow I'll probably really feel all the cleaning and organizing I've been doing the past couple of days. I'll most likely be moving a little slower, a little more cautiously. I might wake up with a bit of a groan.

Even still, I won't need that cane.

If I Don't See That I'm Strong Then I Won't Be

2010-09-22T18:25:00.001-07:00

The title of today's post comes from Maxi Jazz. Specifically from the amazing song 'My Culture' which is featured on the first 1 Giant Leap music disc. Seriously, check this stuff out.

This song randomly popped up on my iPod a few minutes ago and I was struck once again by those lyrics. They pretty much catch my full attention anytime I listen to 'My Culture'. We're not strong if we don't think we are. We lack confidence when we think we don't have any reason to have any.

That brings this post around to chatting this morning with my EMDR therapist, PB, about my anxiety around the job search, my current lack of job. Next month my severance package, my "lovely parting gifts" from my last job, will run out leaving me on unemployment. I'm feeling a lot of dread and downright panic about this.

CK says I should take my time, find a job I'm really going to like. Sure, most of me believes her, but there's a rather insistent part that doesn't trust it. I've never been able to count on anyone to have my back and this habit is very hard to unlearn. Under it all there's a part of me that doesn't trust anyone, particularly anyone who says they love me. After all, my experiences with people who've said they love me have been pretty negative.

That shines a bright light upon the part of me that is pretty sure that all of those negative experiences have happened because I'm fundamentally not worth that kind of love. I'm so deeply flawed and such a misfit that eventually people will become disenchanted and hurt me again. It is the same part of me that dearly wishes I could be possessed of an average IQ and settled down into a seriously mainstream, ordinary, invisible kind of life.

All this insistence despite the preponderance of the evidence to the contrary. The larger part of me trusts CK and her love for me. That greater self also knows with certainty that the further I've moved away from the "mainstream" the more in touch with my essential self I've become. I know that when I tried to play that game, reinventing myself to be what would make my boyfriend/husband/family/friends/etc. happy, I was seriously, deeply depressed and had a weight & cholesterol over 290. It was a fraud, all of it.

The reality: Vegan, Queer, Buddhist, Yogini, Liberal, Smart, Poetry-Reading Freak.

As they tease CK (in a friendly way) at her office, "Edge Case".

What's underneath this job stuff? Well aside from the not trusting anyone to make sacrifices while I'm not bringing home an income and really have my back, I'm pretty intimidated by the popularity contest that job seeking feels like. It takes me right back to all the unease and awkwardness I felt as a adolescent. I got my last job through the sheer nepotism of being hired by the team I was a support engineer to when I was laid off. No interviews, I was the only qualified candidate for a job requisition written to match my resume.

I'm afraid all my inherent freakiness somehow seeps off of my resume and all hiring managers take one look and say, "No way!" Surely this can be the only explanation for my marked lack of anything resembling an interview. Clearly my lack of confidence is well founded. Right?

PB told me to work on being aware of the physical sensations that arise around this fear, especially since I experience this more as a physical sensation rather than a voice in my head telling me horrible things. She also said to work at bringing awareness to those moments, even if there are mere seconds, when I remember that I'm a strong, capable, talented woman. And that being a freak isn't so bad. Neither is being smart.

If I don't see that I'm strong then I won't be.

Vows

2010-09-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

The entire time we've been working toward our ceremony CK and I have known that we wanted to include the first five Grave Precepts. Both of us have spent a lot of time with these vows. We've each written about them and have taken them in a public ceremony with our community (sangha), friends and family present. At those times we looked at how these vows informed our own personal practice.

Including these vows as part of our marriage ceremony would reaffirm the most basic of the vows of our Buddhist practice together. Ultimately we sat down with several translations of these vows to write ones that we felt truly reflected the practice we share together in marriage. Of the many wordings we looked at, we were strongly influenced by the vows we both have taken within our Zen community, the writing on the precepts by the late John Daido Loori Roshi, and the interpretation of the precepts by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Naht Hahn.

During the ceremony we each recited the following vows to one another:

In the practice of our marriage, I vow to affirm, cherish and protect the lives of all sentient beings.
In the practice of our marriage, I vow to be generous with my time, energy and material resources and to take only what is freely given.
In the practice of our marriage, I vow to be aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct and to cultivate my responsibility to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families and society.
In the practice of our marriage, I vow to manifest truth, to cultivate loving speech and deep listening. I will refrain from using words of discord and will make every attempt to resolve conflict, great and small.
In the practice of our marriage, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming.

We each then wrote our own vows we were taking in our marriage. After reciting our own writing of the first five Grave Precepts we then gave our own vows. Here are mine to CK:

I will always remember seeing you on the first day of 2008. It was merely the third time I had seen you in person, but in the bright light of early afternoon I suddenly knew with certainty that my life was about to change in a significant way.

So it did, and here we are today in front of friends and relations. All of us gathered to honor the power of publicly taking vows to love, honor and cherish one another. It has been a mad dash to get to this dazzling finish, complete with unexpected news, arguments, wild passion, laughter, and tears. I’m told this is perfectly ordinary even though it feels to me rather extraordinary.

In addition to the precepts, which I have vowed to make a fundamental part of the practice of my marriage with you, I offer these vows from my heart:

I vow to nurture unbridled joy in equal measure with gravitas.
I vow to great each day with loving-kindness.
I vow to nourish my health so that we may explore many more years together.
I vow to create art, write, sing and cultivate playfulness together with you.
I vow to admit when I am wrong.
I vow to offer you cheer, humor, deep listening, and wise counsel. Whenever needed.
I vow to challenge myself and you so we continue to grow fully into who we can be.
I vow to read you poetry.

For my birthday last year you gave me a collection of Rumi’s poetry translated by Coleman Barks; an edition I did not have. It had been an amazing day spent celebrating my birthday and you fell asleep early. I stayed awake longer to read poems and enjoy my cake. One poem in particular really caught me; I knew I wanted to say some of the words from it to you at our wedding. Although I feel rather presumptuous playing with Rumi’s words, I do so as an act of love and from a deep honoring of the original poem, “The Self We Share”. These words especially speak to me of you and of this moment when written in this way:

The Prayer of Each

You are the source of my life.
You separate essence from mud.
You honor my soul.
You bring rivers from the mountain springs.
You brighten my eyes.
The wine you offer takes me out of myself into the self we share.

Doing that is religion.

I am a prayer.
You're the amen.

CK's vows to me:

My dearest Sherri: You are one of the most generous, compassionate and courageous spirits I have ever met. From the beginning, you opened your heart wide to me and while cautious at first, I have learned to take great refuge in your presence.

In addition the precepts we have already shared, I offer a few of my own vows:

Because our life together will not always be easy, I vow to meet challenges in our relationship with a sense of compassion and adventure.

Because our family is but one piece in a very large puzzle. I vow to live a life of service to you, to our marriage and to our community.

Because while love is not scarce, many resources are, I vow to make sure you always have the things you need most such as food, water, shelter and art supplies. I vow to utilize our resources wisely.

Because I want to spend the most amount of time possible with you and grow old together, I vow to care for my body and mind.

Because play is just as important as work, I vow to cultivate playfulness, laughter and lightness in our relationship.

Because what I was hiding, deep inside, you brought out into the light, and even thought it is terrifying at times, I vow to stand bravely in the light of your love.

My dearest Sherri, You are the first person who made me truly feel loved. I look forward to sharing a life of practice with you and I am truly honored that you are making this commitment with me here today, in front of our friends and family.

When we exchanged our stunning, one-of-a-kind wedding rings, handmade by local artist Barbara Covey, we each said the following words to one another:

May our marriage be nurturing, intimate and supportive throughout the years. May our marriage be a refuge to us as we cultivate kindness and compassion toward all sentient beings. I give you this ring as a symbol of my vows and commitment to you with body, speech and mind. In this life, in every situation, in wealth or poverty, in health or sickness, in happiness or difficulty.

Wedding Poems

2010-09-14T10:00:00.001-07:00

There's been so much going on, joyful (our wedding) and hard (Mom being in the hospital and missing our wedding) that sitting down to write has been a far lower priority. I'll be getting back to it more since there's been a lot I've wanted to write about, but for now my return to posting is to share the three poems we had read during our wedding ceremony.

Oh, and a great picture taken by a friend after the ceremony!

CK's mother read this poem:

I Want Both of Us

by Hafiz

I want both of us

To start talking about this great love

As if you, I, and the Sun were all married

And living in a tiny room,

Helping each other to cook,

Do the wash,

Weave and sew,

Care for our beautiful

Animals.

We all leave each morning

To labor on the earth’s field.

No one does not lift a great pack.

I want both of us to start singing like two

Traveling minstrels

About this extraordinary existence

We share,

As if

You, I, and God were all married

And living in
a tiny

Room.

One of the Zen priests, a dear friend and inspiration to our practice, read this:

Entering the Shell
by Rumi

Love is alive, and someone borne
along by it is more alive than lions

roaring or men in their fierce courage.
Bandits ambush others on the road.

They get wealth, but they stay in one
place. Lovers keep moving, never

the same, not for a second! What
makes others grieve, they enjoy!

When they look angry, don’t believe
their faces. It’s spring lightning,

a joke before the rain. They chew
thorns thoughtfully along with pasture

grass. Gazelle and lioness, having
dinner. Love is invisible except

here, in us. Sometimes I praise love;
sometimes love praises me. Love,

a little shell somewhere on the ocean
floor, opens its mouth. You and I

and we, those imaginary beings, enter
that shell as a single sip of seawater.

Another friend from our Zen community read this:

The Plum Trees
by Mary Oliver

Such richness flowing
through the branches of summer and into

the body, carried inward on the five
rivers! Disorder and astonishment

rattle your thoughts and your heart
cries for rest but don't

succumb, there's nothing
so sensible as sensual inundation. Joy

is a taste before
it's anything else, and the body

can lounge for hours devouring
the important moments. Listen,

the only way
to tempt happiness into your mind is by taking it

into the body first, like small
wild plums.

News and 5 Summer Haiku

2010-08-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

Well.... It has been quite the past six months or so. Mom's apparently doing fine on hew heart medication and wrestling with the concept of stress reduction for the ulcers. I'm searching more in earnest for a job, hoping to have something lined up by October. We've enjoyed the first cucumbers and cherry tomatoes of the season. Apparently there's some little orange eggplants I must go pick and enjoy too.

The wedding is less than 3 weeks away. There's a lot to be done even as simple as we've kept things. CK and I are apparently experiencing pre-wedding stress, which to us feels bad but my therapist assured me on Monday that it is actually perfectly ordinary. I suppose it further proves the point that a same-sex wedding is in no way different from a heterosexual one... we even get terribly stressed out!

CK has inspired me to experiment with making very large origami cranes. I made one yesterday out of watercolor paper and then painted it. I want to do one and paint it with clouds. We're going to put paper cranes of all sizes around the reception venue and encourage guests to take them home.

All that and a little summer haiku:

Sweetness of summer.
Stonefruit nestled together
In market basket.

The cats melt into
Sleeping puddles of warm fur.
Waiting for cool night.

Deep green summer leaves
Yet still adorn the lilac.
Look, brown edges form.

On hot days grateful
Sighs are heard in shady spots
Along the steep trail.

Cucumber hiding
Shyly under the low leaves.
Summer's abundance.

Poof

2010-07-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday our plans to sleep until noon to recover from all the sleep lost during OSCON were dashed by an early morning call from my Mom, phoning from ER. She'd spent much of the night with terrible chest pains and her husband had taken her into the closest hospital. By Saturday afternoon she was back at the hospital associated with her health care group and we went up to see her.

Here's where it goes weird.

Through some miscommunication my Mom believed she had been given a firm diagnosis of stomach cancer. That was back in February. I assumed that they'd done a scope, some blood work, and all those usual things to diagnose something like that. But they hadn't.

On Sunday morning they performed the scope and saw some spots that looked like ulcers that had likely been bleeding. These were cauterized and a tissue sample was taken for biopsy. On Monday some abdominal and chest x-rays were taken and nothing suspicious was found. We're still waiting to hear the results of the biopsy, but as of this moment it appears that Mom never had cancer.

Mom is furious that she was lied to. No mention of a "diagnosis" from a doctor appears in her charts anywhere; Mom sees this as a conspiracy and is certain records have been deleted. On the advice of her naturopath I've mentioned that she should make sure that all her records, even things marked as "sensitive" be evaluated. Mom is more concerned about having to tell people she was wrong about having cancer than she is happy to be freed of this burden.

CK and I believe that there was very possibly not a firm diagnosis. Mom was referred to an oncologist, but never went. She also had been told that it would be 8 weeks to get her in for the stomach scope and possible biopsy. She also never went. We feel that there probably was the suggestion that the digestive distress she'd been experiencing could be a recurrence of stomach cancer. Upon hearing that Mom went into her consistent behavior of reacting from fear and impatience, deciding that she did have cancer.

After a second Sunday visit CK said to me in the car on the way home, "That's what you grew up with?!"

I am first and foremost thrilled. On the other hand I'm furious with the way Mom spins stuff. I'm frustrated with her continual impatience and her drive to try and control everyone else while refusing to take care of herself. In trying to just offer sympathy at listening to her irritation I've been accused of belittling her.

Today we had a long phone conversation and she was much more rational to talk with. When she went off about her husband not taking care of himself I told her to let it go and take care of herself instead. She doesn't like taking care of herself and would prefer to think she's in control of everyone else so she doesn't have to think about her own needs. She also prefers to let other people take care of her and angry when they don't "do it right".

In a big moment for me setting boundaries as to what is acceptable I asked her to stop sharing a childhood story because for me it is a very painful, traumatizing memory. She hurt at hearing that this incident causes me nightmares to this day but wasn't defensive. She agreed to never talk about it again and made additional overtures in accepting that many times she did not make the best decisions for my well being.

All this and an incredibly intense EMDR session yesterday. Last night's sleep was frustrated by nightmares. CK reminded me again this morning that I need to "give in" and take Xanex when that happens. I'm about to head off to see my acupuncturist and hopefully that will settle some of this energy. It has been a really long, exhausting week and I'm feeling pretty worn out from the intensity of it.

A Bitterness

2010-07-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

Mom's back in town and I took her to see NEM on Monday. She was in really poor shape. She talked about her disappointment at not feeling better and the expectations she'd held close that the Chinese herbs and acupuncture would be more significantly healing. There is also the resentment she feels toward her husband and the motor home trip they took recently that should have been restful and connecting, but wasn't. She talks sadly about not having the energy to be a better mother to me and says she means in the present. A not insignificant part of me believes she's wishing she could affect the past by suddenly improving now.

I shared with her what my Zen teachers offer - that clinging to those expectations, even having them in the first place, leads to suffering. My Mom and her expectations, and the suffering of not having them met underlies so many of the selfish decisions she made in my childhood. She wasn't overtly hostile to this information, just unable to really hold onto the idea of trying to not have expectations.

When I see Mom like this, in terrible physical and emotional pain and so clearly suffering, it is difficult. I feel deep sympathy and compassion for her, I try not to let it slip into pity. I feel anger at her all in the same moment as the love and concern. I hear her regrets, her bitterness, her disappointment and know it is the same thing I've been hearing my whole life. It is painful and I struggle to accept, without guilt and shame, that when she is gone I will feel tremendous relief.

I've been mulling one of Mary Oliver's powerful poems. So many of them capture practice, nature and life so well that I just sink into the words. A handful of her poems cut right to the core of suffering and seem to haunt me. One of her poems, A Bitterness, has been resonating with me a lot recently around what I feel about my Mom and the way I see her many cancers as some kind of physical manifestation of all the anger, resentment and bitterness she's held close to her heart during my life.

A Bitterness
by Mary Oliver

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery,
I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as
your bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser
and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful
flowers of the hillsides.

Contemplating the Dirty Cup

2010-07-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

Wednesday's appointment with the EMDR therapist was honestly grueling. I left feeling mentally, emotionally, and physically drained. The lowering of intensity wasn't as profound, but then it was such an inter-connected, multi-year mess of stuff that to even reduce it minimally is progress. That I was unable to neatly separate out the events to work on individually, something I'll continue to work on with PB, underscored something my cognitive/mindfulness based therapist has been saying for some time. The trauma I experienced in my late teens served to reactivate earlier, unaddressed trauma from childhood. The events become intrinsically linked to my mind and body regardless of the differences of time, place and people.

The session also brought up muscle spasms, particularly in my legs. I vocalized something important in reacting to the pain and strangeness of them. When I have muscle spasms I do not feel like my body is my own. The statement came up a couple of times and in the second visit it hit me hard. We looked at it, the age I felt and it was in that 4/5 age range. It is painful to accept that I felt like I did not control my body at so young an age.

The last four weeks of intensive EMDR have revealed another uncomfortable truth. On a lot of levels I believe the abuse was my fault. That I possess some intrinsic flaw that makes me an easy target for abusers. To a part of my mind it seems like the most reasonable explanation as to why I experienced abuse from so many different people I trusted across so many years. "Clearly I am flawed.", says a part of me.

Last night I was having a hard time getting to sleep with anxiety creeping in. Bits of bad memories popping into that liminal time where I'm just starting to drift into sleep. I hoped to sleep in to make up for it but that energy is still around this morning and I awoke rather early. Something that has been kicking around for the past two days is the bit of Rumi I've been chewing on since early September.

Take sips of this pure wine being poured.
Don't mind that you've been given a dirty cup.

I've written about this bit a little already and have let it just be a part of my everyday life. It keeps unfolding for me the longer I keep it close. It brings up for me again and again how much time I spend wrapped up in the stains on the dirty cup and not able to fully engage with the pure wine of life.

All the thrashing around trying to cling to the notion of My Happy Childhood is just another way of obsessing about the stained cup. PB gently pointed out to me that recalling the brief hours here and there where I enjoyed my childhood does not make a happy one. All I'm doing is staring at that cup and trying to say, "Look here, this spot isn't dirty, it is clean and lovely. Yes, that's the cup I want!"

Many weeks ago GM asked me why I practice Zen. I feel unheard when my community treats veganism as anything less than the deep reflection of my vows and practice. Retreats leave me feeling like I was pulled by my heels through glass. Sitting down to do zazen has nearly continually woken up my Inner Critic for over a year now. At times, for no apparent reason beyond a mere nanosecond of silence, I find I am completely triggered emotionally and physically. Why do I do it?

At the time she asked I had no answer but I've kept practicing hoping one will be revealed to me. The sad answer is that those triggers and pain happen because the trauma was real. Feeling unheard about being vegan awakes the years my voice, my thoughts were not valued by my family. I've spent years trying to make these things not true, to persist with the idea that if I just don't acknowledge them or talk about them, they will go away. The truth is that no amount of cherishing the few hours of baking with my Gram or picking berries with my Mom makes up for the the rest of it.

Zen and yoga point us to the truth. What is the essential self? What is true? I practice because it reveals the truth. The truth points us to what is real. Some truths mean we live on the edges of what the whole of society considers "normal". Most importantly, as radical as acceptance sounds for some truths, not accepting the truth is suffering.

The truth is that my childhood was profoundly unhappy. It is the "dirty cup".

Equally true is that the sun is shining brightly into the lovely, generous home I share with my wonderful, future wife. Our cats are alternately basking in sun beams and playing. I have a very good cup of tea, the prospect of a delicious breakfast, and the hectic fun of preparing for a party ahead of me today. This is the pure wine of this present moment.

In this moment the wine is pure, precious, and briefly I am able to rest in knowing that the stained cup is irrelevant.

Sideways

2010-06-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

I was a "good kid" and flew under the radar or went sideways through my family. I quickly learned to how follow the rules, even when they were illogical, and tried to avoid meeting conflict "head on" in order to hold onto things that sustained me - riding my bike, being outside, swimming. At those times I was isolated, which was often, I read and read and read. I think I came out of childhood with a better understanding of how to slay dragons, solve mysteries, and practice the intrigue of a Dumas' hero than how to interact with other people, communicate my needs effectively, or sustain my energy through complex projects.

As an adult I comforted myself with the notion that I never was injured physically, was only struck in the face once, and because no one could ever tell the depth of abuse going on from the outside then maybe it really wasn't so bad. Maybe, just maybe I could pretend it was OK and that the profound memory loss I have around much of my childhood isn't some kind of dramatic indicator of PTSD. If I could just continue to move sideways through the world then no one would know and I would never have to admit the truth of my unhappy childhood to myself or anyone else.

I also ate and comforted myself with food. I relied upon unhealthy food choices, unhealthy portions, and emotion-motivated eating. Those same, "acceptable" coping mechanisms taught to me by my family.

It didn't work. That sideways path may have offered me a way to avoid the truth of the suffering, but I wore in the pounds I carried. That extra 140+ insulated me from the truth and when I lost it, not intending to discover anything but lowered cholesterol, I lost the ability to hide from the suffering. Maybe if I'd stayed with just studying yoga I could have pulled it off? Probably not, since yoga drives you toward truth as relentlessly as Zen when you practice it deeply. The fourth of the Niyamas in the Yoga Sutras is svadhyaya, deep study of the self as well as spiritual writings.

I know that I will never undo the past. The events that happened can't be made less traumatic, cannot be considered anything but abuse, including the considerable periods of time I was isolated from others. No amount of swimming, zazen, therapy, or cake will erase the past or somehow turn those events into moments of a happy childhood.

I found myself crying a little in the steam room yesterday, realizing that the blue funk I was in was just grief processing through me again. On Wednesday morning I'd done some major processing of an event that had happened when I was 14. Although the work with the new therapist took down the intensity of this memory until it no longer felt like I was being swept up in it like a riptide, it still hurt deeply.

Rather than resist the hurt I feel for myself now, or the profound pain I experienced at 14, I tried to practice acceptance of it. Acceptance that doesn't condone or excuse the cause at all, but rather accepting that it is reasonable and rational for me to feel pain over that event. It will never be something that feels happy or normal, but it can be brought to a point where it just merely aches like an old injury and I don't feel the need to hide it. I can't rewrite history, but I can lean into accepting the pain I feel because of it.

Letting Go of (the myth of) a Happy Childhood

2010-06-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

In the past week I've started seeing another therapist. No, not a replacement, in addition to the therapist I've been working with for years. The new woman specializes in using EMDR with PTSD, particularly childhood trauma. It is really stressful for me to take this step for all kinds of reasons (talking to a new person, having to honestly look at my childhood & process it, the feeling I don't deserve the tremendous expense of seeing 5 different care professionals, etc.), but it seems like such a necessary choice.

My primary therapist has been working with me to let go of the notion that I had a happy childhood on any level. I'm really fighting this. I can feel myself clinging to the idea that on some level, in some way I must have had a happy childhood. The truth that really I didn't have a happy childhood seems impossible to process. When I try to take it in I feel nauseated, dizzy, hopeless and notice tight pain in my stomach, heart & throat chakras.

That brings us to all the body work. I've started acupuncture again and once again it sets off little emotional bombs within two days of an appointment. I leave feeling rested and have a good day following and then some kind of breakdown. I had a couple of days where I felt utterly worthless and incapable of doing anything well. I had a couple of days where I just felt a lot of grief about my childhood.

After some discussion with all these amazing people who've done body/energetic work with me it is totally clear that there is a deeply somatic component to my PTSD. It is the reason why the cognitive work I do with my primary therapist is oftentimes so slow, so painful and at times feels impossible to learn. There are areas where the traumatic response is so physical, I don't get the negative voice of the Inner Critic so much as I feel the grief, the sensations of worthlessness and shame, in my body. I also am struggling with feeling a lot of shame around the fact that I didn't have a happy childhood, that on some level it was my fault after all.

So, in spite of my absolute resistance to working with another therapist, I am seeing one who specializes in the kind of somatic work with trauma I clearly need. On her advice I've also been trying to be more attentive to a yoga practice combined with regular visits for lap swimming or water exercise and using the steam room at the gym. A combination of burning off some of the energy and tapping into the comfort & safety I feel while in water or in the steam room.

I'm also returning again and again to the sensation of the breath in the body, my first and best known form of zazen. I'm combining this with a body scan to just take inventory as to what is there, not to respond, just to observe. Occasionally I offer in some phrases of Metta practice, but lightly and with less focused attention than I have used.

After the Memorials

2010-05-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

I've been to the two memorials for AH in the past couple of weeks. First was a public one that took place the last morning I was in San Francisco. The second one took place for our Sangha the week following. Immediately following each departure something kind of special happened.

First was trying to leave the public memorial at a chapel inside of cemetery grounds set above the Willamette River along a road that wound through cemetery grounds. In leaving CK waved me ahead, calling out, "since you know your way better."

I would then proceed to get the two of us lost. Plus another car behind CK who had the mistaken notion that the person in the lead car (me) would know what they were doing (wrong). So around and around we all went.

At first I was so demoralized by this. Not knowing where I was going. People thinking I should and now I've let them down. All that "Blah, Blah, Blah" of the Inner Critic layered atop my feeling beyond exhausted by the day. I'd slept fitfully, awoke at 4:30 to drive hard, fast, but safely, in order to make it just on time to the service. The incense offering, while beautiful, had me coughing painfully and my whole body ached.

Tears came to my eyes at this indignity of being lost in the cemetery. Soon however, the absurdity of the moment sunk in. Her we all were in our cars, in mourning, and unable to figure how to get away from the memorial chapel. It was as though we were in a comedy.

For several moments, as I tired to sort out the maze of the winding road, I would burst out in loud, helpless laughter.

"How inappropriate" I could hear my Inner Critic remark, perhaps in my Grandmother's voice.

Since I was the only one in the car, and a part of felt like AH would appreciate the absurdity of the moment, the voice didn't take hold. I laughed some more, wiped tears from my eyes and eventually sorted out how to get back onto the bit of winding road that lead out.

The next memorial was a week later for our Sangha. Several members of the women's practice group had decided to read some of AH's poems. I had picked one to read and doing so just depleted me of all the energy I had for the day. I left immediately afterward, feeling crushed, leaving behind the carrier I use for the cupcakes I'd brought, and going home to bed.

On the way home, my face pale and my eyes red from crying, I had to stop and get gas. The light had come on in the car and I didn't want to chance running out. I pulled in and asked the attendant to fill the tank. His face was worn down, he'd seen a lot of living, but his eyes were bright and compassionate.

He came back to ask me if I was alright. I said I'd just been at a friend's memorial service. He asked if she was young or old, was the death expected. I told him she was young and her death was unexpected. He shook his head in sympathy and compassion, said how sorry he was, and he then said he was going wash my windows.

When he came back again he told me his name was Ben and told me a really sad and terrible story of losing his wife of 2 years to a car accident. He found out as the driver of the tow-truck called to the scene to retrieve the vehicles. Truly a tragedy.

Ben made sure I knew that he hadn't told me to cause me more pain at hearing his awful story. He said that he told me so I knew that when he said he was sorry for my loss that he truly understands what it is to loose someone precious. I thanked him for his willingness to share with me, to make sure I felt his compassion for my suffering. He patted my hands with his beat up ones before I left and told me to drive safely.

Thinking About AH in San Francisco

2010-05-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

I've been.... Well, awfully busy for someone without a job. Let's see, I've been:

Taking Mom to see the naturopath/Chinese medicine doctor, plus errands, once a week for a few weeks. For those in the PDX Metro area that's from North Portland to Gresham to Lair Hill to Gresham to North Portland. For those for whom that makes no sense, just be assured that it is a lot of driving around. These days exhaust me physically and emotionally, often well into the following day.

I've been working with my Zen community to address the pain trying to practice with them as a vegan has been for CK and I. Trying to improve things for us all. This too is uncomfortable and painful. I feel singled out around being a vegan and experiencing this now reminds me that this sensation was one associated as dangerous as a child. It is very hard work to try and learn that being singled out can be an expression of loving-kindness.

I also have been making art and trying to work in the garden. These things have been really good.

CK and I also started making plans for our wedding ceremony. This is filled with all kinds of exciting emotions, mostly lovely.

Then CK got sick. Then I got it. Then we drove to L.A. to see Peter Gabriel perform, I was still quite sick. A day there and then driving up to San Francisco with a friend while CK took a flight back home to get to work. I was still sick and slept much of the drive up I5. The drive through the mountains, away from the Interstate was beautiful.

It was outside of Gilroy, CA, when I got the news that AH had died uxpectedly.

And it hit me in the chest, between the heart and the throat chakras. Hard, cold, dark, painful. Today's massage tried to work some of it loose.

Where I got the news the cellular signal wasn't great and CK was still in the air, flying home. Besides, I felt like I wanted to be stopped, not driving, somewhere safe to try and convey the news. I didn't phone her right away, waiting until I was parked outside my friends' house in San Francisco, alone to phone her. Ultimately she felt disappointed I hadn't left a message earlier. I just felt so stunned at the moment I got the news, I just froze.

I also started to think of my mother and all the challenges to her life I have witnessed, including those she dangers she chose. These memories found me as I drove alone out of Sunnyvale up I280 after dropping my friend off for a short visit there.

So there I was, in San Francisco, staying with one of my very closest friends, on vacation. There's really nothing could be solved by rushing home and KK, the friend I'm traveling has plans she is looking forward to as well. Heck, I have plans and many friends who enjoy my company who have made plans to spend time with me.

No amount of DO-ing will fix anything at all. There is this dichotomy of new pain, old pain, feelings of inadequacy, and a holiday in a city I really love to visit with people who love me. Just staying put, letting life tick on forward. Trying to let myself just enjoy the company in the present moment, the present place.

In the mornings there I woke to the constancy of traffic noise, the busyness of San Francisco. I'd lay in my friend's office with my mind thinking about AH, my Mother and CK. In and out, back and forth. Having been coughing hard for nearly a week I found it even harder to settle my mind by watching the breath because of the painful way my breath moved in my body.

It was a quieter visit than many. I was still coughing badly and conscious of the sorrow I felt. I didn't feel capable of rushing. I mostly rested and relaxed in the mornings. A bit later in the day my friend and I'd go out. One day to SFMOMA and the second afternoon he drove us across the bay to Berkeley. Each day was quieter and more reflective.

It was in the glorious, golden light of evening that streamed across Berkeley that I was just struck at how happy I am - how lucky, how fortunate.

Right there with that simple joy I felt welling up in me was this hard, sharp point of AH's death. My mind returning again and again to her smile, sometimes so sly, and so often gleaming in her eyes with mischievousness. Her hugs, the warmth I felt in each and every one of them. Her curiosity about life which makes her death so hard to process. I nearly felt silly, but I kept thinking how I'll miss her wonderful sweaters & scarves and how seeing her in them often brought a lightness to my heart when it felt heavy.

I commented to SJ as we walked that there is this strangeness in practice where we learn to accept that we feel all of these things at the same time. If we are present to everything there in front of us, it is all in there together. The awful and the glorious.

There is the unspeakable grief that sticks in the space between my heart and throat chakras, stealing my voice, incomprehensibly intertwined with a gratitude & happiness that is too precious for words. All there, all together. I noted that I could just sit down with a thump into that dark sorrow, or rush back pointlessly to Portland, but if I did so I'd be turning my back on the dear friend with me that moment and the incredible beauty surrounding us.

So I was simply happy strolling across Berkeley in the evening light. Choosing that brightness and wrapping it around the jagged edges. There's nothing that makes that sharpness go away, but there is some cushion between the points in allowing myself to be present to the joy that exists simultaneously alongside them. I'm grateful to have so many loving people in my life, so many safe havens where no one minds that I go from tears to laughter within moments.

Good-by, AH, I will miss you.
May we all be at ease.

Joy and Creativity

2010-04-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

It has been a long several weeks. CK and I have met with two members of our Sangha Harmony Committee about the feelings around our vegan practice not being recognized or included. For me these meetings have highlighted just how terribly uncomfortable group dynamics can be for me. I feel utterly at a loss around them at times. Having moved over and over again throughout my childhood, really up until the time I moved out in my early 20s, I really never learned the knack of groups. Whenever I started to fit in at all, we moved, as it was I didn't fit in well with a lot of peers to begin with.

The 17th I got to play host to a day of creativity for our Sangha. A spring community day celebrating Earth Day and the Earthstore Bodhisattva. It was small, intimate, joyful, silly, and simple. I put myself in charge of the food, carefully labeling things with known allergens for one of the participants and items that weren't vegan (only one thing that had dairy). Friends came with a box filled with vegan cupcakes, which was really touching. I had time to sit down, enjoy making a Jizo shrine, sharing lunch, and listening to stories.

Although I was tired at the end of the day I felt contented and connected by it. This was just the kind of sangha activity I needed! It was especially sweet when a Dharma sister, who has been part of the Harmony meetings, later emailed me to say that in the evening it had occurred to her the mindful attention I'd paid to her dietary needs. How having all the food labeled so she knew what to take was something that could be felt as an expression of being loved and cared for. It helped her to understand why this is so important to me.

Vegan Practice

2010-04-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday CK and I met with two members of our sangha that are part of the Harmony Committee. It was exceedingly painful to open up to them about how I'm feeling excluded. Despite reassurances to the contrary, just trying to address it leaves me feeling as though I'm breaking the vow to not speak ill of the sangha. It was sobering and upsetting to acknowledge that the lack of respect I feel as a vegan is something that has kept me from feeling safe and included for the entire time I've been practicing with my community.

Monday evening one of my teachers phoned me at home. I found it a little ironic that he rang just as I got up from sitting zazen. He had wanted to touch base with me, having heard that I was experiencing a lot of unease lately.

We talked a little about my feelings of being excluded as a vegan in the community. He said to me that he felt it was important that our community feel very inclusive. He'd also commented about seeing the ethical choice I make being a vegan and that as a teacher he feels pleased to see a student exceed him in this area.

I believe it was the first time one of my teachers actually discussed my veganism with me. Acknowledging that it is an ethical choice that is the foundation of my practice. It was good to have it really seen as that important. Some part of it did feel painful, my wishing it could have been acknowledged this way, without my having to express how much suffering this has been causing me.

What has struck me the past few days are these thoughts:

Being vegan is not an allergy, but it feels like it is treated as such. This difference is accommodated but not celebrated as a deep expression of practice.

Our community is built upon a deep respect for people who's sobriety is an essential part of their practice. I feel like

I feel terribly guilty for not having spoken up sooner. Had I vocalized these feelings to my Zen community sooner than perhaps the environment would be more inviting to CK now.

Although I am hurting tremendously about my Mom, it does not lessen the importance of addressing this. I am not the only vegan who's felt excluded at times and it has been quite painful to me to see how this has impacted CK.

Although I appreciate that people in my community, including one of my teachers, seeing my veganism as being further along the path of compassion for all living beings, I don't just want to feel complimented. I feel that some change in our community is important. Just compliments have left me feeling like I have been - left out.

I also appreciate the suggestions that I show people through cooking how easy making vegan food is. However, just making cupcakes hasn't solved the problem. I've been doing this for years and although people appreciate my cupcakes, it hasn't cultivated mindfulness around this being my practice. Those same people might very well bring a non-vegan dish to a practice group that has asked that vegan dishes be brought.

I also acknowledge that people in my community may not understand that the lack of options around vegan food is seen as alienating and disrespectful to me. At the same time I have to recognize that for now that alienation feels rather painful.

Through all the busyness and discomfort I am trying to find my way along the thin thread of practice.

The Opposite of My Mother

2010-04-07T09:25:00.001-07:00

Mom was having a bad day yesterday. She tried phoning the house at 10:30 to say I shouldn't come out, but I'd been gone all morning and was already headed out the Gresham. She didn't answer the door right away and I could hear her dog whining a little at the door. When she finally did I could tell immediately she wasn't alright. Her blood sugar was a little low and she was very nauseated, immediately lying down on the sofa with the crackers she was trying to eat.

I'd picked up a gluten, soy & sugar free muffin from Sweetpea for her as part of my morning errands and put it on a plate for her. As she started to try and eat that I took out her trash and put her outgoing mail in the drop. I went up to the office for her apartment complex and had them make a key for me. I also had them put my contact information down for emergencies since Mom's husband is sometimes up on Larch Mountain and could miss a call quite easily.

When I got back to the apartment she'd managed to eat the whole muffin and felt a little better for it. Mom hasn't been very forthcoming with details, so I tried to get a few from her about her health. Aside from just wanting to have a more complete picture of what is going on with her health, CK and I are hoping that an early October date for our wedding will be soon enough for her to be there.

Mom ended up saying something about it not mattering. She is so happy for CK & I and she loves CK. She doesn't mind it if she has to miss our wedding. Mom ended this exchange with the comment that if she had to feel the way she was feeling at that moment for many months she'd rather just die now.

And it hurt. It really hurt. She totally missed the point that maybe we were trying to have a wedding when she was well enough to be there for my sake, for our sake. That we wanted her to be there. I left pretty soon after this exchange to let her get some rest.

Later in the day she phoned me and we talked for a while. I said I wanted her to make sure I could speak with her doctors. Ultimately what I found out was that after being informed about the cancer Mom has cut off most of her contact with the doctors. She was referred to an oncologist, but felt like she was being pressured to sign up for tests, chemotherapy and all the things she doesn't want to go through. She hasn't done much of anything since, falling back into a typical behavior for her - throwing up her hands and refusing to deal with the situation.

I ended up talking her through some things. EB had advised me that Mom is entitled to ask for a hospice team and CK noted that Mom should be referred to a palliative care specialist. She's been given a very serious diagnosis and she shouldn't feel that she has to choose "treatment". I told her on Thursday we could look at some things at Kaiser. She also agreed to try acupuncture if I would help her find someone.

Once again I found myself stepping into the role of the "grown up" in dealing with my Mother. I've been the adult in our relationship most of my life. Even now we are each falling into the roles we know best.

I feel pretty beat up today. It hurts seeing her suffer, the familiarity of it has never lessened the pain of it. The inevitability of eventual death for everyone doesn't in anyway soften the blow. Her behaving exactly as I expect her to, exactly as she's always done doesn't make it any less painful. There's a part of me that just wants to scream at her and ask why she cannot be the grown up at least once in my life.

But she can't be the adult. If she couldn't at the rare times she was healthy, to expect her to do it when she is dying isn't very reasonable. As painful as it is for me to have to once again take care of things, especially the arrangements for her approaching decline & death, it feels wrong to mimic her. I really would rather throw up my hands, claim despair and not deal with all of this, but I have always done best in life when I choose to behave the opposite of my Mother.

The Weight of Her Regret

2010-04-02T08:15:00.001-07:00

It has really hit me the past couple of weeks just how ill my Mom is. It wasn't that I was truly in denial, but just a real depth of grief that I've been feeling. I think the bittersweet energy of getting ready for a trip to the Oregon coast this past weekend, the sense of urgency around taking trips with her while she can still enjoy them is part of it. Another was overhearing her say to someone at a gallery that she was dying.

What occurred to me is that I've never heard my Mom make that kind of admission. She's always met cancer, or her other ills, head on and ready for a fight. Her response has always been that she's going to beat this latest assault to her body. Now she doesn't say that, she says that she is dying. She's does offer that she believes in miracles, so who knows what could happen, but that is usually an aside to saying she's finally, right now, alright with dying.

The cancer, somewhat at the top of her stomach, is late into Stage 2. This usually means it has spread to multiple layers of the stomach and/or the lymph nodes. It is causing her discomfort, nausea, and vomiting, particularly if she eats things that are difficult for the stomach to process. Because of these problems she's fighting some malnourishment already.

Last week CK and I picked up Mom and took her to a small place south of Yachats. She had been a little worried at first about what she'd eat, but finally decided she was up for trying new things. I spent much of last week cooking several dishes that were vegan and all soy-free except for the chick pea salad, which had Vegenaise in it. Mom has at times been a little sensitive to soy, although it has been hard to pin down.

We noticed she did pretty well with small meals. I made her a fruit smoothie each morning and added some brown rice protein. She enjoyed our vegan, some raw, dishes very much and didn't seem to get sick from eating them. She did end up eating too much of the lentil/walnut loaf with mashed potatoes & gravy, this made her somewhat nauseated, but she was alright after laying down to rest for a while.

One afternoon we ate out and she ordered a hamburger with bacon and cheese. We didn't say anything, at this juncture it seems rather pointless to bug her. After, back at the inn, CK and I went out onto the rocky shore and Mom lay down. She told us later that this overly indulgent meal ended up making her really nauseated and she eventually vomited. I was relieved when later that day she was able to eat and enjoy a tostada with homemade, refried black beans on a baked corn tortilla.

There she was, very literally made ill by her bad choice and regretting it. I would later point out, after she was feeling better and able to hear it, that the animal proteins and fats are probably more difficult for her stomach to deal with, especially in such a large serving. I don't think a vegan diet will save my Mom's life at all, but I did see in the long weekend that the smaller, vegan meals we're easier on her body.

I later recalled listening to her order that hamburger, hearing the mix of defiance and guilt in her voice. She knew she was doing the wrong thing for her body, but she didn't want to feel like she was somehow denying herself. My Mom's choices so often seem like a child is making them, a child who wants to be indulged and doesn't give a damn about any potential consequences. I've watched this pattern with her again and again, in so many different variations.

Like so many things it seems pointless, cruel even, to shine a light too brightly on her continually making poor choices. Once or twice something she said triggered a painful memory and I felt angry at her for trying to rewrite events in my life, trying to cast herself in a more favorable light. It would strike me how childish the behavior was in many ways, like the bad choices about food, and how sad. The anger would die down pretty quickly I noticed, leaving behind layers and layers of sadness.

I'm sad my Mom is dying. I'll think about something, like what she's doing for Christmas, and it will occur to me that she could be gone before then. I'm sad for the anger I still feel over many of the selfish, mindless choices she's made, but it seems so trivial to bring them up when I watch her and see the layers of pain she's dealing with. I'm sad for all the poor choices she's made and the many ways those choices have left her regretful and unhappy; I can see the weight of the unhappiness and regret on her.

Zen Vegan

2010-04-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't written a lot about the struggles in my practice with my Zen community around my veganism. Instead of writing about it publicly I've just reminded and reminded people about the need for vegan food, brought my own treats, and have practiced tolerance & patience when I feel hurt. When people engage me with questions I openly talk about the way in which I feel my veganism is intrinsically linked with my practice.

No group, no community is ever perfect. Everyone is unique, struggling, and trying to make their way. It is inevitable that we step on each others toes once in a while, so to speak. In this way Maezumi Roshi likened sangha to a bag a rocks. It is by rubbing and grating against one another that we are polished.

I'm feeling rather over-rubbed and raw right now about my sangha. I've spent over 4 and a half years facing the discomfort of trying to feel like I belong to a community at all. One of my extra-honed skills from surviving trauma is my ability to find nourishment even in environments that aren't supportive or perhaps even toxic. I can adapt and find something that is beneficial almost all of the time. I have managed to do that when I've felt hurt by my community and in staying I've learned a lot that has helped me so far.

Around my veganism it has become increasingly tiring to stay, to smile and remind, to continuously make food because I can't assume something will be there, and to patiently listen to comments I find insensitive, at best . I accept that being vegan is separating myself, stepping away from commonly held beliefs and emotions surrounding the use of animals and refusing to take part. I don't feel that my veganism is an act of fear or anger, rather I see it as an act of deep compassion. Living peace, feeding peace for the sake of ALL living beings.

However, it is hard and draining to be out on the edge. I have found it increasingly hard in my Zen community because I feel that a spiritual community should strive toward inclusiveness. I often feel like my veganism might be accommodated (but not always, not reliably unless I remind), but I quite often do not feel included. I've written about this before, it was something I very strongly felt while attending a special function last summer and it hasn't felt like it has improved much.

I also have been watching how this lack of inclusion has been hurting CK and it has affected me a lot. The lack of support in our community, from our teachers, around being vegan is painful to her. Honestly, it affects me a lot as I hate seeing her hurt. It makes me look at my tendency to dig in and find some, small hospitable corner for myself, despite an uncomfortable environment, and question it hard. Am I clinging to the parts of my community that I do find insightful because I afraid of exposing myself to something new and have worked too long at what little comfort I have? Am I ignoring the pain I feel because I don't want to be judged as a bad student?

In the years I've been practicing I find that my sangha still must be reminded all the time if I am going to be attending something. If I forget to do this I will surely be left out of whatever special treat someone has brought. I've missed out on the special treats for teas, celebrations for teacher's accomplishments, and the fancy desserts served on Sundays at the monastery. I've also heard countless jokes about people being addicted to cheese, how veganism is just too hard, and the like. Even more painful are the times when people refer to our teachers, including Dogen, as a reason why it is just fine to consume animal products. I hear these types of comments from every level in my community, from priests to lay people alike, and they are really quite painful to me.

When I've missed out on a treat I've spent a lot of time reminding myself that I don't need a treat. That I'm trying to not gain back the 100+ pounds I once carried and a treat is just unnecessary calories. That only works a small portion of the time, if at all. Deep down, where it feels like the response of a small child, I hurt and feel unwelcome.

During retreat practice many of the most painful moments, times when I felt things went completely off the rails for me, have been triggered around not being included. Not having the same food at dinner, not being given very much of a specially set aside food, spending an entire week picking blackberries but the resulting pies contained animal products, and not getting a special treat with tea after a full day of meditation. I've learned, painfully, to bring treats I keep in the drawer by my bed. On some level they help, the 4-year-old who awakes with howls of fear and pain is somewhat comforted by the fact that there is a treat, but the pain of not being included weighs on me.

Despite my bringing my veganism up repeatedly to my teachers I don't feel a lot of engagement from them about it. I talk about how it is the very foundation for my practice, how I feel compassion in nurtured, but feels like something that is just shrugged off. My weight loss has been looked at as this remarkable accomplishment, but the fact that it is tied to my veganism doesn't feel to me as though it is regarded as important and is even brushed aside.

Tonight is a meeting with my practice cohort and I'm dreading it. Although one of the students who leads it now reminds people to bring a vegan dish, I am preparing myself to be calm when I see that someone has forgotten or brought an animal product anyway. Last month it was a bowl of cheese next to the salad. It honestly frustrated and pained me to see it there, like somehow the meal would be so incomplete if there wasn't some kind of animal product there. Most likely there won't be vegan cookies for tea unless I go to the market and buy some on the way there.

I was talking about my Zen practice a lot on Monday when I saw GM. I had burst out that some of my worst moments related to my PTSD, the most awful flashbacks and raw pain have shown up during meditation & retreat practice. How many of those moments have been triggered by not being included around food. I don't think I'd ever told her this before. She shook her head at me in amazement and asked me why I keep going.

The painful answer was that right now what is keeping me going is a sense of responsibility and bad-student guilt. I am coordinating a much-needed community day next month, preparing a yoga workshop for August, and I volunteered to create a practice cohort for sangha members who identify as queer. It is a group that we lack and are very much needing, but it is hard to feel enthusiastic when I feel unsupported in what I consider the very foundation of my practice.

Springtime Snow

2010-04-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Just a little haiku for spring. I added this to some artist trading cards I painted featuring cherry trees blooming.

Brisk wind shakes petals.
Blanketing the neighborhood
In pink, springtime snow.

Mom's Choice

2010-03-11T17:51:00.000-08:00

I spent the 5th with Mom, her birthday. We didn't really do anything special at all, I just went on her shopping errands with her. Mom's always been a shopper, poking around looking at things is a fun day for her. I find it generally fatiguing, although we agree on thrift store shopping and both enjoy it.

I was feeling very anxious and down about things having only spoken with her for a few minutes when she told me about the cancer. Actually talking with her in person helped a lot to alleviate some of those uncomfortable feelings. I think seeing that she felt resolved and at peace with things, at least she did on Friday, was reassuring in a lot of ways.

Chemotherapy might be an option, as might surgery. Radiation isn't really an option since she's had it so much. What Mom really wants is to receive palliative care, just medication for pain and anxiety rather than trying to 'cure' the cancer. She also is interested in alternative medicine. She really doesn't want to go through any treatments to cure cancer again.

It is so sad. I do feel anger at this one last failure of my Mom's health. She corrected my belief on when she first had cancer, it was 1973 and I was four years old (I'd thought I was closer to 9 the first time). For 36 years I've watched my Mom fight cancer, have some time of health, fight heart disease, diabetes, and increasingly debilitating arthritis. It has been exhausting for both of us in its own way.

I don't blame her, not at all. Having watched what those cures have done to her over the years I think she's making a wise decision. Her health isn't that great to begin with, her heart is very weak, and she wants to really be able to enjoy what she can of the time she has remaining to her. I honestly think she's making the best decision.

We're taking her to the coast for a few days later this month. I'm really grateful I've got more time available to do things with her and have been trying to check in by phone with her more often.

We have some squirrel-gifted daffodils blooming in the front yard, but I'm loathe to pick them as they make the yard look so cheerful. Instead I bought some flowers - stock and daffodils. Purple and vivid yellow adorning the mantle. Today's poem is a quick haiku inspired by them.

Daffodils open.
Spring flashes a wide smile from
Bright yellow faces.

two poems

2010-03-10T22:06:00.000-08:00

It didn't seem to fit right adding the haiku I wound up writing last night onto the bottom of my post about marriage rights. There was a suggestion from Shinju that we write adopting the style of another poet. I've been incorporating Basho's haiku into my artwork, so I created a little haiku dedicated to him.

Basho Visiting

Visiting poet.
Words are precious nutrients
To cold weary mind.

Tonight I'm reflecting upon the day. The quiet in my mind as I attend to the chores of the house. At first there's some resistance - my mind is sure it wants to read or write one more thing, attend to an art project, read a novel. Then I just get up and start to tackle some chore. At the end my mind feels more clear, rested, and I really appreciate how I actually feel better. It is also gratifying to see the house in more order. It also makes me smile to hear CK sing the praises of the "Laundry Fairy" and know that it makes her days so much easier.

Simple Tasks

There is a rare
Stillness of mind
When the hands
Are set to
Simple tasks.
The folding,
Carrying,
Chopping,
Cleaning
Of everyday life.
Known actions.
The hands need
No reminders or
Helpful hints
From the mind.
They just attend
To the task
At hand.

Not Equal

2010-03-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

As I navigated the best decision around my date to leave work CK and I looked carefully into the question of health insurance. Ideally it would have been great to stay at work until May, I'd have had time to wrap up some projects neatly. If I left at the end of February I'd be part of a federal subsidy to pay %65 of my COBRA costs.

What stopped us was not only the expense of covering me under CK's work-sponsored health insurance plan, but the hard fact that if we opted to choose that plan the employer-paid part would be considered taxable income for her federal taxes. So many people seem to be unaware of this tax burden. When I tell them about this they are surprised and point out that I'm her partner.

Partner. Not spouse. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) makes it painfully clear that a domestic partner is not a spouse. Since I can't be a spouse I'm not entitled to a long list of spousal privileges that come with recognized marriage. Not being taxed for an employers portion of health insurance is on that list.

In Oregon we have the option of registering as domestic partners which affords us some privileges within our home state. Thanks to DOMA none of the privileges afforded to us in Oregon are required to be recognized by any other state. Thanks to Oregon's very own voters, including many in Multnomah county were we live, the State constitution was amended to declare marriage as being restricted to a single man and a single woman. Constitutionally making it clear that while we may be partners, we're not allowed to be married.

Many of my loving, wonderful friends remind me that it doesn't mean we can't get married. We can have the most beautiful ceremony possible. It will be filled with friends, family, delicious vegan food, and wonderful music. It can be just as good, no matter the legality of it.

Unfortunately I'm really very painfully stuck on the legality of it. I find myself struggling with the conflicting information that while this very body may well be the body of a Buddha and this land the Pure Lotus Land, a majority of the citizens of this world believe that I am not entitled to the same rights and privileges as anyone else. I'm welcome to what mostly unaffected heterosexuals have decided, at times very grudgingly, is "just as good" as civil marriage.

Why does "just as good" smack of the old "separate but equal" party-line?

Domestic partnership is not the same as civil marriage. It isn't. Yes, we can exchange vows in front of our friends and family. We can make a public commitment of our intention to practice and share together a wholehearted life. We can have a gorgeous reception filled with joy and dancing. It will be wonderful when it happens. I will most assuredly cry.

But at the end of the day we will not sign a marriage certificate. We will not have the same rights as the married, heterosexual couples who wish us well. It will not be fully equal.

Cooking Time

2010-03-08T20:26:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling better after having spoken with Mom on Friday. It was good to hear her talk about her feelings around not wanting to seek major treatment (chemo, radiation, surgery), but rather to focus on keeping present and enjoying what time she is able to. Any of the traditional treatments would really lessen her ability to experience happiness and may not be successful either. She seemed lighter about the decision, more so than I've seen her about most anything.

Despite it having some reassurance this still is very hard and it felt like I was in a funk part of today. While making dinner I was particularly mindful and present. Letting the act of creating our meal be a mediation, letting my attention focus on the simple tasks, so rich in sound and scent, settle my mind. I was gratified that applying myself to cooking this way once more helped me feel grounded.

By 7pm I admitted that my tension headache had been with me since rising from the bed and the pinch on the right side of my neck & shoulder hadn't loosened up at all. Both were resistant to ibuprofen and revisiting how I felt about the stuff with Mom at at session with GM didn't help much at all.

I decided to stay home from the women's Dharma group but was mindful to sit at the same time I'd be sitting with them had I gone. Sitting wasn't quiet, my mind was all over the place in a familiar fashion. Zazen felt somewhat restful and I was able to be accepting toward the voices. I was eventually able to shift my focus from my breath to doing Metta practice for my Mom.

Cooking Time

Meal meditation,
Simple movements,
Rich with sound, scent.

Water rinsing.
Knife cutting.
Pan heating.
Food cooking.

Nothing more is
Necessary except
Breath,
Attention,
Gratitude.

Rain Returns

2010-03-07T21:40:00.000-08:00

The sound of rain on the house, particularly the upstairs rooms that are built into the attic space, under the eaves, always makes me smile. Tonight's short haiku is inspired by it.

Rain Returns

After a welcome
Sojourn with the sun’s warm glow
March rains come again.

Saturday Connection

2010-03-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

We rested in the morning, CK felt like she was coming down with something. We decided that hanging out at a movie with friends, as we'd planned the night before, was still something we both felt up to doing. We met up downtown to see Terry Gilliam's new movie. Afterward we got lunch from the Bombay Chaat House cart, enjoying it in the new park downtown. The day wound up at Powell's, mostly just to have coffee, and a quick shopping trip. We both really enjoyed connecting with some new friends even though we felt pretty tired as we headed home.

For today's poem I played around with the 3 line format of a 5-7-5 (syllables) haiku. Stringing several of these sets together to evoke the experience of lunch.

Saturday Lunch

The square was filled with
Sunlight streaming sideways and
The sound of water.
With conversations
Loud & sharp, punctuated
By impatient words,
Offset by laughter
And with appreciation.
A hum of voices.
The scent of rich food
Hung in the air, enticing,
Promising delight.

Mostly Haiku

2010-03-05T23:37:00.000-08:00

Spent the day with Mom. It was a good day, I felt better after actually talking with her. After a lot of running around with Mom I rushed off to Beer & Blog to meet up with CK. Dinner at the carts and more hanging out - made for a really late night. I was really too burned out to write much about anything at all.

I've decided to recycle a children's board book for ABCs into an artist journal for haiku. I'm not sure yet if I'll use all my own haiku or some of mine mixed in with work by other authors. Mindful of wanting to continue the 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge and the possibility of many haiku for the book, I wrote a short haiku inspired by the afternoon.

Hood Haiku

Grey sky, white mountain.
Late afternoon sun glowing
Against winter snow.

Present to Joy

2010-03-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

Spent some time with a dear friend who's recovering from major surgery today. I took over a lot of my art supplies in case she wanted to be creative, but since she was feeling somewhat low, energy-wise, we just chatted and I made lunch.

GK devotes her energy to the cultivation of Love and Joy. She helps keep a small group I occasionally help facilitate called Loved Based Living to provide a place for people to nurture the Love in their life and then extend forward into the world from a place of Love. It felt very good to reconnect with her after many months.

Later I'd mindfully reflect upon the joyful moments of my day. There were many, there always are many moments of joy in each day. During this time I am especially mindful of the need to be really aware of those moments that fill my day rather than feel caught up in the worry and fear.

Present to Joy

Present to joy,
To beauty
Small and large,
That fills my
Small world.
I awake in health
Far better than
Many others,
Especially my Mother.
I arise in next to
My Beloved and
In our own home,
Roomy, filled with art.
I venture out unhindered,
Free to move about,
Pause in appreciation
Of the sun’s brilliant
Light breaking through
Clouds and illuminating
Fiercely bright blossoms.

Anxious Energy

2010-03-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I awoke feeling anxious. Had a difficult time getting to sleep and then bugged by Puck once I got sleepy. I finally tossed him out of the bedroom and closed the door a little past 1AM. In the morning I awoke after another dream where I was trying to teach yoga to a large class and no one would pay attention to me.

I could feel the desire to just stay home. There was laundry to do, food to make, art projects to make for people. A softer side of my Inner Critic just wanting us to stay safe, warm, comforted. Instead I mindfully got ready and went to a yoga class. I felt better afterward, like I nearly always do.

Yesterday's poem reflected that pull of depression under the Inner Critic's sweeter enticements.

Siren Song
Stay home, she says.
It is safe here, warm,
There are so many
Things to do,
That need doing.

Softly, sweetly
She whispers
From inside me.
Wrapping up my
Anxiety tightly.
Encasing it in
Enticement.

Don’t go,
We are afraid.

Shattering the
Delusion of
Security I touch
The energy of effort
And leave the house.

Mom News & Poetry

2010-03-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

My Mom called today to tell me I was off the hook for taking her to a 5PM doctor's appointment. I was relieved, it would have me driving from Gresham to rather near my house and back to Gresham, during some of the worst traffic. I didn't begrudge taking her at all and was glad I could, but I certainly was relieved to hear her doctor was needed in surgery.

Then she told me that the doctor was an oncologist who has treated her in the past.

It would seem that the stomach cancer she bested oh so many years ago is back. Or just a new cancer in the stomach. Either way, it is Very Bad News.

She's known for a few weeks now, from back when she was in the hospital the last time. They told her there. It had show up in her T cell counts, they'd looked there with some of the blood work they were doing.

She said she couldn't face telling anyone. She's only told her husband last week. I felt some anger that her great idea for telling me in person, because she'd wanted to avoid telling me over the phone, was to do so while on the way to an appointment with the oncologist. I'm glad she told me over the phone. I'm just glad she finally told me.

I've lived well over half my life, perhaps closer to two-thirds of my life under the shadow of my Mother's possible death. As a child it felt like icy darkness, dread of being forced to live the rest of my childhood with my aunt or my grandmother. I spent long hours sitting in waiting rooms, reading while she would get chemotherapy.

Cervical. Skin. Stomach. Breast cancer, twice. Who knows, there may be another cancer in there I'm not recalling right now. Additional problems too, angina & other heart problems, gall bladder, infections, cellulitis, and the list could go on. In and out of doctor's offices, clinics, hospitals. Always accompanied with dread.

The news hurt. It always hurts to hear she is sick, possibly hospital bound again. She doesn't want to go through another major surgery. I don't blame her. She's had radiation so many times they cannot really fall back to that. I don't recall her mentioning chemo. She said they've prescribed a lot of pain medication.

I remembered the last time she was sick and I mentioned it to Hogen. He reminded me that I know how to face this. I've had an enormous amount of practice facing the grave health of my Mother. How to keep moving forward in the face of fear.

So I moved forward. Running a number of errands we normally would have to cram into a weekend. Tasks made easier since I wasn't at work any more. The fear subsided. In it's place remains an ache, anticipatory grief for the loss that may possibly come sooner than anyone would like. Grief for myself, for bearing the burden of her fear of death throughout so much of my life. Deep grief for all the loss she's experienced, a whole lifetime of loss and very little joy.

Unsurprisingly the news has deeply touched my offering in the Poetry Challenge.

The Loss That Comes
The fear of
My Mother’s Death
Has shadowed
Most of my life.
I’ve grown older
Immersed within it.

I easily touch
My child-self’s
Icy, dark fear of
Being left alone.

I feel the grasping after
What was lost.
What never was.
What will never be.

I become aware of myself
Endlessly spinning around
The same mythology of
Fairness.
Justice.

There is a certainty we
Wish to avoid.

We are dying.
From moment to moment.
First breath to
Last breath.
Every last
One of us.

The news comes
And the shock is
Still as startling and
Painful as it always is.
It subsides more
Quickly than when
I was a child.
Left behind is a
Dull, hollow ache of
Anticipatory grief
For the loss that comes.

The End of a Chapter

2010-03-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

Today feels like my first "Official" day of being unemployed. Something about not making the 8AM status call. I also noted that for some reason it doesn't feel like I'm on vacation. Maybe it was because CK was busy getting ready for work herself?

In my usual style I've filled this first week out of work with projects and appointments. I am having lunch with people 3 days this week, taking my Mom to the doctor late tomorrow afternoon (amazed that she has a 5PM appointment), Portland Ignite on Wednesday night, a cohort meeting & zazen with my Zen community on Thursday. Tuesday is my official "good-bye" lunch with my team - some folks were on vacation last week and I was really too swamped to do it with trying to wrap things up.

Saturday I felt kind of extra burnt out from staying up late with a friend from our Sangha who is going to be relocating to New York indefinitely. We went and did another walk through at the venue for Open Source Bridge in June followed by lunch with a couple of the other organizers. We ended up napping in the late afternoon which felt very disorienting. In the evening we finally watched Amongst White Clouds, which was just stunning.

Sunday I think I'd finally rested enough to suddenly be hit with the reality of my unemployment. The anxiety I'd managed to push off with the huge task list finally manifest. Big waves of uncertainty and groundlessness. My Inner Critic, Lovey, wailing, "What have you done!"

What really struck me is just how much of my sense of self has been wrapped up in the job I held, in teaching yoga. Letting go of my regular class at Dishman was bad enough, but at least I still had my job to give the impression of stability, of knowing. I think I was really quite unaware of just how much I measured my self worth, my idea of who I am, by those titles and those paychecks.

Today starts a new chapter where I practice with letting go of more of the idea of "Self" as some construct of all the memories I have, titles I've held, places I've been. Another reminder that I am not my job, not my paycheck, not comprised of the entries on my resume. All of that stuff is mind chatter, part of the noise that separates us from the Essential Self, the No-Self Self.

And it is poetry challenge time in the Zen Community of Oregon. What is now becoming an annual tradition of writing 30 poems in 30 days. To start off, prime the pump as it were, a rather smallish poem:

Home

Scent rising up from the kitchen.
Grain steaming. Roots roasting.
Cats sleeping peacefully.

The simple gifts of home.

Mudita Bhāvanā

2010-02-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

Mudita, one of the four Brahmavihāras (divine abidings), one of the mind-states of an enlightened being. Mudita is the state of rejoicing in the happiness of others, the state of sympathetic joy. It can also been see as the recognition of an inner joy we always have access to which helps us to appreciate our lives.

Bhāvanā is Sanskrit for 'development', 'producing', or 'cultivation'.

Mudita Bhāvanā is the cultivation of the mind-states of joy and appreciation or gratitude.

I recently invited a group of people, not necessarily Buddhist practitioners or mediators, to join me in looking at a mindfulness exercise based on one Chozen Roshi sent out last year.

Part of her mindfulness task included the following: "We want to engage in Mudita practice as an investigation of what we can or are appreciating in this moment rather than as a way of suppressing or ignoring negative mind states. We want to broaden our awareness to consciously include and embrace what we appreciate and notice what effect that has. Do negative mind states drop away by themselves when we focus on what we appreciate? Does our habit or conditioning to notice and become obsessed with the negative change with Mudita practice?"

We would spend a week spent dedicated to the practice of Mudita Bhāvanā. At the end of the week each participant would write a little bit about their experience and share it with another participant in a letter. In the end, nine people participated. Right away people commented on how just anticipating the dates to start the experiment brought mindfulness to their daily life. I was thrilled to receive this feedback and have made it part of my own practice. It has been an opportunity for me to gratefully receive positive feedback and fully, truly enjoy the excitement of others.

I've been making a practice around appreciation for all of Ango. I continue to note something I appreciated about my day each night before bed. On the nights I forgot, I merely note it and write something in the morning. I stay mindful of my vow to be gentle with myself and do not let my Inner Critic beat me up too much about not doing this task exactly when I "should have".

This past week of really staying mindful to gratitude and sympathetic joy has been far more challenging than I expected. On the 5th I was given the opportunity to take a severance package at my job of 7.5 years. I wasn't actually on the list to be laid off, however, if I volunteered it would mean upper management wouldn't look at having to lay off someone with only a few years left to retirement with pension intact.

The truth is, I am grateful for my job. I appreciate the illusion of security and comfort it provides me. Some of the people I work with, particularly my boss, have become real friends over the years I've known them. However, most of the time my job has been unsatisfying, frustrating, and stagnant. Upper management has denied me a promotion for a few years now. Bearing all that in mind I said I'd volunteer to be laid off. My boss and I discussed early May as a potential target for me to leave and I was very appreciative of this time to wrap up loose ends.

Tuesday morning I was told that my volunteer offer had been accepted. However, despite my careful planning, the separation date would need to be the end of this month. I would have less than two weeks to wrap up the most demanding of the loose ends. I also am forbidden from sharing the news with my teammates until Monday; they will get 5 days warning.

I've spent the past two days in "triage mode" trying to determine what is critical to be changed starting Monday, once the people who will assume my responsibilities are informed. This morning I had to lie during a team call as to why I couldn't pick up a new project. It felt awful.

In that moment, on the verge of tears and feeling nauseated, what could I feel grateful for? Could I turn toward the positive things about that moment instead of feeling crushed by the negative mind-states rapidly manifesting? Having been focused on this practice I found that a long list came to mind very quickly.

I felt grateful that I was working at home and not having to be face-to-face with people.
I was appreciative of the sun breaking up the clouds and beginning to brighten my home office.
At hearing nervous discussion about job cuts happening in my department I felt grateful knowing that having volunteered to go it meant some of those nervous people would keep their jobs for the time being.
I deeply appreciated the encouraging words from CK via instant message.
I was/am profoundly grateful to have a partner who is glad I'm being laid off and reassures me that she's got my back.
I'm so grateful that she doesn't mind reassuring me a lot these past few days.
I was appreciative of the cup of very good tea I was drinking.
I was happy to be at home where I could go out to the garden or enjoy the company of the cats.

After directing my thoughts toward all the positives in the present moment I did feel better. The tears subsided as did the tightness in my throat and chest. I was able to focus and come back fully into the present moment, including the challenging team meeting.

In the past week I have found that each time I mindfully direct my thoughts towards sympathetic joy and gratitude there is a noticeable sensation of feeling lighter. Whereas my anxiety manifests itself in a tight, crushing sensation, Mudita feels as though weight has been removed. I feel anxiety as a terrible weight, a tearing at my heart center, but when I mindfully cultivate joy and gratitude, I feel my heart pulse with life and open to the present moment.

I have found it interesting to compare the practice I do with Metta, Loving-Kindness (another of the Brahmavihāras), and Mudita. When I practice Metta for myself I feel comforted, protected. I don't feel an openness in my heart until I turn my Metta practice toward others. It is almost as if my self-directed Metta is more about nurturing my hurt than about becoming more open. Mudita is entirely different in that I feel that opening in my heart when I practice for myself.

I've really found it useful to first do Metta practice for myself, comforting the hurt my heart/mind feels, and then cultivating Mudita from that safe, nurtured space. Using the two practices together this way has felt very powerful. Although it isn't easy yet, I have found that the more I practice Metta and/or Mudita, the faster my mind shifts. Even if this shift is small and I am not entirely lifted out of the negative mind-state I've found myself in, these practices still create space, light, and ease.

Just the Sound of Rain

2010-02-11T22:49:00.000-08:00

Today was kind of rough. The full big reality of some recent decisions started to hit and it felt very uncomfortable. Adding to the discomfort is the uncertainty and stretch of being involved in negotiating a proposal for a venue - there's large numbers involved and I've never done this kind of thing before. A whole lot feels very uncertain right now.

I don't really like uncertainty or change. I grew up with a too generous helping of both of those, combined with entirely disordered, dysfunctional and sometimes abusive behavior. All is a recipe for fearing change. I feel waves of big craziness from Lovey, my Inner Critic:

"Are you absolutely mad?! How could you be volunteering to give up this security?!"

With all that energy I went to sit zazen with my sangha tonight, fully expecting two periods of monkey mind: Lovey berating me, some wholly inappropriate music, a little crying -- the usual. Well, the usual for my zazen for the past several months if not most of the past year. My zazen has become distinctly restless and is just one more task I must accomplish each day in order to be a good person. My teacher recently recommend that I sit less each day to try get those periods to regain some sense of restfulness.

Tonight I was prepared. I had the mala CK got for me, my wrap, and I even had a new handkerchief someone sent me, embroidered with blue & white columbines. I was ready for it. Instead during the first sit, with a physical sensation, a "popping" of energy in my head, suddenly everything stopped. Maybe still a little bit of voice, the observer noticing the quiet and commenting at this reminder of zazen as rest.

Still, it was the most quiet my mind has been since sesshin in August when I was overcome with this hazy, exhaustion that seemed to keep me in a strange fog most of the week. Only this time I wasn't hazy or exhausted, I was just there. Aware of the sensation of breath moving in my tight ribs and of the sound of the late winter rain pounding into the roof of the zendo.

The second sit wasn't as restful and I didn't expect it to be. Neither was it awful. It was just normal. Thoughts arising and returning to the breath. Through it all was the thrumming of the rain, nearly until the bell rain. The sound filling my ears, drawing me back out of my head and into my body and reminding me of the sensation of rest.

Self-Cleaning Pottery

2010-02-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago I sent my teacher Hogen an artist trading card I'd made. It has the quote from Rumi on the back, that bit that has had me thinking and meditating around it since CK gave me the book for my birthday!

Ask!
Step off
proudly into sunlight,
not looking back.

Take sips of this pure wine being poured.
Don't mind that you've been given a dirty cup.

It has been useful to consider myself as the cup and the various abusive moments in my life as the stains of the cup. The imagery has become a way to see that in being caught up in the stains I'm entirely not present to the pure wine being poured, not able to appreciate my life. When I am stuck in the pain, and the habitual reactions around it, it is like drinking the wine while complaining about the cup.

When I sent the trading card to Hogen I enclosed it inside of a beautiful card with koi painted on it. Faced with the blank interior of the inside of this card my mind rushed to put something, anything that might sound like I'm a decent student. In that speedy awkwardness I wrote down something about practice being a way of cleaning the stains of the cup.

Only it isn't. I'm totally wrong in thinking that. Believing that if I just practice hard enough I can somehow clean the stains. I can't make history go away, it is impossible. It is falling into the trap of hoping that Zen or Yoga are somehow a kind of self-improvement program that will make the past not matter.

I'm missing the point. The point is to not care about the stains, not to find some way to clean the up. This wondrous, present moment is the pure wine of life. The cup holds the wine, why in hell do I care if it has stains?

On Sunday I was hanging out after the retreat, a busy time when Great Vow gets even quieter as residents head into their day off or to attend events in Portland. I happened to catch Hogen as he prepared to head into town and mentioned what I'd realized about practice. That what I'd first written him was wrong because I still cared about the stains if I was hoping practice would clean them. I told him that the whole point is for me to not care about the stains anymore.

He smiled at me, nodded and commented that the real point is that when I no longer care about the stains then the cup will clean itself.

I had to laugh to myself as he walked off, considering the aspiration to become self-cleaning pottery.

All that and a haiku for late winter!

Late winter sunshine
Inspires flowers to burst forth.
"Spring comes!" they assert.

When my Critic is Quiet

2010-02-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

This weekend's retreat was unsurprisingly powerful and emotional. I felt very strongly supported by my Portland friends, something CK helped to remind me of by prompting some friends to send me very positive text messages on my way out to Great Vow, and by the Sangha there. Looking back at the weekend I can see the many ways the residents at Great Vow were supporting and helping me through a retreat I came to very reluctantly.

One thing I figured out that was good to learn are the times when my Critic is silent. That critical voice or sensation in my body is so often present that it feels like I am never with out it. However, when a Dharma brother from our Portland program and I agreed to talk about when it isn't there, since the conversation was shorter, he helped me to see two times when I am utterly free from this feeling.

Unsurprisingly cooking was one of those times. When I am engaged in preparing food there is no critical voice. I am merely present to the activity of my hands, the timing of the cooking, and the food I am transforming. When I serve a new dish to someone the voice comes back, but most of the time I'm pretty confident that what I've prepared will be delicious.

I also realized that when I teach yoga there is no Critic. Even if I am anxious or terribly upset right up until the very moment I begin a class, once I start to teach the voice goes away and I am present and alert. When I transmit the Lineage of Yoga there is no space for the Inner Critic. None.

It was good to connect with these two times when I am clear and free of my Inner Critic. Now I'm wondering when else it is gone!

Transforming the Inner Critic

2010-02-05T16:02:00.000-08:00

In a few minutes I'm headed out to Great Vow for the weekend for the Transforming the Inner Critic workshop. People have assumed I've already done this workshop, but the truth is I've avoided it like a plague. I'm really very anxious.

It isn't helped that I made a rather big decision today about my life. It is a positive decision and for the best, but like any big decision it brings up a lot of worry. It really fires up the Inner Critic.

So off to engage my Inner Critic in the safe environs of Great Vow Zen Monastery. I dread crying. I already know I will be. I hate crying in front of people and I feel like I do it all the time at Great Vow if there is any kind of overnight stay involved. My therapist said she thinks I should try and come back having attained some compromise with my Inner Critic where I'm allowed to feel OK when crying.

Have my pictures packed and silly Buddha ATC someone sent me (bling-tastic, hilarious). I have snacks and CK made cookies last night. I even packed up some supplies for making some art myself. Ready as I'll ever be for this retreat.

Art Stretch

2010-01-31T22:27:00.000-08:00

I made a couple of artist trading cards this evening featuring some of the brushwork I was learning at Great Vow earlier this month. I'd been quite taken with the cursive writing of the character for "Ink". Something about it reminded me of the twisty, circuitous route we take on the path of awakening, a "meandering lifeline" as poet David Wagoner writes in his poem "Getting There".

This evening, in a total break from everything else I'd been doing this weekend with the thinking/planning brain, I got out the box of water colors and the cheap brushes. I practiced once on some scrap paper to get the feel of the making the much smaller paper and carefully painted two cards of watercolor paper with the cursive character for "Ink". Since these are for a trade I included some lyrics from a song by the Indigo Girls about crooked lines.

I feel very anxious about these two little pieces. They are so unlike anything I've created yet. To me they seem quite flat compared to the layers and levels I use in my paper collage pieces. CK really liked them and I'm ignoring my Inner Critic who says that CK only likes them because she's biased.

Even though I feel great anxiety about creating, I deeply appreciate the opportunity and support to explore art.

Here's the whole poem by David Wagoner I referenced earlier.

Getting There

You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.
What did you want
To be? You'll remember soon. You feel like tinder
Under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change. The sky is pulsing
Against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.
What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly
Like a dream, that lost traveler's dream
Under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.
You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings.

And while I'm at it, the song I used the lyrics of is 'Closer to Fine'

Closer To Fine

I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

Plays & Poetry

2010-01-30T23:26:00.000-08:00

CK and I went to see a production of Snow Falling on Cedars tonight at the Portland Center Stage courtesy of my haiku. I'd written about it earlier, when I'd found out about winning their contest on Twitter for the best winter themed haiku, but tonight we actually went. The production was really very good, very well staged and acted. We left with an intention to see more performances there.

CK said she is all for my continuing to win contests with writing. This may actually be the first time my writing has yielded something quite like this and it feels special. Since it is Ango, since I'm being mindful appreciating my life, I'm am careful to note the way part of me wants to pull away from really feeling the accomplishment, the desire to minimize, draw attention away from the accomplishment.

"It is just a little bit of haiku."

They were very good tickets. We enjoyed ourselves very much. I'm just going to leave it at that and appreciate the evening and how my writing provided it.

The Body That Practices

2010-01-29T23:08:00.000-08:00

I finally brought my notes together into a rough draft of the workshop on Metta Yoga, "Union with Loving-Kindness". I've been thinking about this for so long and tonight a question from a Dharma Sister wondering if I'd set a date in a few weeks reminded me I needed to not loose focus. I'd brought up to Hogen that I was deeply committed to teaching this workshop, that I see it is so necessary to cultivate love and compassion for the body that practices.

Once I started writing down times and what practice went where I was surprised at how quickly I brought it together. A morning introducing Metta practice before moving into Asana to warm the body and open the hips before resting. Sharing lunch, including some time to just eat, perhaps even 10 minutes of silent eating before people talk. Then gather people back together for discussion about the body, how we view it, how we compare it, and how we stop that cycle in favor of cultivating gratitude and compassion for it. Deep focus on Pranayama after discussion before moving into another hour of Asana practice to open the heart and focus the mind. Time to practice Metta during meditation and then ending in full Savasana.

There it was, a full day of yoga built around Loving-Kindness practice, cultivating love for our body. A part of me feels like a big fake. I have a lot of days where I rush to put my clothes on, even more disappointed with my body after weight loss than I was when I weighed 290 pounds! I certainly have times when I feel entirely unqualified to teach anything and no one wants to hear about my experiences.

And then I'm brought back to center. I become present to my body, that which supports me even on days like today when I don't feel very good. I've become better at recognizing when I need to rely upon the loving support and encouragement from CK, my friends, my Dharma family, and even my Mom. These people are all my Sangha, the good company of people seeking the Way. Like falling backwards into the thousand arms of Avalokiteśvara, I let myself feel the support of all of those hands of my Sangha and through that find belief in the truth they see in me in those moments I am unable to see it myself.

I am grateful for the belief of my Sangha and for my body which supports my practice, the Sagha of me.

Ango Appreciation Art

2010-01-28T21:43:00.000-08:00

A friend from my Zen community has decided that for Ango he will collect stones, two per day picked up as he goes about his routine, and use them to make a small stupa in his meditation space. It coincides with an art project he's doing to create a piece that is built over 14 weeks and for his is a wonderful combination of his spiritual and creative practices.

I immediately was inspired to consider an Ango art project for myself. I went back to my vows and my teacher's direction to appreciate my life. How could I incorporate this into an art project? This thing that I get stuck on, spinning around the things like about my life and trying to ignore the things that hurt. The "I appreciate everything but THAT" rut.

Each day of Ango, starting with today, I will write or otherwise express something I appreciate about my life onto a piece of paper. It could be one word, it could be a collage. I am considering making a sort of assemblage mobile with them, FL even commented upon how interesting it would be to watch the piece move and shift. Maybe I can use them all assembled in one large collage.

Tonight I'm going with what I'm most appreciating right this moment - my warm, cozy, cheerful home I share with CK and the cats. She is typing on her computer, the cats are being goofy, the heat came on a moment ago. How can I not appreciate this life?

A haiku for tonight's piece of paper (a piece out a gift of paper from a Dharma sister):

Cozy, sacred home.
Alive with Love, cats, color.
I know gratitude.

Appreciate Your Life

2010-01-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

Ango starts up this week and I'm entering it with four commitments.

I vow to appreciate my life.
I vow to sit twice a day.
I vow to incorporate bowing practice into each day, at least 9 bows.
I vow to be gentle with myself.

That first one is a biggie and a repeat addition to the list. It is what Hogen gave me two years ago and I'm still milling about this one. I came up again at Great Vow on Sunday during Sanzen with Hogen.

How do I work with the shame I suddenly see so clearly after all that acupuncture. Horrible gripping stuff. Feeling like the abuse I experienced was my fault. Particularly the sexual abuse, all of the times that happened in my lifetime.

The answer I got was to continue to do Metta practice for myself. Hogen was glad I've returned to his suggestion to do this practice while facing a mirror, looking at myself. I find it far easier to stay with this practice for myself now and am finding that watching myself in the mirror isn't as panic inducing as it once was.

The rest of the answer was to appreciate my whole life. To be mindful of the present moment and appreciate it fully. Appreciate the whole of my life. Yes, the abuse happened but I lived and thrived in spite of it. I watched the disordered ways around me and without support chose peace health. It shaped me into the person I am now, the person CK loves, the person who teaches others yoga, and is passionate about cultivating more Love in this world.

It may have been awful. The grief and anger will always be a part of me. I'll always have times when my memories are triggered and a flood of fear, pain and shame will rush in. When it happens I just need to hang on, breathe and not shove it away. I need to acknowledge that it is reasonable for those emotions to arise and to comfort them. It is way easier said than done.

All of it serves to make me very present and compassionate when another person tells me that they too were abused as a child. I can offer sympathy, reassurance and humor when someone tells me that they had an emotional breakdown, after all that happens to me several times a year. It softens my heart and opens my ears to the cries of the world so that I may offer my compassion outward.

Aside from all those really big, grand statements I have been taking time to stop and just really feel how much I appreciate the life I have now. When I'm not feeling overwhelmed by the shame and fear I am very mindful of the amazing happiness I feel. Just working, studying yoga, making meals and sitting zazen surrounded by insistent cats - it is a wonderful life.

Gratitude

2010-01-21T23:35:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty rich day. On one hand it was somewhat frazzled feeling. It also had these amazing moments in them to remind me to be grateful for and appreciate my life.

This morning I received deep reminder about how grateful I am for my ability to make wise, compassionate choices in my life, particularly in choosing to be vegan. The world is full of people who have very few choices, particularly about what food they it. If they eat. Those people are as far away as the other side of the world and as near as your neighborhood.

I dished up a very nice salad, made from vegetables donated by local markets, for people at Blanchet House, a shelter downtown. This is the second time my team at work has done this, volunteering to help serve meals at lunch, and I was struck again at my good fortune.

I am in my own home, in good health, employed, share my life with a loving partner, have sufficient income to pay my bills, travel, and choose what I want to eat. This connection today to people who are depending upon benefits for food and find that they run out of what they do get too quickly, or people who are homeless - people for whom these meals are a lifeline, they get what is served to everyone. Like oryoki, the people there might not choose to eat all that is served, but everyone is served the same food.

Several times throughout the day, especially when back at my desk eating my meal of steamed broccoli, grilled tofu, steamed buns & salad, how grateful I am. How precious it is to choose what to eat. It feels to me that it is so very precious a gift that it cannot be squandered on food that comes from the suffering of other sentient beings.

Cooking miso, udon soup for us for dinner was a joy. Making food often is joyful or grounding, or both. It is very meditative for me and tonight it was such a gift. To touch the vegetables, the pots and pans, appreciate the aroma of the dashi I'd made last night and the rich tang of the locally crafted miso. Again, so precious to choose compassionately.

Later at the Dharma center I had the chance to connect with someone about sesshin practice, painful childhoods, and Zen. Another chance for me to openly talk about being hurt and thriving in spite of it. I also acknowledged the tremendously painful parts of my sesshin last April. I was open and honest about these things and once again, to my surprise, I didn't explode. In fact there was connection and more gratitude. Positive reinforcement that telling is good.

And will all that gratitude I am off to a retreat this weekend with all-around amazing Zen scholar, artist, and translator, Kaz Tanahashi. My first event at Great Vow where speaking will be allowed and there will be art! Lessons in Zen calligraphy for the next three days. Another precious gift in my life.

Mom's Pastor, Marriage Rights, and I

2010-01-19T21:17:00.000-08:00

Mom was in and now back out of the hospital again over the weekend. Has made for some rather up & down energy for me. I reminded myself, as Hogen has so often reminded me, that at least this is a stress I'm rather adept at dealing with. Mom's been sick that majority of my life. I've been to so many doctor's appointments and into so many hospitals over the years. It never is comfortable, but the knot of anxiety in my throat is familiar, known.

Sunday night we went up to visit her after having been out at Great Vow all day for service, a Jukai ceremony, lunch, and CK met with DT. It was a very long day and we were a bit tired up at the hospital. Mom's pastor and his wife showed up to visit her. I am uncomfortable around him, perhaps even more so these days. He represents a stress that is more new, but it brings up old, familiar pain.

During Mom's wedding ceremony a few years ago her pastor made a point to include his opinion on marriage. As we all stood there, I was Mom's maid of honor, her pastor went on about the importance of marriage being between a man and a woman. It brought pain to the entire day for me.

Right now with the trail of Proposition 8 in California I feel even more sensitive to this issue. Sitting there on Sunday with the person I love, but am constitutionally barred from marrying, I was aware of anger and dislike arising. These stress emotions take me right back to childhood feelings of not fitting in, not being wanted. Old stress, new triggers.

When I am around this man I try to stay polite, not giving rise to the anger I feel around this man, just watching it inside of me. I also try to focus on the compassion and concern he shows my Mom. In some ways it is more confounding and painful that this compassionate, loving person is so wrapped up in his own fear and judgment that he vehemently denies CK and I the right to the same benefits he enjoys.

I don't linger too long in my Mom's decision to stay with this congregation despite knowing how they feel about me and my partner. I know she's made a point to tell many people, including the pastor, that they are being narrow-minded, yet still some hurt arises for me that she continues to share spiritual practice with these people. I can feel the angry hurt of a child who feels abandoned, betrayed arise in this.

These feelings make this one of those times when I recognize that the most important thing I can do is Metta practice, to offer loving-kindness to myself and to CK. If all I can do is be polite to him and mindful of the need to offer love to the hurt I feel, then that is OK. When it doesn't hurt quite as keenly I can even try to offer him loving-kindness in hopes that if he is freed from his fear he won't feel the need to judge and deny couples like CK & I.

And 2010 Is Off!

2010-01-12T21:54:00.000-08:00

It has been a very busy several days. I've been working on a few more cards (ATCs) and will post pictures soon. I realize a recap is going to make me feel tired...

Last Friday my leg tattoo was finished in 2.5 hours of intensity. It still aches and throbs a bit today. I did yoga at home and it felt alright, kneeling down or being in child's pose is still pretty uncomfortable and I won't be doing meditation using my kneeling bench anytime soon! It is beautiful, striking, and impressive. And I can't wait until summer!

On Friday Mom was moved into the regular cardiovascular unit and out of the ICU. What a relief! She was doing much better by the time we got there after having a bite to eat. We stayed and talked for a while then came home to get some rest.

Saturday CK was up very early to help our Zen community set up the 12-Hour Chant for Peace event we were organizing! She suggested that I sleep in to get some rest after the body-stress of the tattoo. This also meant I could bring goodies from Sweetpea Baking Company when I came later in the morning!

It was a very powerful event. Chanting, walking & chanting, and the space of being with community in the room where AM had set up snacks and chili to sustain every one's practice. I got to chant in Latin, which reminded of how much I love chanting in Latin!

In the midst of this amazing space of compassion, peace, love and community I got the news that Mom was discharged from the hospital! They really felt she had been so sick (Norovirus) on the cruise last month that she hadn't been able to keep enough of her heart medications in her. This caused her congestive heart failure to flare up very badly, but it was quickly brought back under control.

I stayed and chanted more after this news. It was just such a good space to have that news and just be able to be grateful for my Mom. I spend so much time having to really be mindful and practice when I'm with her, not to mention be aware of my painful, conflicted emotions at times. What a double-relief to just be present to happiness that she could go home.

Sunday CK went back to Sweetpea Baking Company for a waffle-tastic brunch. Back at the house she worked and I worked on the art projects. In the afternoon we met with a handful of friends in the Portland technology community and got the Open Source Bridge conference rolling for 2010. 3 hours later and we've got things off to a start. I feel pretty excited to get to be a part of this.

Dinner, laundry, zazen and talking to Mom. We had an interesting encounter with a woman at New Season's while picking up a couple of things after the meeting, but that actually deserves a separate post. Suddenly it was time for bed, the weekend had flown by.

Monday I took the car in for general maintenance and worked on some on-g0ing projects. We have an upgrade going in the beginning on next month so I have additional meetings to discuss release plans and things like that. Some other rather interesting things happened too, but they need time to percolate before I write about them.

Suddenly it is Tuesday night. It felt good doing yoga at home tonight. Sun salutations, some core muscle strengtheners, and some twists. Felts some shifts while doing it and since. I made a marvelous bean and winter veggie stew tonight. Once again in a massive amount. I must have been a tenzo in a former life!

Mom

2010-01-07T22:47:00.001-08:00

My Mom is in the hospital again. The Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, or CVICU, to be exact. Her congestive heart failure is acting up again, she's gained nearly 20 pounds of fluid in 10 days, she's been having chest pains, they're checking to see if she's had a mild heart attack, and they may be doing an angiogram tomorrow or Saturday.

For close to three-quarters of my life I've lived with the fear of her death. Cancer, repeatedly, diabetes, pneumonia, and heart problems. On my maternal side most of the women have had heart problems. That I've avoided them speaks strongly to how much of that risk is lifestyle.

It was an upsetting call. The shock of her being in the hospital is not the hard part anymore. As I was trying to talk to her they were attempting to do a blood draw from her hand. After many rounds of chemotherapy and IVs my Mom's veins are pretty shot. Combined with her arthritis and fibromyalgia it means that the blood draw, which apparently entirely missed the vein the first attempt, was very painful. Hearing my Mom crying out in pain left me feeling like a small, helpless child.

Once again we weren't at zazen, instead we had Vietnamese food and went up to the hospital. We sat and chatted with her until nearly 10pm and she seemed very relieved & pleased we had come. He husband wasn't there tonight, something that prompted a long discussion between CK and I about how we would handle things if one of us were in the hospital.

I'm struck by my Mom's unhappiness and unhealthiness. I cannot recall my Mom being content, being happy. Maybe moments, but the discontent is always close at hand. I find it terribly sad sitting with her now, seeing how unhappy she's been her whole life.

I hope she improves. I hope in some way I can do my part to maintain this relationship we have. In the short run - I hope we can take her to the beach for the weekend in March for her birthday. Maybe it will be another small pocket of happiness and contentment for her.

Holding

2010-01-06T21:51:00.000-08:00

I've attended several yoga classes in the past few weeks, about two a week. It has been a real dive back into this level of effort as the classes are much more intermediate than the ones I'd been teaching at Dishman and they push me more than I'll push myself at home usually. Tonight's really wore me out, but I didn't feel any of the nausea I used to.

The acupuncture has really shook things up, out, and shifted things around. The chronic trigger points in my hips are gone. If they get triggered again, I know I can make an appointment with JS and get that energy out of there! I am still weak in that area, but pushing into that weakness doesn't cause me intense pain.

What I'm aware of now, after IW worked on me at the end of last month, was the tightness in my side. I think of myself as very open, very flexible in my side body and able to breathe very deeply. And yet this are is tight, bound up.

I hold my breath a lot. Yoga has really made we aware of it, as has meditation. When I'm anxious, I hold my breath. Angry, hold the breath. About to cry, very tightly held in breath. I learned this as a child as a method of sometimes holding in emotions that would get me punished or out of some wish to become invisible. What kind of yucky energy is caught there in that holding of the breath?!

I saw the pain the hips as being a black/gray sludgy, thick energy that sat over searing hot, orange and red energy. Bringing awareness to my sides I can sense some of that sludgy stuff there too. Less than the hips, but similar.

The horrible shame that arises I'm realizing is that dangerous, terrifying, burning angry energy below the sludge. Not entirely sure how to work with it yet. I'm trying the practice of loving-kindness while looking at myself in the mirror. I've also started visualizing myself as a young child, sitting closely and lovingly with that child-me, and telling her over and over that she is not to blame, that she doesn't need to carry that shame anymore.

Might just about be time for sanzen again. I felt so overloaded by the sesshin last year that I haven't really gone. Just seemed like I had so much to work with in my practice that I really didn't need, didn't feel I could handle any more input. I also find it really hard to go out on Sunday night. Not teaching Sundays means I'm going to devote at least one Sunday a month to attending service at Great Vow and having sanzen.

As a Result of Poety

2010-01-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

I really thought I'd written about haiku, learning the form. It is a cherished memory and activity from the year I was nine. Generally that year was one traumatic event after another, but I also was taught the form of haiku that year. It is a form of poetry I've returned to over and over in my life, although I really moved away from in during my twenties. When I started practicing yoga and zen I noticed that haiku just started to appear in my mind.

And that brings me to this past Friday. My love of haiku has borne fruit, as it were. I am being given a pair of tickets to see the production of 'Snow Falling on Cedars' at Portland Center Stage as a prize for a winter haiku I wrote! They sponsored a concert on Twitter for the best winter-themed haiku, or "snowku" and I submitted this:

Bare branches rattle.
Evergreens shiver and sway.
Winter's breath blows cold.

On Friday they posted a message that I'd won. What a delightful surprise to see appear on my computer screen while working! CK & I'll be going on the 30th and are very much looking forward to it.

I'm trying to take this into my practice too. Ango is approaching and I'm given the gift of a chance to remember the focus Hogen gave me during my first Ango: Appreciate my accomplishments.

I discount my writing a lot while at the same time am anxiously attached to it. I minimize my poetry. I even diminish the accomplishment of having my writing appear in ZCO's publication, Ink on the Cat.

"After all, they're your Sangha, they have to act like they like your writing." says my Inner Critic.

This little surprise of winning these tickets is pretty hard for even my Inner Critic to diminish. I mean someone in the "real world" liked something I wrote. Gosh.

Hah! Take that, Inner Critic!

In Kilauea Iki Crater on the Big Island in August 2009

Once in a Lifetime

2010-01-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

Seems kinda surreal still. 2010.

Where is my flying car! Where's the aliens? Where's my house in the clouds?

Well? How did I get here?

But wait for it....

This is my beautiful life.

This moment, with my headache, tired eyes and CK cursing loudly & creatively in her office downstairs. Every aching, cat fur covered, damp, rainy, cranky bit of this moment is the Pure Lotus Land.

I wrote a note to Hogen several weeks ago in which I talked about Practice being this means to clean up the metaphorical dirty cups of my life. But it has occurred to me in the recent downtime I've been experiencing that I'm just trying to find a way to tidy my life up. Once again, I'm trying to DO something, in this case Zen practice, hard enough to make the icky bits disappear.

The whole point of the Rumi poem is that the dirty cup does not, should not matter! The cup is just the thing that holds the wine. It is the wine, it is that essence that is important. I need to quit staring through all these pure, wondrous moments in order to focus on the smudges at the bottom of the cup!

As for the rest of my day?

I've resumed looking at myself in a mirror during zazen and pointedly doing loving-kindness practice for myself. This is something Hogen suggested in Sanzen ages ago, but it really kind of upset me when I first tried it so I set it aside. It feels like the right time to try this again. This afternoon my zazen helped my headache enough to not need ibuprofen. Tonight the Too-Big-Fridge was bought by a very grateful family. I can pay off the Home Depot account entirely and am relieved of the financial tightness around finishing my tattoo and going to Kaz's workshop this month.

I finished a new draft of the article for Chozen this evening.

2009 in Review

2010-01-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

Looking back at 2008

As the year drew to a close I was in a strange state of limbo. My husband of 7 years asked for a divorce a few weeks before our 7th wedding anniversary. By the end of the year I was staying a good part of each week at CK's small studio while AM and I sorted out the end of our married life.

January

Began the new year at the Dharma center with my Zen community. CK and I enjoyed a potluck dinner, the simple & sacred circle dancing Chozen teaches, and a long evening of fusatsu (a ceremony of renewing vows and repentance) & zazen. It was good to begin a very new stage in my life this way, although it made for a very tiring night. I recall by the end being very cold, very tired and worried about the cats.

CK and I then headed down to Eugene for a mini-vacation. We stayed at a lovely bed & breakfast, visited the U of O campus, had some ridiculous vegan pastries, tolerable Thai (the drinks were better than the food), enjoyed the ability to hangout at a popular local pub. We really enjoyed the museums on the campus, art & cultural/natural history, and I really loved getting to make purchases from the Art-o-Mat.

February

The big deal in Portland in February was our Mayor, Sam Adams, having to fess up to having had a relationship with a 17 year old. It was disappointing on so many levels. I felt pretty angry that yet another man had decided to become a statistic for unethical behavior, for thinking with his hormones instead of his mind. Regardless of my deep disappointment in him, I did not support the strident calls for him to be removed from office. As ugly as the facts are, they amounted to kissing and lying about it and I didn't feel it was worth the energy or expense to remove Sam from office. After all, many public figures have done the same and survived and will do so in the future, I'm sad to say. I also felt that some of the intensity of calls for his removal were because Sam is gay.

CK and I felt so strongly that we attended a boisterous, chilly rally in support of Sam staying on as mayor. It was very interesting to recognize my anger and my support, how these two conflicting things could exist side by side. The evening had an unexpected highlight - CK was able to meet Dan Savage and let him know how much she appreciated his work.

March

AM and I finally got our paperwork filed for the dissolution of our marriage. It was simple, easy and painful. There were no questions asked, no hitches, and with much less effort than it took to have the wedding, our divorce was in process. I began to push AM towards getting his own place more, wanting more than anything to be settled in the house I'd purchased.

My Zen community started a poetry challenge, 30 Poems in 30 Days, and for most of the month I wrote a new poem each day. I also finally completed my second round of yoga teacher training, over 230 hours. It was incredibly stressful getting to that point and the sudden freeing up of my time combined with the impending finalization of the divorce felt destabilizing.

April

Within days of AM finally moving out, although it would be weeks of getting his stuff out of the house, CK began the process of moving in. Amidst boxes, unsettled cats & humans, and with CK fighting bronchitis I left for Great Vow for a week; finally sesshin practice. I'd avoided it for so long and finally I had to begin this essential part of Zen practice; days long silent retreat. I still haven't written a lot about this retreat, around the theme of Loving-Kindness. It was deeply, deeply painful, but worth it.

May

CK and I continued to work on the house, settling in and making it feel like our home. We continued to sort through junk, AM's belongings, and start to address the neglected yard. Our first house guest arrived for the Memorial Day weekend and we enjoyed showing of Portland as well as a day trip out to the coast and another to Hood River.

June

June started out with a terribly painful decision - the end of Atari-the-Wonder-Cat's increasingly unhealthy, unhappy, troubled life. I felt largely ineffectual as CK struggled to make the right decision about his life. In the end we both know it was the right decision, but it was very painful.

We had the opportunity to get tattoos at Scapegoat Tattoo as part of a fundraiser for the Let Live Foundation. CK choose to get an old school style flash heart to memorialize Atari and to signify her commitment to veganism. I got a carrot in honor of my own commitment to veganism.

I helped out at the Open Source Bridge conference, largely doing whatever CK needed me to do and making sure she was taking care of herself as she did the hard work of coordinating all of the volunteers. I presented a small yoga class, a kind of "yoga for geeks" mini-workshop, and was surprised by the large number of people who came (lots more men than I expected too).

John Labovitz took this great photograph of me at Open Source Bridge.

Later in the month I surprised CK with rather good tickets to see Rent. She knows all of the music by heart and had never seen the stage production. We went on her birthday, had some great drinks, and really enjoyed ourselves immensely. This was also the first time for me to see a Broadway production.

CK and I went down to Sacramento at the end of June and visited with her family. I find her family pretty intense when they're all together, so the trip was something of a struggle for me. There were some very good moments to it and some painful ones. While we were there we spent part of one day at the campus in Davis, revisiting her college memories.

July

July was spent working on our garden and getting ready for a big trip for my big birthday. I also found out that a dear friend from college had cancer. In addition to the worry about JAN I spent a lot of time reflecting on the ways my Mom's bouts with cancer and illness affected my childhood. July also saw a lot of continued processing of the sesshin in April.

We also really enjoyed a day trip out to Sauvie Island to pick berries and getting to see Son Volt and Cowboy Junkies at the Aladdin Theater - what an amazing show!

August

This was one of our busiest months for the whole year! Looking back on it I'm amazed at just how much stuff we packed into one month! We had an awesome day trip to Ecola Beach with friends, checked out cool stuff at the Letterpress Printers' Faire, had fun at the Jizo Bon at Great Vow, I attended my second sesshin (Grasses, Trees & the Great Earth), we went to Vegan Prom, and the biggest trip ever (for me) - a week on the Big Island of Hawaii for my 40th birthday!

September

We settled back into our routine in September. Worked on the hugely overgrown garden and said goodbye to our good friend, and favorite house-sitter, SO as he'd decided to move back to Missouri. The big change in September was welcoming two kittens into our home. A Sangha friend fosters cats & kittens for the Humane Society and we fell in love with two of them. They stayed with JSS until we returned home from Hawaii and were ready for them.

Puck (stripey one) and Oberon (tuxedo & tabby) settled into the house pretty quickly. Zonker fell in love. It would appear he's been waiting his whole life for kittens. Phoebe took a little more time to warm up to them, but now plays with both kittens.

October

This month CK started a new job and attended the Beginner's Mind retreat while I stayed in Portland and went to the vegan Fakin' Fest. Soon after two of her brothers, Mom & step-dad all came up to attend the Precepts and Jukai ceremony. I was given the Dharma name "Konin" by my teachers and formally became a Zen Buddhist. CK took the first 5 Buddhist precepts as well. It felt very good to share that ceremony with her, making those vows together.

We also managed to squeeze in seeing the Monsters of Folk (truly awesome concert) and a fun day trip out to Hood River with friends for getting apples, pumpkins and lunch at the Full Sail Brewery. We celebrated Halloween by inviting friends over and handing out piles of candy & toys to the neighborhood kids.

November

I began an intensive of 5 weeks of acupuncture this month. It has helped the chronic pain in my left hip tremendously, but it also brought up a lot of emotional pain. I was also diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency and began taking very large, prescribed doses of it. We stayed home for Thanksgiving weekend, going out to Great Vow for the sangha holiday party.

I also started a large tattoo on my lower right leg.

December

The last month wrapped up with a presentation of a sangha photography project I took part of, Hero with a Thousand Faces. It was very interesting to see the photographs taken by community members as part of a project to honor Daido Loori's life.

December saw the end of my teaching at Dishman Community Center. After over 4 years of teaching yoga there, it is time to move on. I taught my last class on December 20th and it was a bittersweet moment for me. I do not have any classes to teach lined up and am instead resting. I'm also working on an outline for a full-day workshop that will cover asana (postures), pranayama (breathwork), meditation, writing & discussion all around the theme of Loving-Kindness of our bodies & selves; Metta Yoga.

We decided after much discussion to stay home for Christmas, not visiting CK's family in Sacramento. It was a very difficult decision, but I loved getting to spend this time at home together. It felt very good to put up some simple decorations, enjoy making cookies for our friends & family, and exchange gifts.

The cats also seemed to really enjoy having us around so much as well as having fun with their Christmas gifts. (Phoebe in front, Oberon, & Zonker)

We did very little for our week off together. I finished several small art projects and posted pictures.

We went to yoga classes, made food together, and enjoyed an unexpected snow storm.

We also spent New Year's Eve at home, quietly enjoying the last of 2009 together. CK made some cocoa mochi (yum) and I made several dishes inspired by traditional Japanese New Year's dishes, osechi ryori (I'm seen here figuring out what to do with the burdock root).

Looking forward to 2010

I'll be having my leg tattoo finished in January. I hope to attend a weekend workshop/retreat with Kaz Tanahashi in January as well. We hope to attend more concerts this year and make a few more small, weekend trips to places like Seattle, San Francisco, the Coast, and Central Oregon. I look forward to writing even more recipes and about my practice. I'll finish writing about my weight loss for Chozen.

Decorating the House

2009-12-21T21:53:00.000-08:00

We decorated the house a little bit tonight. CK hung stockings for each of us and the four cats up on the mantle. We strung the dizzying LED lights on the small, living Norfolk pine we purchased at Home Depot (about 3 feet, w/pot) and hung a few ornaments (origami cranes and a few owls made out of mosses & bark). I put out a couple of snowmen and filled a strange, green glass bowl (from my childhood, I kept it when my Mom got rid of it when downsizing) with the bright, polka-dot patterned crackers I picked up at Finnegan's last week. The candy canes have been put into an old A&W glass, also from my childhood. There is a poinsettia on either side of the fireplace, above the built ins (so far I'm keeping them looking fairly nice).

It really looks beautiful. I can't wait to get the quilted wall hanging we purchased in Hawaii up. The colors are all so bright in here now and the whole space leaves me feeling happy. All the changes we've made to have it feel like our home have really been so cheering and lovely. I look forward to working on things in the house with her.

I wrapped a few things before she came home from work. She immediately started to worry she hasn't enough presents for me. I then immediately started to worry that I've over-indulged. Maybe I have a little, but this year feels so special that it has been hard to resist things I see. I've barely bought anything for anyone else. Even today I found myself nearly ordering something for her (I might yet still, but maybe will save for later).

We have wood to make a fire, we're thinking certainly Christmas Eve. A nice dinner, I'm considering making lasagna, some drinks and a fire sound pretty heavenly. I have this incredible shopping-madness to buy a festive tablecloth. I am just so looking forward to this holiday time with her, the simplicity and relative quietness of it seem so precious and wonderful.

...and then I went to bed, settled down next to CK to read some of the novel I started and we were startled by the crash the tree made coming off of the shelf it sits on, in front of our living room window. The kittens have left it alone until now. The dangling ornaments were just too much.

We took all the ornaments off, put as much dirt back into the pot as possible and CK vacuumed up the rest. Hopefully the lights will be insufficient temptation to climbing into the tree again. They appear to have eaten an origami crane.

Catch Up, Cookies & Teamwork

2009-12-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

My posts have been pretty heavy lately, the acupuncture has really kicked a lot of things around for me. The latest round, although very emotional, has once again really loosened the left hip up. It still has some lingering tenderness and tightness, but it was markedly improved by Wednesday morning (even if my emotions still felt brittle).

Wednesday saw me helping a friend out after day-stay surgery on both knees. Thursday saw me at zazen. The first time just sitting in the Sangha for a long time. No list to bring, keep track of and no chanting. It felt good to just bow with the whole community, to just sit as part of the whole body. Friday we spent the evening at a friend's place playing games & having dinner. I made a first try at a Moroccan inspired spaghetti squash dish, which was good but I want to work with it more.

We've had a lot of time at home this weekend and have spent much of it in a flurry of cooking and home repairs (new trap for the basement sink drain). Saturday we spent hours baking together in the kitchen. It stuck us both again and again how well and easily we work together. As we've had more opportunity this year to experience working together on things the easy teamwork between us has just grown more easy & comfortable.

We also hung up some lights on our porch this weekend, which are lovely and bright. After the past few weeks it has been grounding to do these chores around the house. We were going to bake more this evening, but I'm just wiped out. I find that I am not really looking forward to the upcoming week at work. It is really challenging to focus at all on projects when there's a great deal of uncertainty around them even being ever finished.

Clear and Present Anger

2009-12-09T20:56:00.001-08:00

Had an interesting discussion with my therapist today about JS's comments about the energy of anger in Chinese medicine. She felt it made a lot of sense for this to be stuck for me. My entire life has been a long series of not having the space to set boundaries. As a child my ability to set them was either denied or taken from me if I tried. As an adult I've experienced having people, partners even, disrespect or undermine the boundaries I would try to set.

The result has always been to over compensate. Just function higher, do more, try harder and pick up the slack. Always.

Oh, and when I fail? Self-direct that anger for a perceived inability to always pick up the slack when other people break down those boundaries. Why, yes, that does mean that I beat myself up for failing to be perfect.

She felt that if I could learn to set those firm, clear boundaries around my needs that it would heal the body that responds in muscle spasms to the energy of the anger being stuck, denied. Even more importantly it would heal the awful shame that arises any time I engage my sense of vulnerability around expressing my needs. That I need to address this in the present to heal the old pain.

This seems more attainable. I've been spinning around this idea, fed in part by the writing about trauma recovery, that I've needed to get in touch with the anger I feel about the abuse. I know I do, it does make me angry and I'm really alright with it. I think this is one of those times it is OK to look at a situation and say the anger is reasonable. I've even met the rage of the child I was at 13 while in sesshin (it was deeply unsettling).

But do I feel some need to throw cups and break them? Maybe a little, only in my mind. The thought of standing out in my yard shattering pottery seems kind of silly and excessive. It is a good metaphor - break the dirty cups of my life I have such a hard time not minding. In practice though, I don't really connect to it. Perhaps because in practice I have this vow I made to not give rise to anger, but to seek the source.

When I do engage the feelings and thoughts around the anger at the abuse I feel grief. When I seek the headwaters of it, so to speak. I feel the intense hurt of an injured child and young woman. At times these things have themselves felt terrifying and overwhelming.

Even at those times when I am in direct painful contact with memories of trauma I don't feel the need to scream and throw things. These times are where I come into contact with grief again and I acknowledge that the anger is reasonable. The anger is just there, with the memory. There are memories that I know will always carry anger around them, but it is old and I don't honestly feel the need to let it come rushing back through me in the now. I just want to get it out of my left leg and hip.

GM said she's always felt that this is a more positive thing anyway, that I don't feel some intense need to express the anger beyond acknowledging that it is there. As painful and overwhelming as it gets sometimes it is expressing the emotions that fuel the anger anyway. If I was still stuck in a rage it would mean I wasn't accessing the grief causing it. She felt there isn't really any need to spend time on trying to express the past, other than to keep present to the hurt that arises and greet it compassionately.

This anger energy in the present, that is something to learn. How to use the energy of bamboo shooting up through cold, dark earth to burst forth into green life in the spring. That is the energy of boundary setting.

Loose Ends

2009-12-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

I taught my last Tuesday class at Dishman tonight. I was a little sad before heading out, but felt OK once I got teaching. Which is usual.

I was surprised to end up teaching a more vigorous class including some sun salutations to warm everyone up since it has been so cold (for Portland standards). The requested hip & leg openers got right into some of the "crunchy" congested energy of my hips. The left one doesn't hurt as badly after all the acupuncture earlier today.

It was another long session focusing on detoxifying the meridians. More of the heart-protector again. Some discussion about the energy being caught in the muscles being anger. Not the kind of overblown rage that we often think of as anger, but the energy that arises to set a firm boundary. Something that was denied or taken from me growing up.

In five element acupuncture anger also represents the energy of spring that causes buds to open. It is the energy of rebirth and creativity. It is represented by wood. This is the block that stands out most dramatically.

The needles went into the surface of the back, the tender points between the shoulders, and tears came and stayed for a while. Not hard, just constant. It was a long session, sitting for only 10 minutes before lying on my side, wrapped in blankets except for the bare back for the needles and feeling the energy zoom around.

After teaching a delicious potato & broccoli soup for dinner made by CK while I was teaching. She's been working while I've been finishing up a couple of small art pieces. All the energy drained out of me about 90 minutes ago and I'm hoping I'll sleep better tonight.

Congested Engergy

2009-12-07T16:23:00.000-08:00

And how am I...

In the past several days I've been diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency, my levels are pretty low. This is actually pretty serious and can affect a person in several ways. It is the leading culprit for my fatigue, not the chronic pain that I've blamed (on the advice of my physician). The new acupuncturist, JS, is the one who guessed it on the basis of my saying how markedly better I felt in Hawaii.

Am taking a pretty enormous dose of D right now. In 12 weeks they'll test again and see if I'm any where near "normal" levels. Apparently it is fairly common in Portland to be low on it. I guess there's been a lot more attention on it recently and more doctors are testing for it now.

Still having a lot of acupuncture done. Another session focused on detoxing the body, again the heart-protector. Again I suddenly went from feeling absolutely fine, doing zazen with needles in my back, and then I'm suffused with grief and feel a headache & nausea. Not quite as intense as the first time, but pretty significant.

Was doing better and then Thursday the head pounding came back again during our Zen community cohort dinner/meeting. We went home, I went to bed early. Friday through Sunday was down and up, and down again and a shaky even into feeling rather tired today.

Saturday was the big "up" in the middle of the lows of the weekend. We made breakfast together and went for a walk in St. Johns. Coming home we had leftovers and took a nap (more acupuncture causes napping in my life). We watched the first Blue Planet DVD and went to bed early. It was all pretty marvelous until I tried to go to sleep.

Friday and particularly Saturday night into Sunday was a lot of stuff triggered, pretty early pain. Sunday morning it went straight into my left hip and leg, turning into spasm after spasm. The hip pain that for years has been associated with the herniated disc shows up, after being all but gone for two weeks, when I'm seriously emotionally triggered. Can it be any more obvious?

I'm trying to stay focused on how I was able to be present to the pain, the terrifying shame I felt. I retained the ability to talk, to fully, if haltingly, communicate what was going on. I was even able to visualize the way my body felt inside - seeing the pain like lava. This is progress. I didn't shut down completely.

In the middle of the big down, feeling enormously triggered by childhood trauma, I taught yoga. One of those times where I just get out of the way and allow that lineage to teach through me. The class ended up running long and I felt grounded, if unsteady. Coming into a shaky evenness after the storm of emotion and memory.

I worked on small art projects Sunday afternoon, in part alone with the cats. I did no chores. I didn't feel guilty about it.

A picture I took Saturday really resonated with me when I saw it had come out. It was a quick decision to take it, seeing the lines suddenly and clearly.

We were walking back out of the SuperFund site of Willamette Cove.

Cables cut, restoration begun, but toxic areas remain. Native trees reclaim the shoreline.

Willamette Cove

2009-12-06T17:47:00.001-08:00

Yesterday CK and I went to St. Johns to explore Willamette Cove. Our plan was to take on a walk featured in Portland Hill Walks, which we recently picked up at Powell's. The walk was from Willamette Cove to the St. Johns Bridge. We decided to call it after coming out from along the river, we'd spent a lot of extra time walking along the edge of the cove under the railroad bridge. We fully intend to do the full walk sometime soon.

The sun was shining and the wind was pretty mild, since it was in the 40s we were grateful for less wind. The day was clear and bright when we started walking at around 11:45. Very quickly we were able to get some great views of the St. Johns bridge.

We continued through the neighborhood to the Open Meadow High School, in the Benson-Chaney house, and spent some time appreciating the stunning views.

And the Oregon white oaks, which are over a couple of hundred years old and are fantastically limbed and grand in the bright, winter sunlight.

From the top of the bluffs we descended down to Willamette Cove. First we pass the reminder of the designation of this as a SuperFund site. We're headed somewhere beautiful, fragile and hopefully eventually restored.

We walked along the curved edge of land. The guidebook noted the need to appreciate, but not to play in the still contaminated sand and mud here.

The view of the railroad bridge was amazing.

Without question we knew we wanted to continue our way underneath it. Making our way along the old, concrete blocks that line the shore we headed to the railway bridge.

At the bridge we had several exciting moments. First was when the Amtrack Cascade Runner went past. I experienced technical difficulties in trying to take a picture while CK succeeded in getting people to wave at us. Then a fast moving barge and tug made their way underneath the bridge, requiring it to be lifted.

An unfortunate sturgeon in these busy waters; this dead fish had been struck by a propeller.

The extra walk around the bridge rewarded us both with a very interesting and new perspective of Portland.

This detour from the walk in the guide is what lead us to not continue on to Cathedral Park, but we had such an excellent time exploring. It was a marvelous couple of hours on a chilly, December Saturday.

Marking Time

2009-11-23T21:34:00.000-08:00

Several of my tattoos mark a milestone in my life of some sort, mostly age related. My feet I had done when I finished my first round of Yoga Teacher Training and started practicing Zen. 2009 has seen some really big milestones for me. I finished round two of Yoga Teacher Training (an additional 230 hours). I went to two sesshins. I received Jukai and was given a new name. I started turning my steps towards the truth of myself, even though it hurt both me and others. A big year deserves a big tattoo, a big reminder of my accomplishments.

I have such a difficult time recognizing my accomplishments that maybe it takes a rather large tattoo I can look at every day will help me remember that I owe myself some appreciation & congratulations. It will be my touchstone to reality whenever my Inner Critic says I never finish anything I start.

All that in mind, I had a quite large tattoo started today. It is a little over half done after half a day with the artist. I am exhausted. My right leg aches like it has been burned (normal) and the rest of my body aches from the constant tensing to be still on the point of pain. I'm mostly lying around tonight, leg elevated.

There's interesting practice in tattoos. Really, to be done well, it helps that both the receiver and the giver are present to the art and the bodies. The body receiving, the body giving (which also experiences a specific pain of holding stressful positions and constant vibration starting in the hand). The pain keeps the receiver from straying too far from the present moment and a good artist is focused on the art. The noise both giver and receiver share. Even if you put on noise-cancelling headphones you still hear the noise inside your body. On that point, at varying levels of sharp, insistent pain, the two people stay in complete focus.

Here's what my newest tattoo looks like with all the stencils applied to my leg. In some areas the stencils wouldn't fit right, so the Sanskrit is hand drawn in with a Sharpie. Doing just this part took quite a while because there are three large lines of very straight text. These then must be adjusted to taper down the leg (this was done by Bryan already by means of hand drawing and working with the file on their Mac). Oh, and the lines should have the appearance of being "straight" around the leg. Don't forget - the lower leg is full of flat bits, soft bits, curved bits, hollow bits, bits that stick up, etc. It is not an optimal surface for this kind of stuff.

I took some before shots of my bare leg and some "in progress" shots today. Right now it is wrapped up in day-glo pink compression tape, a large bandage around the ankle particularly, and cling film. I'll take a shot in a day or two once the back starts to clear up a little.

The final product is the first three of the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali. Each line will be solid black at the top, fading into blue at the bottom of each line. If you've seen the tattoos on my feet, this work is being done by the same artist.

The Sutras go from 1.1 on the top to 1.2 in the middle and 1.3 around the ankle.

The way I translate these Sutras in my practice:

1.1 - Now begins the practice of Yoga.
1.2 - Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.
1.3 - With the mind settled we rest in the Essential Self

That is the beginning of my practice of both Hatha Yoga and Zen Buddhism. First we begin to practice. Practice is the stilling of all the mind-noise. When we experience the stillness of a quiet mind we experience the essential truth of the self, or of the no-self.

Just Sitting

2009-11-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

Today I got to do zazen with acupuncture needles in my back. Instead of a bell I would wait for JS to come back, see how the meridian points on my back looked. After the first round of 10 minute intervals he noted that I shouldn't strain my back muscles overly sitting upright as I was, but then observed that I was entirely used to sitting upright, still, quiet for long stretches at a time.

And I was fine. Quiet, doing metta practice for myself. Mostly just breathing. Just sitting. It was a rather intense experience being aware of the room, the needles, the sounds. Certainly the most interesting opportunity for zazen I've had in a long time!

Then the fatigue and headache started. JS had said I could carefully lie down on my right side or stomach, but I felt uncertain about movement with the needles still in my back. I've sat in the zendo while feeling downright ghastly at times, just present and waiting until the bell would ring. So I waited for the bell-like response of the door, staying present to the rising fatigue, so like what I'd felt in sesshin in August.

When he checked on me then JS said I should lie down and I agreed. I was settled onto my side and felt myself drifting slightly. Not spacing out, not exactly sleeping, but hazy. More metta, more feeling the breath, feeling the energy tingle and move across my skin. Many, many more minutes as meridians flared even more strongly before eventually settling down entirely. Over 2 hours would pass before I got up.

I'm very shaky tonight, very drained and depleted. JS said that the energy that's getting flushed out of my system by the acupuncture is deeply chaotic. However, he noted that it was the energy that I've been running on, regardless of how unhealthy it is. Getting this energy out, detoxifying my system from it will feel depleting, exhausting. He said I may even feel a bit like I have a hangover.

My doctor ordered lab work for my vitamin D to be checked. Will have to fit that in. No one, including my Mom, seems to know what my blood type is. CK and I are going to make plans to donate at the local Red Cross. It is a good thing to do, I used to actually do it regularly in college & my early 20s, and it is apparently the quickest, cheapest way to learn your blood type! JS is very curious to know the lab results and the blood type, noting there may be some nutritional things to recommend once he knows that.

I stayed home from the Dharma center tonight and CK stayed with me. We picked up take-out from Pho Jasmine and have been watching episodes of Buffy on DVD. The energy cycles go from depleted to drained entirely, I'm trying to keep drinking lots of water and green tea to help my system flush toxins.

Resting

2009-11-18T16:41:00.001-08:00

Last night I felt pretty darn good post acupuncture. This morning I woke up feeling less pain than I expected - I'm quite often sore the morning after a yoga class. I'm not pain-free, but there's definitely been some kind of change. I was feeling pretty hopeful as I went downstairs.

Then something about a mis-communication between CK and I really hit me wrong. I found myself feeling emotionally overwhelmed and unable to really control it. We got it sorted out but I was still just feeling wrecked - emotional, weepy and nauseated. I finally went back upstairs and lay down on the bed.

JS mentioned that acupuncture doesn't stop when I leave. This makes sense because the work that I have done in massage therapy or the craniosacral therapy IW does continues well past the actual appointment. CK came upstairs, rubbed my back a little, reminded me that she wasn't angry at my crying, and that like the muscle spasms I'd had during the acupuncture treatment, that perhaps the weepy, overwhelmed feelings were a kind of emotional "spasm".

I had 5 meetings lined up, mostly back-to-back until 1:30 this afternoon. I went ahead and worked from home. The flood of emotion had left me feeling really depleted and my head was ached. Having an emotional outburst, particularly tears, feels really unsafe for me, particularly if there are other people around. It felt reassuring to stay home since in the event I was overcome with the urge to weep again I wouldn't have an audience.

I felt grateful that the shaky emotional space persisted but didn't turn into crying again. I got through all the meetings and tried to focus the rest of the afternoon. Around 5pm I felt hugely fatigued and lay down. It felt like the same kind of exhausted state I experienced during sesshin in August. I wasn't sure I was truly sleeping, but I felt like I was drifting in and out of dreamless sleep and focused attention. When I felt that attention, felt present, I did metta practice for myself and the rest of the time I just let myself drift into something sleep-like. About an hour of this and I felt more wakeful and not terribly groggy.

For a long time my therapist has told me that she doesn't think I rest enough. I am constantly in motion, constantly working on projects, teaching, and judging myself for not getting enough done. She even has suggested I don't rush to replace my teaching nights in the new year, that I just take some time to really rest. I am not sure I really know how to rest.

It occurs to me that I don't know how to really let go and rest because for the vast majority of my life if I really rested, things would fall apart. Granted that things fall apart all the time in life, but in my experience they would fall apart because the people I depend upon to pick up the slack, to be responsible, would fail to do what they promised. Decades of this taught me that I must always be alert and ready to step in to fix things right away or end up being stuck with the mess anyway.

This is part of the anxiety I feel relaxing into my relationship with CK, why having a responsible partner is on some levels traumatizing. I have no skill for letting go and resting, for trusting that the other person really will pick up the slack and take care of the things that need attention. It may take me quite some time to really be able to trust that I can depend upon it.

Random Poetry Recieved

2009-11-18T15:21:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month I posted a poem I'd written for a little project. A random poem created out of 15 words taken from a book I was reading. I sent that random poem off on postcards to 3 different people. Yesterday I received the last of the 3 poems sent to me an thought I'd post them here - I've tried to keep true to the alignment & spacing that the authors used.

Words taken from How to Make a Journal of Your Life, poem by Beth Bendickson

As photography is
to years discoveries,
tell! Books, pens -
forget machine.
Totally, forcefully,
Completely
be.

Words taken from Spiritual Housekeeping, poem by Judith Alkema

Can you
clutter your honor,
smother your soul,
weary your body,
with all these
half-hearted treasures?
Or is it something else
that you designated
so ultimately important
to your collector's heart
that you can not lt go
and freely as a bird
flies from its nest
let those feathers drift?
Let go.
Let be.
Be.

Words from The Shadow of the Wind, poem by Carol Gibson

an order
all watched
a family remembered
beneath comfortable desk
and papers
room with rows.

Needles

2009-11-17T22:34:00.000-08:00

I had my first visit with an acupuncturist today. It surprises people that I've not tried acupuncture to help with my back pain, but I have had some resistance to it. I think there's some child-part of me that went through so many medical procedures as a child that I just had a hard time looking into this. It is one of the few things I haven't investigated.

I've been having the muscle spasms more frequently and some stuff seems so stuck. So I finally asked IW for a referral. Her connection apparently has got me on the list of an acupuncturist that's difficult to see as he doesn't usually take new clients. My massage therapist even tried to see him once and couldn't get an appointment! JS specializes in a older school/style of acupuncture, Classical Five Element.

He was very quick to put me at ease and we talked about my back pain as well as touched upon some of the assorted trauma I've been through in my life. He was interested to hear about things I've encountered during sesshin practice as well. We also talked about general medical stuff, like medications, supplements, etc.

CK was there for most of the time spent during the actual procedure. As I've been told, the needles (which really reminded me of the cats' whiskers more than a needle) barely hurt at all. The first session I spent a long time with the seven needles in for quite a long time and my body had some interesting reactions. I was really grateful CK was there. Although I didn't feel the same level of anxiety that I get at a lot of physical exams & some dental appointments, it was still comforting to be present to my body's reactions with her nearby.

I left feeling tired and heavy. Not in a lethargic, mired down kind of way. Just the sensation of the weight of my body parts as I tried to move them. I got home, had some leftovers for lunch and took a couple of calls. JS had suggested that I try to nap or rest some today, especially before teaching tonight, but I felt fairly energized. I worked on some art projects for a little while and eventually lay down for a little bit.

Teaching tonight felt pretty good. The heavy feeling had subsided somewhat and the series of twists and warrior poses I did seemed to shake it off. Afterward I went and steamed at the gym, deciding to add to the energy cleansing quality of the acupuncture and the twists, with the chance to warm up to my core and sweat out any toxins. I felt really energized by the time I had a cool shower.

I'm seeing JS again on Thursday then once a week for a few weeks. I'm using some money from savings to cover the appointments. I think it is really worth trying to get at this energy that seems stuck in my body. CK also mentioned to me that I should let her know if I needed some money from her to make things not as tight this month - which brought up the usual mix of anxiety & guilt, but I gently reminded myself that it really is OK that she helps me when I need her to and that she won't be angry at me for it.

Very curious to see how I'll feel in the morning after the class and the long acupuncture session. I'm supposed to stay away from alcohol (not a big deal) and coffee (a disappointment) for the next little bit. He suggested I have as much green tea as I like, so it will be good for me to switch from my pots of black tea & regular lattes for a little while.

Work Stress/Changes

2009-11-16T14:58:00.000-08:00

In March 2002 I was laid off from a company and it took until July 2002 for a company I was a vendor for to clear the red tape and hire me. Pure nepotism, I lucked out and a client offered me a job.

The company I've been working for has been shrinking. There's been layoffs, encouraged retirements and other outright reductions for employees. Since February 2002 I've not been around an environment that doesn't have some kind of downsizing going on. My manager and the director of our team have been trying to get me a promotion, even just in title alone, to recognize the work I've been doing for 4 years. Nothing.

It has been utterly exhausting to be working in this kind of environment. On top of that - a lot of the work I've been doing has become increasingly frustrating, increasingly tiring, and pretty demoralizing. I've been feeling increasingly down about myself and my abilities at work for months now.

And then we get the announcement that our overall department is being dismantled. It is baffling in some ways since we have one of the most highly engaged, award-winning, and revenue-generating teams. Why take us apart!? Our executive retiring. The director of my team retiring. A manager for a team I worked with is leaving. I'm fearful my manager might end up being downsized. There has even been talk of moving my team into IT - where we'd probably end up being downsized from in the first few months of 2010.

I've polished up my resume over the last week or so and have started to look around town at postings. I feel really anxious about it, about even considering leaving all the comforts I have of working from home, liking the people I work with, having lots of flexible time to go to appointments and volunteer. It has reached the point where all those financially intangible things that have made the rest of the stuff bearable aren't helping as much anymore.

In all my disaster planning I'm also trying to hold onto the idea that it might go really well. I might get to stop doing all the programming and systems work to just focus on the stuff I'm both good at and enjoy - writing things like requirements, documentation and test cases. Yeah, maybe I'd still be fighting that uphill battle for the promotion, but the work would at least be more satisfying, less frustrating, than it is now and those intangibles would mean something again.

Unexpected Remorse

2009-11-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

My relationship with my Mom has changed a lot. I didn't want to cut her off entirely, but at times when I'm processing some of the events from my childhood it makes it hard to be around her. Her health has been poor pretty much my whole life and drives so much of her constant state of anxiety & irritation that I make a conscious decision not to confront her about the past. For the same reason I try to nurture the connection between us, knowing how painful for her it would be if I stopped communicating.

To me it has felt the more compassionate choice for both of us to find a way to be present to her while taking care of my boundaries and needs. When angry, frustrated and hurt I try to do Loving-Kindness practice for myself and not feel too guilty for not seeing or talking to her. Hogen suggested that I ignore her behavior when it is hurtful, not compassionate and really make a point to give attention to her when I recognize behavior I know is healthy.

I have worked to accept that I cannot change my Mom or expect her to learn or change. I do have control over the way I learn from my past and how I choose to react to it. I am the one who is in the present moment and I can respond to that. That is how I face that my Mom has consistently minimized, re-framed, and passed off all responsibility for the actions she chose during my childhood.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday my Mom actually admitted that while she thought sometimes she was making a good decision for me, she knew she wasn't. She also said she knew at times she wasn't doing the right thing. Mom particularly noted that she feels remorse for forcing me to respect my aunt and my grandmother, punishing me when I questioned that respect.

For all the present-moment-wasting times I've played out conversations in my head with her she never once admits responsibility. It is so entirely unexpected. I was honestly stunned and just tried to stay open, neutral and present to her when she was talking. Oh, that and safely navigate the car in ugly, suburban traffic.

CK asked me if I acknowledged her for telling me all this, for taking responsibility. We both went back to Hogen's advice. I said I don't think I did, I was too surprised by it. I'm trying to come up with a way to make sure I do bring some mindful appreciation to her action.

I'm still rather stunned by this. I've played out conversations in my head with my Mom so many times. Conversations with people is one of the things my brain does a great deal of the time when I'm avoiding the present moment.

These imaginary conversations have often been painful, sometimes angry, but never has she taken responsibility. I never practiced my response for that in my head.

Resenting Resentment

2009-11-11T21:19:00.001-08:00

I feel like I've been sensing those gray edges of depression for a few weeks now. No, I don't feel like I'm sliding deeply into that dark funk, just aware of how it shows up as the growing frustration that seems closer at hand lately. I am so spun up with self-doubt from my Inner Critic that it is causing me to have problems processing what people say to me. Everything I hear comes through the filter of self-doubt and only then seems to confirm the uncertainty I feel or as if I am truly being questioned about my ability.

It is getting tedious.

A suggestion was made to me today - Perhaps I need to actually allow myself to feel the anger I have. To resent the hell out of the things I resent until I'm done resenting them. Yes, I may have acknowledged that I feel it, but I view as if from afar.

Anger feels terrifying to me. This is something not uncommon in abuse survivors. Anger is a signal that things are about to go seriously wrong on some, if not many, levels. Quite often as children we are denied it, punished for it. It is pretty understandable that I really don't have any tools to express it now.

So there it sits. I look at it and go, "eeew, scary anger." Rather like viewing a scary predator at the zoo or aquarium*.

And there I am minding the dirty cup and ignoring the pure wine in it. Again.

Today I was also reminded that the sensation of being broken, that is just the element of suffering we all share. Bad, unfair things happen and each and every one of us is touched in some way by them. We all have some way in which we feel that sensation of brokenness. This is the First Noble Truth.

Leaning into the anger, going through it, is a very sharp point indeed. Practice has taught me that it is possible to relax into grief, to settle into it. I was able to navigate myself, teach myself even in the grip of terrible, ages old fear. But my mind really pulls away from experiencing the anger.

I hear my fearful-mind rationalizing, looking at the anger closely and reminding me of the Ninth Precept. "Oh no," she says, "we cannot give rise to anger."

Yet I know that's another way of keeping that scary predator safely in the tank, behind glass. Viewed, appreciated, acknowledged, but not touched. If anger turned outward is unhealthy for those around us, and anger turned inward is depression, then what is the middle was of experiencing anger in a way that is healthy?

*Just on a side note - I fortunate to see the Great White Shark that was at the Monterey Aquarium a while ago. She was, to borrow inspiration from Umberto Eco, beautiful and terrible, like an army arrayed with banners.

Nothing But Cranky

2009-11-10T21:42:00.000-08:00

I woke feeling tired and stayed in bed doing a couple of hip releases before getting up to go sit zazen. I wrapped myself up warmly and settled into my breath first, then into metta practice.

And then 'My Favorite Things' from The Sound of Music played on and on and on and on and on and...

ding ding

Urg.

Cats fed, a little yoga to loosen up the hips further, hot shower and into work.

Choppy day of meetings, punctuated by a tedious & frustrating call with Verizon customer service, and going out to lunch with some of my teammates. Wet walk to meet CK and I nearly missed her due to my headphones being on, it being noisy, and my back being turned (I expected her to come from a different direction).

Teaching class tonight lifted the cranky feelings a little. The responsibility of teaching others tends to ground me when I'm feeling off. I got home only to have Puck eat the second pair of headphones of mine in the past couple of weeks. I just replaced the pair I'd had for a couple of years last week.

My fault, I left them out with my iPod. Still... it brought the cranky right back.

I went upstairs and read a little bit before coming back down to heat up some leftover stew for dinner. While we ate we watched an episode of a show (CK has finally persuaded me to watch Buffy with her and I'm finding it to be lighthearted & amusing fun). The combination of simple fun and dinner helped me feel a bit more centered. After feeling put off by the whole day it was comforting to just hang out for a little bit with her.

Dirty Cups

2009-11-09T18:06:00.000-08:00

CK bought me two beautiful editions of Rumi's poetry for my birthday. On the flight home from Hawaii I came across the following piece, gorgeously illustrated in The Illuminated Rumi

Ask!
Step off
proudly into sunlight,
not looking back.

Take sips of this pure wine being poured.
Don't mind that you've been given a dirty cup.

I read that as CK dozed next to me on the long flight over what appear to be endless water and clouds, then darkness. It really made me sit up and blink. The last line particularly resonated with me.

Don't mind that you've been given a dirty cup.

I tend to see my life, especially the fragile, bruised beginning, as a "dirty cup". This life where my Inner Critic relentlessly condemns my goals, my present actions, my trauma-triggered responses - the whole of me. To that critical voice my life is a dirty cup, unworthy of pure wine being poured by the Beloved.

Greater than the Inner Critic who immediately deems me as unworthy, is that on many levels I mind. I mind ferociously that I experienced abuse, repeatedly. I mind a world where every step I move towards truth alienates and invites insult from much of the society I live in. I mind the very idea of suppressed memories surfacing unannounced and involuntarily pulling me backwards into misery. I mind tremendously that CK was hurt. I mind that my job frustrates me and leaves me feeling unable to accomplish anything.

Alright, so I mind a lot of things. All those things that stack together in an ugly heap, the dirty cups of my life. I mind them. Some of them I downright resent the hell out of. Some I want to pick up and hurl into the wall I mind them so much.

Which would then leave me without a cup for the pure wine.

Leaning into this suffering to feel compassion for myself is hard, excruciatingly difficult. When I do I almost immediately run into either drowning in grief or completely overwhelmed by fear. Sometimes I kind of ping-pong back and forth between the two. There was a whole lot of that back in April during the Loving-Kindness sesshin.

Yet in fighting these realities, in minding the "dirty cup", I'm staying stuck in the fear and grief. I can touch back to moments during the Grasses, Trees & Great Earth sesshin in August where grief came up and I was just able to be there with it. It wasn't that I didn't cry, but I didn't have the overwhelming fear about crying. I just cried some and the moment of grief passed. I even had a pretty awful memory bubble up and I was also able to stay still with it.

I was so stilled by the outright exhaustion that hit me at the start of the sesshin that I lacked the energy to fight. It even felt like my Inner Critic was quieter, minimized due to the soul-deep fatigue. Regardless of why, it was still a taste of just being present to the grief and able to witness & accept the memories.

The knack of doing this is something I need to cultivate in my practice. Waiting until I am utterly exhausted by the tension isn't terribly sustainable. Besides, I am weary of being exhausted by fear.

I'm also taking Bansho's suggestion and considering a suitably non-threatening, perhaps slightly comical name for my Inner Critic.

Random Poetry

2009-11-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

I am participating in a swap of poems with people. The goal is to take a book you are reading and take every tenth word from a page until you have 15 words. Then take those 15 words and somehow assemble them into a poem.

I'll be posting poems I receive in the mail as they show up. The first one I've received so far, from another Oregonian, is very cool!

The women's Dharma group I'm participating in is embarking on a deep study of Pema Chodron's book 'When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
' so I picked my words from the first page of the first chapter. My words, in order selected from book, are:

to
journey
setting
with
will
get
the
drawn
if
become
it
different
we
activities
emptiness

The poem I assembled out of these words:

If

Setting the activities.
drawn to will.
Get with it.
Different journey.

We become emptiness.

Ch... ch... Changes... (and a simple novel)

2009-11-04T21:49:00.000-08:00

I'm still kind of stumbling around mentally after that snapshot of the Inner Critic moment. I am considering the suggestion of giving her a "non-threatening" name, so I can talk to her. I thought about staying home on Monday after taking that picture but went out instead to the women's Dharma group I participate in. I was glad I went even though I felt very resistant to it.

Tuesday I talked with CS at Dishman and resigned from teaching there now that CC & EB have said they will take over the two classes. Feels weird even now typing it. Felt big and shaky doing it. I immediately got off the phone with him and went to Dishman to teach a class. That felt even weirder. I've not told them yet, I'll bring it up over the next 5 weeks, my last classes. I'll officially end teaching at Dishman on December 20.

And I have no where to teach. I've been talking about teaching at our Zen center, but I have a whole lot of back-and-forth feelings about it. In some part I'm worried that the space, so amenable to Zen practice, is not the best for yoga practice (carpeting, everywhere). I sent a message over to a new studio in my neighborhood today and have been chatting with a new studio in Northwest Portland.

I've been considering other changes too. Looking very strongly at what I'm doing at work, what my motivations are for that work, and considering all the feelings I have about work carefully. At the very least it might be good for me to do the practice of writing my resume (it has been nearly 8 years since I did that) and see what kind of response I get to it. Might convince me to tough out this rough patch, might remind me that I do possess a lot of skills, and it might be a new step on my path.

And I've been letting myself wholly enjoy a good novel. I picked up Sunshine at Powell's the other day, it was on sale, on an end cap as I walked through and I've always enjoyed Robin McKinley's books. It is fun to be reading something so lighthearted, relatively, compared to my stacks of poetry, Dharma and yoga books!

Inner Critic Revealed

2009-11-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

I'd like to introduce you to my Inner Critic. I talk about her a lot here and a new art project in my Zen community inspired me to catch her in the act.

I had this clever idea to use Photo Booth on my MacBook to "catch" my Inner Critic. Earlier this morning I'd thought about writing down some of the top things I hear from my Inner Critic on a note card and photographing them with me in the background looking angry, disgusted. When I finally got this done this afternoon I found myself really taken aback by the image.

Wow, is that some nasty shit. Inner Bully is more like it.

And yet that's the person I hear nearly constantly. Something about having this image really kind of creeps me out. The enormity of this voice, the judging and harshness of it. The ugliness fully revealed, not just alluded to.

Somehow seeing this visual representation helps me get a grip on why I've felt so self-doubting these past several weeks, why it is so hard to feel any sense of accomplishment when this is the constant negativity I'm bombarded with. No wonder my therapist will interrupt me occasionally during our sessions to remind me, "I don't like it when you talk about Sherri that way!"

Yeah, need to keep working with this voice.

I burned the note card in the fireplace and lit some incense just now. It felt like the right thing to do. A cleansing step.

Dinosaurs

2009-10-28T11:53:00.001-07:00

I had a meeting with a dinosaur today. Well, at least I'd like to think of him as a dinosaur. The kind of change-resistant, judgmental, dismissive males in technology I'm really hope are becoming the exception to the norm.

Another team asked my boss for me to sit in on some meetings to discuss migrating a very old system they used. They know I have a lot of experience with systems migrations as well as knowledge of Free/Open Source Software. I had said I looked forward to working with them, on a project where I felt like I knew what I was doing.

During the meeting I asked a question and was suddenly, brusquely asked by a member of the other team, "Who are you?"

I explained which team I was a part of, the background I had with systems, and he responded back, "Huh. Never heard of you."

Each time I asked a question or made a comment he would cut me off, dismiss my input as irrelevant, unnecessary and misinformed. It was one of the worst 30 minutes. I tired to just be open, positive, and present.

After the call I felt awful. I've felt so down on my skills or ability to get projects done this year already that this call made me feel just totally demoralized. My Inner Critic immediately piped up to point out that I probably won't get a bonus for this year. Ick.

Within 10 minutes of hanging up I was craving sweets particularly, but rich food in general. I just sat with it for a while. Checked out that I was hungry, but the Halloween candy and cookies were not what I needed. The craving for those things wasn't hunger, but the strong desire to comfort my hurt feelings with something tasty. The coping mechanism I was raised on.

Instead I made a baked potato with some chili on it for a late breakfast and ate a reasonable lunch. For dinner we had leftover white bean, kale, potato & leek soup with a reasonable amount of bread. Afterward I finally did have some cookies with CK. I stayed mindful of each sweet, chewy, gingery bite.

This afternoon I saw my therapist and talked about how listless I feel. That it feels like I'm not getting enough done at work, that I'm very unfocused and then feel guilty, which makes me want to distract myself more. Vicious cycle.

Rather than offer me pointers on how to not procrastinate, what I believe I was hoping to hear. GM pointed me to examine how I'm tying my sense of measuring accomplishment to ticking projects at work off as "finished". That I once again don't think I'm doing enough and I'm seeing the bonuses and raises as an indication of my value. I'm so focused on that external, financial input that I don't examine the tremendous accomplishments of the weight loss, buying a home, huge strides in making my life & relationships healthier, intense spiritual growth -- all of those things I've done but don't feel how they indicate to me I've succeeded.

The day yielded a lot of positive input from good friends, most of them men in technology. It felt better to talk it over with a few people, laugh a little about it, and be reminded of just how great some of the men I know are. I will continue the practice of cultivating patience with my frustration at work and the feeling that I'm not doing enough.

Support

2009-10-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

I live in one of the best examples of my lack of skill in recognizing when I have accomplished something. It is coming up on 3 years in my home, purchased in a hurry when my 10 year old rental was sold. I get glimpses of ownership, literally of my accomplishment. It is not insignificant that I alone qualified for the loans to buy a 3 bedroom, 1926 Craftsman style home in my North Portland neighborhood.

Yet most of the time I still feel like I'm an irresponsible child about finances. Any minutes now the authorities will discover I'm just faking and escort me off the premises. I feel like I never live up to all the goals and expectations a "grown up" should have around money.

CK and I sat down and talked budget and debt tonight. I've been feeling really anxious about this conversation, fearing that she'd discover I wasn't a "real adult" and call things off. I've also been feeling a lot of hurt, some bubbling up in the form of anger, about how finances have been handled in the relationships my entire life. I feel sabotaged by the people who should have been there to help and support me.

She's so calm about money, it is just another process to her and it isn't tied up in a lot of triggering memories. I'm a bit jealous at her skill around finances and business. I hear my Inner Critic compare my own skill and find me lacking.

I finally pulled open my spreadsheet with all the debt statistics on it. Amounts owed, to who, at what interest rate, etc. CK very calmly got out her calculator and figured how I could pay it all off in just over 3 years without her help. Then she pointed out how she planned to spend what I find to be a serious amount of her own earnings helping pay the debt down after building up our mutual savings significantly in the coming year.

I teared up. I really can't remember anyone wanting to do this for me. I put myself through college and in high school didn't participate in a lot of things because I couldn't afford the fees and my parents weren't willing/couldn't afford to pay them. It wasn't really until I was in my 30s that my Mom started being more giving with money to me. Then I moved onto relationships with two men who were equally destabilizing financially, one in a more outright emotionally damaging way than the other.

I've felt kind of aimless and tired for a few weeks now. I'm having a hard time focusing on work, overall. It's made it feel extra urgent to get little things done around the house. Not only grounding in the mundane tasks of home, but being buoyed up by feeling like I'm getting some tasks done!

I'm accepting that some of this may be months worth of low-grade infection slowly gobbling up my energy reserves. I also feel like I'm reacting to the support I am feeling in my relationship with CK. To be in a relationship with another person willing to be entirely wholehearted. Sadly, I find it entirely unknown territory to have another person say they're going to help and feel like they really will follow through. I don't know how to relax and let go, enjoy the stability that working together in a relationship can bring.

Present to Exhaustion

2009-10-21T22:38:00.000-07:00

I am waking up with a lot more energy the past few days. I still reach a point during the day or evening where I am suddenly just worn out. Right now I have a pile of skin from some Delicata squash I roasted earlier. We've been enjoying the thin skin of the squash lightly coated in oil then roasted low until it is crispy.

But I had an enormous pile of phone calls today then rushed around getting stuff together to make a great dinner, vacuumed the front rooms & hall, and cleaned up a bit. We met with our insurance agent for the oh-so-boring and "grown-up" task of discussing life insurance. After he left we had the most marvelous dinner (squash casserole, no recipe yet), watched an episode of Big Bang Theory (CK has introduced me to this and we're watching back episodes online). I've cleaned up a bit, CK made chocolate almond biscotti, and I just ran out of steam.

I'm trying to remember that I've apparently had a low-level infection for quite some time. I'm taking enormous doses of antibiotics. I have chronic pain, which tires me too. It isn't unreasonable that I'm prone to running out of energy. Sure it is a great opportunity to practice with the body, with the impatience I feel with it, but I'd honestly like a little break.

It has let me look at the exhaustion I felt during the Grasses, Trees & Great Earth sesshin in August. I suddenly was stopped and some of the exhaustion from the infection was able to express itself. That little crack opened by the actual physical illness I was fighting, present to it without the distractions of work, life, etc. opened me up to feel a deeper exhaustion within me. It was so utterly consuming, I had the sense of never having had enough rest in my whole life.

The first time I saw Chozen for sanzen I told her about the exhaustion. Not just a drowsiness of wanting to avoid being present, but a cellular weariness. I said that I was so tired, so warn out that even my Inner Critic wasn't getting much traction on me. It was if a very young version of myself was saying plaintively, "Oh go away. I don't feel good."

She told me to do the most restful practice I could. It was unusual to have even my Inner Critic silenced by anything at all. I would find myself sliding in and out of a very heightened awareness of the sound of the rain. I'd be watching it fall, hearing the different sounds of it as the water connected back to the earth, and drift off to a very light sleep. When I'd open my eyes it would feel as though I was blinking very slowly. The whole world seemed to move slowly.

The whole of the sesshin I was in a present, slow state of alertness and sleep. During every break I'd crawl into my bed, under the blankets and fall immediately to sleep until the bell rang. At night, when sitting ended, I'd take a hot shower to loosen up my back & hips, crawl into bed again and fall asleep. I experienced very little insomnia, for me. This is significant since I actually cannot recall not having insomnia.

During zazen I might drift off, but not know it. It would only have that lazy, strange sensation as if I'd just blinked very slowly. My Inner Critic never grew loud during these times, never berated me for my bad practice. I just let myself be present to the exhaustion I felt.

I felt rested by the time I left. Slow moving still, but not as brittle & bright feeling as I'd felt leaving the Loving-Kindness sesshin in April. I felt profoundly grateful at the end of our last early morning zazen.

I'm trying to be mindful of how judging I can be of my energy level away from the container of sesshin practice. How quick I am to either bemoan my lack of energy or prod myself to get just one more chore done. How unwilling I am to just be present to the sensation of being tired, the sensation of the body needing rest to heal.

Red Leaves

2009-10-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've been enjoying the small red maple leaves that blow into our yard from a neighbor's tree. Some are still speckled yellow, while others are already turning brown. I found myself with a small clutch of them in my hand, trying to press & dry them. A few have found their way onto very small art pieces.

I believe one of those art pieces will incorporate this haiku about them.

In the air, red leaves.
Impermanent gifts, wind-brought.
Brief gems of autumn.

Transition Practice

2009-10-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

Stayed home and rested much of the weekend. I still feel like my energy just deserts me at times, but the head/ear pain has subsided. I'm feeling a bit gloomy that I have 5 more doses of the antibiotics. They're working but they make me feel a bit nauseated and leave my mouth tasting as though I have a handful of pennies in it.

I taught a class on Sunday that ended up with many adjustments, to such a degree that it was good practice to stay with compassion even while I felt frustration arise. When I finally gave space, silence to it I am able to see that frustration really arises out of the fear that my students will feel like I don't give individual attention fairly and that I worry some students may need assistance but I am often asked to help a very stiff, over-achieving student.

Today I took a big step in my teaching. I've started to contact friends who are also yoga teachers to see if any of them want to take over my classes at Dishman at the beginning of the year. Right now I have the luxury of working out details to offer a class at my Zen center. I see it more of a way to enrich my practice of teaching by letting it become even more deeply co-rooted to the Dharma. I'm also checking around at other studios to see about teaching a class somewhere else.

I think I am finally being able to let go of the "guaranteed money" of teaching at the community center. I have these two classes, I'm always on the schedule, and I get paid regularly. Not a lot, but for the past 4 years it has become something of my personal fund for books, a couple of my tattoos, and clothing. Once I could start to let go of that I could start to approach people I'd really like to take over my class.

I have a big soft spot in my heart for these classes. I've learned so much in teaching them and I want to leave them feeling as though I've done everything I can to support those classes continuation. I believe at least one student will follow me when I move to the Dharma center, so perhaps I'll get to experience that connection to my first teaching practice as I move into new waters of teaching.

And I've been having fun working on two "Artist Trading Cards". Autumn themed and I've been playing around with pressing leaves then decoupaging them down. On one I've drawn a very simple tree in pastels against a grey, about-to-rain sky. Another has three leaves on muted, smeared oranges and yellows.

The Autumn rain awoke me early this morning, before the alarm, and I snuggled down a bit with a cat while listening to it on the roof (I love that my bedroom is under the attic so I can hear the rain on the roof). The day that ended with an orange-y sunset peeking through dark grey clouds. All that in mind, a haiku for the rain.

Autumn Downpour

Dawn and hard rain sound,
Thrum of water on my roof.
Autumn serenade.

Prescription & Poety

2009-10-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I was diagnosed with what may be the same sinus infection I was fighting in the spring. This was my doctor's thoughts on why I've also been having hives occasionally as well as some distortion happening in my left eye. Bacterial infections can start to cause systemic allergic reactions - this explains the hives. The visual distortion may be migraine being tiggered by having had a sinus infection for this long.

Ugh. I'm on a second round of antibiotics now, much stronger ones. Hopefully this really knocks this out. The nearly constant head ache combined with the usual 3-7 level of pain my hips & back has me feeling worn out. I've even been napping, which I don't do unless truly sick.

Enough kvetching about being ill and on to the poetry!

I had an Amazon gift certificate and today my "prizes" arrived. I haven't been writing much poetry, but it really seems to be what I've been reading lately. I think the books of poetry have been edging out the fiction and non-fiction on my nightstand. Today, I added 3 more poetry books: New and Selected Poems (volumes One & Two) by Mary Oliver and The Gift
by Hafiz (which CK nearly purchased for me for my birthday but instead choose two marvelous editions of Rumi's writing).

And on that note I am off to lay around with a bag of hot flax seeds on my head and hopefully dream peaceful dreams. Here is some Hafiz:

And For No Reason

And
For no reason
I start skipping like a child.

And
For no reason
I turn into a leaf
That is carried so high
I kiss the Sun's mouth
And dissolve.

And
For no reason
A thousand birds
Choose my head for a conference table,
Start passing their cups of wine
And their wild songbooks all around.

And
For every reason in existence
I begin to eternally,
To eternally laugh and love!

When I turn itno a leaf
And start dancing,
I run to kiss our beautiful Friend
And I dissolve in the Truth
That I am.

My Inner Critic

2009-10-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

The tasks around Jukai, particularly sewing my rakusu, writing about the Grave Precepts, and making my lineage chart, have riled up my Inner Critic hugely.

What occurred to me tonight, while lying on the bed with a hot bag of flax seeds on my face and doing Metta practice for myself because I feel lousy, was that I've been able to more clearly hear the words of my Inner Critic lately. I've experienced a lot of the sensations of shame, guilt, anxiety, unworthiness, etc. that my Inner Critic builds up in me, but not the words.

It isn't even that I'm arguing with my Inner Critic (that still riles up a lot of childhood anxiety about the consequences of "talking back"). I can just make this internal voice out more clearly, which is kind of different.

My Inner Critic seems at times to be made up of a bored Greek Chorus of 13-14 "cool" kids from middle school. Not the self-conscious & longing to fit in kind of kid, that was me, but the disdainful, judging, mean-spirited kind. Nothing but pure anxiety-inducing spite and sarcasm.

My rakusu? Sucks.
Lineage chart? More sucking.
My writing? Lame. You're such a hack.
My name?! Yeah, right!

You get the picture... Bullying, arrogant, jerks.

In fact, that "Yeah, right!" response to the name given to me was immediate upon hearing Chozen tell me that my name means Peaceful Person. That bored, young-adolescent voice snorted in derision, rolled their eyes and said, "Yeah, right."

I insisted to myself that I was not allowed to start laughing in the zendo, in the middle of Jukai, right after my teacher gave me my name. In retrospect they both probably would have encouraged that laughter to just take form. I was conscious of the same Inner Critic who denies me the right to say I'm "Peaceful" then denied me the option of laughing about it. For a moment there my Inner Critic taking on my Mother's voice about proper behavior.

I'm still juggling how to deal with this voice, or voices it feels like at times. The very fact there is a distinct voice instead of just pure, overwhelming surges of emotion feels like an interesting shift. When I started writing this all down I wondered if some of these sensations would make a little more sense, I'd be able to define the "voices", and maybe that's what's happening now. The combination of the writing practice and the furnace-like intensity of preparing for Jukai have started to reveal some clarity.

Konin

2009-10-12T15:14:00.001-07:00

Konin is the name Chozen & Hogen gave me on Thursday during the Jukai ceremony. It means "Peaceful Person" and is pronounced like, "Koh - Neen".

Ko, meaning: Peaceful, safe, secure
Nin, meaning: Person, human being, human kind

Three times that evening Chozen reminded me that it not only means that I aspire to become a peaceful person, but I am a person who helps all people to a peaceful state. I help manifest peace for all beings. It struck me the third time she told me that in naming me Konin my teachers were bestowing an enormous responsibility as well as a reminder for my own practice. It feels as though this name reflects Chozen's request for me to write about my weight loss and the pull towards teaching yoga, particularly a yoga that is flavored with Metta practice and cultivates the attitude of loving-kindness towards the body.

I have been weighing this name the past several days and how it marks a significant point in my life. One of Pure Precepts is to actualize good for others. For me, with this name, I know the good I will be working on is helping people find peace. It is also my constant reminder to maintain a more gentle, compassionate, and understanding approach with myself.

A Good Mu

2009-10-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

I woke up hurting all down the left side of my body. From aching sinuses in my head down the side of the leg to the ankle. I was glad to be working from home today and have even opted to not attend the women's practice group I started going to last week. I could have finished up the reading and went, but I decided that some rest tonight would probably be more beneficial.

I did go down and sit in the new "zendo" space I cleared up for us over the weekend. It is in a little nook at the back of the sitting area. On Saturday I hung various wall hangings over the rather unsightly unfinished walls and put down the carpet that had been upstairs. The dull olive green of the carpet looks rather cozy in the lower light and smaller space.

While sitting I had what felt like a rather silly realization - I could do Mu chanting at home! I really have enjoyed toning and Mu chanting while in retreat at Great Vow, but never had made this connection to including it in my home practice. I've even done some chanting practice at home as part of the my last Ango commitment.

I was aware of the dull ache of my neck, I think the amount of sneezing I've been doing may be part of the problem. My tailbone hurt and in turn that ache radiated into my hip. My mind was all over the place, just unsettled and full of anxious, judging thoughts.

Breath practice? Nope, let's consider the unwashed dishes.

Body scan? Nope, instead we shall reflect upon the practice group we made a commitment to and now are missing when we're not really sick.

Metta practice? Are you kidding us?! No! Have you see the state of your studio/office upstairs? Someone needs to sleep there on Thursday!

Now, quit all this sitting here nonsense and go organize the storage area!

I don't know why it struck me to start Mu chanting, but I did. Several loud, long, powerful, deep breaths worth of Mu. I felt the vibration of it deeply in my whole body. Like I've done up at Great Vow I envisioned concentrating, focusing the vibration into my sore head & neck and into my back.

I felt more clear after a few minutes of this and returned back to Metta practice. Whenever a thought arose, I let out another Mu. There was no one in the house my Inner Critic would say I was bothering, so I just went with it. Felt the thought, felt the irritation at catching myself thinking, and...

MU!

Take that, Discursive Thoughts! Mu!

Mu, to you, Inner Critic!

Mu, indeed!

My thoughts settled further and my need to use a "Reminder Mu" did to. I was able to sit in silence, practicing Metta for all the fears and anxieties that have come up the past several weeks. When the bell rang I felt much calmer than I had in several days. There's even been a little popping and shifting in my tight muscles.

Craving Distraction

2009-10-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I dropped CK off at Great Vow for the Beginner's Mind retreat. The others held in spring and summer fell on weekends that weren't at all possible for her to go (one of which we were in Hawaii) and she must go this weekend if she is to take the first five precepts on Thursday. She has really wanted to take these first vows when I will be taking my 16 vows. Despite it still not being a great weekend, what with her family coming next week for the ceremony, she's there and I am home craving distraction.

That makes this "Fun with the 5th Precept" weekend. How many ways can I watch the desire for distraction arise and how many times will I catch myself in the midst of distraction.

I already ate too much for dinner, have checked my email a handful of times, watched Ken Burns on the Colbert Report, tried to watch episodes of Last Chance to See (damn you, BBC and your non-working players), and even have cued up a movie I've enjoyed in the past (Cold Comfort Farm) on Hulu. I've heaved huge sighs, talked to the cats and am curled up in bed, wearing the sweatshirt she had on earlier today.

I feel apathetic about cooking for the vegan Fakin' Fest tomorrow, uninspired to work on the house for the impending family arrival (regardless of how anxious I am about their coming) and unmotivated to write (tonight's blog bright you to by Vriya & Tapas). Oh yes, and silly, I feel very silly because I know she's at Great Vow, retreats are a core element of Zen practice, she's just fine, and I wholeheartedly support her practice. I am still aching a little, chafed from last night's raw emotions, and I'd just like to curl up with her.

I also feel guilty for telling my Mom I could only come out for a few hours and only help with lightweight stuff tomorrow. She's going to be staying in an apartment in Gresham part of each week so she can get around to appointments and see people without having to rely upon someone driving her from Corbett. I think this is a good idea and said I'd come out tomorrow to help her with some things.

As per usual when stuff from my childhood percolates up, I haven't wanted to see her right now. Honestly, tonight, I don't even feel much like seeing people tomorrow afternoon and evening at the events I've been urged to attend. I was honest with Mom that I didn't have a huge amount of time and that my back & hips have been hurting, so I don't want to be lifting too much. I did say, honestly, I'd come out though and help, meaning it.

She called back after a few minutes and said I shouldn't come. I felt hugely relieved and guilty all at once. She made a comment about it not being very nice that CK chose to be at the monastery the weekend before her family visits, leaving me alone to work on the house. I responded that CK had to go this weekend, it wasn't a choice she liked to make, but her taking her vows on Thursday is very important to her. I explained it calmly and honestly despite feeling very angry at her for comment in the first place.

It was right after this phone call I ate too much of the dinner I'd picked up. The combination of anger and guilt, on top of feeling lonely for CK's company, dropped me right down into feeling irritated and craving distraction. Dinner was delicious, I really enjoyed it, but I wasn't mindful of my stomach as I ate it all. I was caught up in the slurry of uncomfortable emotions and the desire to just enjoy the tasty food.

There I was, uncomfortably full and mindful of some disappointment that I really was too full to eat any cookie from the bakery. I did't try to push past that and have a bite of cookie anyway, craving the sweetness of it. I didn't get angry and I don't feel guilty for eating too large a serving, ways I would have reacted in the past. I just noticed that I was feeling too full and looked at why I had not heard my body's messages to me. What I find interesting is that the point at which I feel too full has changed a lot. Ten years ago I would have eaten the whole cookie.

Unlike the past I haven't let my Inner Critic beat me up... much. It isn't the end of the world if occasionally I eat too much. It is good to acknowledge the irritation that comes up from the way my Mom always jumps to a negative assumption and judgement. It is just fine to feel like I'm not ready to see her when I'm letting raw emotional memories settle down, even though doing so leaves me feeling like a bad daughter. It is perfectly alright that I miss CK, even when I'm happy she's practicing wholeheartedly.

The Luxury of Choice

2009-10-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

I am deeply aware that being vegan is a luxury and I am profoundly appreciative for this great ability to make a choice about what I consume.

Most people don't get the choice to make a decision about food based upon anything but scarcity. Food is food, when you manage to get enough of it. The desperate need to preserve life outweighs any ability to weigh the ethics of the fish you were lucky enough to catch for your family.

I am extremely privileged that I do not have to subsist from meal to meal, worrying about how many I will miss, resigned to need and hunger. Even when I was very young and my Mom was on public assistance, we had enough food. It is the dishes of beans and cornbread, those cheap but filling meals, that I often crave as comfort food now. When cornbread shows up while I'm in sesshin at Great Vow I always feel a happy warmth in my heart.

Often I point out to people that the diet I mostly eat, consisting of legumes, some grain or starch, and some veggies with a sauce, is the kind of meal eaten by many people all over the world. I say mostly because in Portland I also get the tremendous luxury of vegan bakeries, restaurants with everything from vegan grilled cheeze sandwiches to hearty quinoa pancakes. Not to mention my choice of cuisines from all over the world. Truly, I am spoiled by the vegan goodness all over Portland!

In America I am unusual in that I choose this vegan cornucopia of foods over the dominant culture that exhorts us that Beef is What's For Dinner (unless you want The Other White Meat, chicken, fish or shellfish) and that I need to drink 8 glasses of milk a day in order to keep my body healthy. And I shouldn't forget to pick up some ice cream on the way home.

"You work hard, you deserve the luxury of this diet of plenty", suggests the radio.

It made me sick. I saw how it made all of the women in my family sick (heart disease, diabetes and strokes). I decided I didn't want the luxury of sashimi, brie, Gorgonzola, or roast beef. I didn't want to Have It My Way anymore. I wanted to go my own true way, not the way millions of marketing dollars told me I wanted to follow.

The ability to just enter a market and buy whatever you choose to is a huge luxury. That we also may consciously make choices that reduce suffering is astoundingly fortunate. This great fortune allows us to be mindful of our connection to all living beings when we are making purchases.

I am profoundly grateful that I have the luxury to choose vegan products. Having this choice in my life has deepened my compassion in ways I'd never have guessed. It also helps me cultivate a more peaceful mind with which I may greater benefit all living beings.

Countdown to Jukai

2009-10-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

It is a week away and I don't feel excited or happy about the Jukai ceremony next week. It has felt like every task (sewing my rakusu, making my lineage chart, and writing about the precepts again) has done nothing but stir up my Inner Critic and/or trigger painful memories. For the most part I'm just feeling apathetic, tired and emotionally raw.

And I'm still waffling on asking my Mom to attend. Right now part of what I'm stuck on is pure logistics. Mom doesn't drive, is out in either Corbett or Gresham (long story, another post), our house is already going to be filled to the brim (yep, source of anxiety) as are our cars, and I'm not sure her husband or anyone would be willing to come into Portland on a Thursday evening. Add all of those headaches to having stirred up a lot of painful emotions around growing up and I still haven't talked with her about it at all.

My neck/head still ache, particularly the left side. IW worked on it yesterday at our therapy appointment, but there's this lingering heavy feeling to it all. I think some of it is allergies/sinus and some feels like all this icky, sticky energy. CK and I talked again last night about my seeing someone for acupuncture to get some of that stuck stuff moving. Massage and the physical/craniosacral therapies have helped, but stuff still feels stuck at times.

Tonight before sitting we had a meeting with our practice group and I shared that I felt lousy, cranky and didn't really want to be there. It was suggested that we talk about working with emotions in our practice and I felt like I had a total meltdown, including muscle spasms, stuttering, and crying of course. We ended up not staying for zazen and instead went to the gym to sit in the steam room, which helped relieve some of the muscle tension.

What really hit me was feeling angry that here I've worked so hard to reach this point, to receive Jukai, and I don't even appreciate it. I'm so worn out and exhausted by all the painful emotions it has brought up that I can't even enjoy the accomplishment. I feel that I've been robbed of feeling good about this, like so many other times in my life the abuse in my past has taken from me.

Before we left one of my Dharma sisters reminded me that I have a week to go, that maybe by next week I'll be able to appreciate the work I've done. I hope so.

Bus Poem

2009-09-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

Something I like about Tri-Met are the bits of poetry hanging in the buses & trains. It is part of a project called Poetry in Motion. Up between signs reminding you to wear headphones, give up your seat for someone who needs it, maps, advertising, etc. there's poetry. Pretty simple and it certainly falls into the category of "Small Happinesses" in my life.

Right before leaving for Hawaii I spotted this one on the way home from the office on the Number 4 bus.

Thirst

Your eyes must stay open
To the color of flowers.
wherever their bright flash
Catches your gaze, water flows.

You see rain
Days after it stopped raining.
in your breath you taste
The river running underground.

Paulann Petersen
from A Bride of Narrow Escape

The Tenth Grave Precept

2009-09-28T22:39:00.001-07:00

Experience the intimacy of things. Do not defile the Three Treasures.

I find the precepts to have moments of clarity, times where I think it they are obvious and then suddenly I'm finding layers of where I don't apply them. When I first sat with this precept my mind immediately jumped to insisting that I'd never "defile" the Three Treasures. That other bit though, experiencing intimacy...

The intimacy of the Dharma, that's part of what draws me to Buddhism. It isn't just some words written down by people hundreds of years after some guy said them. It is the collected teachings from the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, to the teachers we have now. Considering, applying wisdom and compassion, and most importantly to me, a growing, living thing. There is an approach with the Dharma that reminds me of the way a scientific theory is considered, tested, discussed, tested, and considered some more. If anything, I think I can too easily sink into isolated intimacy of the Dharma without ever touching the other of Treasures.

The intimacy of the Buddha, of falling back into the 10,000 arms of Avalokiteshvara and knowing with certainty I'll be caught? This is pretty scary stuff for me. I don't fall back on my own easily and the Loving-Kindness sesshin certainly felt like one hell of a shove at times. During the Grasses, Trees & the Great Earth I think I got a little taste of actually letting go, allowing the feeling that my entire soul was exhausted just press me down into the warm floor of the cedar grove.

The intimacy of the Sangha is the most terrifying of them all to me. Having moved so often as a child and having had such a dysfunctional, rejecting family I really don't feel like I know how to belong to a group. For quite some time I came to zazen with the community and fled immediately after sitting was done. I enjoyed that I could come, sit in the depth of shared, communal silence, and not have to talk to anyone at all. Early on the ability to "sit and run" (as a Dharma sister names it) was part of the appeal of Zen.

Yet here it is, nearly 4 years later and next week I'm going to stand up in front of people next week, of my community, and take the vows of Jukai. I've even joined a practice group for women on Monday evenings, giving myself some structure while CK is taking a woodworking class, and shoving myself into a scary place - the close company of a group of women. We met for the first time this Monday evening.

As I talked about why I came (essentially because I was afraid of it) I could hear my voice speed up with the anxiety I was experiencing acutely and could feel my face & ears grow hot. I tried not to listen to my Inner Critic, tried to just stay with the way anxiety feels in my body, and when the next person began to speak kept my attention focused on her, not giving into the rather desperate urge to evaluate, judge, and criticize what I had shared. It feels like progress.

The Ninth Grave Precept

2009-09-28T22:37:00.000-07:00

Actualize harmony. Do not be angry.

I made a mistake about this precept very early on, assumed this meant I could NOT get angry and gave my Inner Critic another way to beat up the times when I did feel angry. I finally took this error to Sanzen where Hogen reminded me that it meant we should not give rise to anger, rather I should look deeply at why the anger was arising. This precept directs me to accept that I will feel anger at times, to seek the source of my anger, and not give rise to the anger.

Anger can be a scary emotion for me to be around. In my family we were given the message, reinforced by punishment, that anger cannot be displayed. Raising your voice was forbidden. The image of the “happy family” presented to outsiders must be preserved. In response to this artificial, false act everyone ate inappropriately to feed the hurt feelings since acknowledging the anger, the hurt wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t OK to tell someone that a quietly spoken insult wasn’t acceptable, but it was just fine to have a piece of pie to make yourself “feel better”.

There are times, looking deeply at the source of anger, where I am put back in contact with memories of abuse. The frightened, unsupported child I was is heard and at times seems to be attacking me for not acknowledging her. I was introduced to her anger during the Loving-Kindness sesshin in April and her anger is a ferocious thing.

When I look at that anger, the rage of the child I was who experienced abuse, I can try to be calm with it and acknowledge it. Not only is that anger legitimate, it deserves to be heard since I was always told any anger I tried to express as a child was "inappropriate" or "over-reacting". Even still, even as understandable as that anger may be, when I feel the heat of it rise up in me I can breath into it, offer comfort to it, and instead respond to the situation with as much compassion as possible for myself and others.

I am far more comfortable with the work of actualizing harmony, especially for other people. I was a child who thought she wanted to be in the spotlight, but as an adult I've found I really enjoy being in the background, helping with all the little details. In a much more direct way, I feel profound gratitude for the opportunity I have to teach yoga, it is this very clear path to helping others actualize harmony, particularly a state of harmony towards the body. I try to remind myself to include myself in the people who deserve this kind of energy from me.

The Eighth Grave Precept

2009-09-28T22:34:00.002-07:00

Give generously. Do not be withholding.

I tend to be a generous person. I am happy to buy lunch for a friend who doesn’t have the extra cash for a lunch out. I enjoy sharing with people my time, my possessions, my energy and my passion. Most of the time. Despite all of this, I have become aware of the ways in which I want to withhold that spirit of generousity.

On the flight back from Hawaii there was a family that I was rather disturbed by. First was the look of pure adolescent venom one brother gave to the youngest of his brothers when asked to help get the younger child buckled into his plane seat. It was just so strong it shocked me. What came next was triggering to my PTSD. The very harried and irritated mother returned to this row with the two boys and when the youngest said something to her that angered her the mother reached out and slapped the young boy across the face. Not hard, there was no abrupt sound and if I hadn’t been looking at the family I probably would have never noticed it. But I did.

I remembered Chozen telling us when in doubt do metta practice. It immediately occurred to me that this family really could use a lot of Loving-Kindness directed at them, however, because it was so emotionally upsetting to me I felt intense resistance. A voice inside me clearly said, “No, I’m not going to give them metta.”

I felt guilty and awful. How could I be withholding, especially of Loving-Kindness? I finally made myself look out the window of the plane and try to offer metta to myself. Start with the angry, hurt child’s voice that felt entirely disconnected from this family and saw them as “other” and therefore unworthy. Even that was hard to press past, feeling the tension arise at touching Loving-Kindness at all.

It really made me think about how a disconnect between the self and others, not seeing all people as one, makes it really easy to forget the precepts, especially this one. When I feel that I’m not included or unworthy, it is easy to withhold something like Loving-Kindness from myself. When I see other people that way, when I allow them to become “Other”, then the impulse to give freely, generously is dampened down by that disconnect. When I tighten up, when fear arises and I feel the shutters close up tight around my heart, that's when I withhold.

The Seventh Grave Precept

2009-09-28T22:34:00.001-07:00

Realize self and others as one. Do not elevate the self and blame others.

Like the Sixth Grave Precept I feel that this is a message I heard as a child, but equally similarly was the way in which the example from my family members did not uphold this message. The idea that we're all one has always stuck with me, even though the nature of my childhood & adolescence has left me with a tremendous sense of not belonging or fitting in. What I find interesting is how the point in my life I was most disconnected from the feeling of being one, and most likely to elevate myself above others, was when I weighed the most. For me there is real irony that the literal insulation of my obesity, which I felt helped me feel more comfortable in groups, was the time in my life I was my most impatient and blaming towards other people. Now I see that grave disconnect from the health of my body as contributing to my ability to silence the part of me that knew I should treat people with more grace.

I saw this mostly in how I treated people, especially people like cashiers and others in the service industry. I could be short, terse, dismissive and unpleasant as a “dissatisfied customer”. In this way I would try to hold the person dealing with me accountable for all the irritation I felt at life instead of seeing how utterly insignificant the issue I was demanding be fixed was. I’m not even sure if I really felt like I was being elevated at those times, so much as I didn’t see them as one; the same impatient, frightened, confused, joyful, hopeful, wonderful kind of person I am with nothing but a desire to be happy, to be content.

The weight loss has at times heightened my feelings of not belonging. The loss of that layer insulating me from the enormity of my unacknowledged grief leaves me feeling completely isolated and alone with the messages I heard as a child. I’ve reached a point where I have cultivated the ability to see others as one, but it is challenging practice to include myself and not judge myself as ‘broken’.

The Sixth Grave Precept

2009-09-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

See the perfection. Do not speak of others' errors and faults.

Growing up I got such mixed messages about talking about other people. On one hand we would be punished for “talking back”, arguing or being perceived as being disrespectful. On the other hand it was quite common for me to hear my Mom, grandmother or aunt gossiping about other family members, co-workers and friends. When we weren’t all together I would hear my Mom talking negatively about my grandmother, my aunt and my cousins. Even today my Mom still likes to talk over the misfortunes of others and make what I often consider to be rather racist comments about the migrant workers in the field near her home.

During my divorce this year I found myself really trying to focus on the precepts. Walking a fine line between acknowledging the ways in which I felt the marriage had been undermined, issues that were on-going above and beyond my initial unwillingness to accept my own sexuality. Even if that hadn’t been there, AM and I had several other deeply rooted problems.

Like all of the other precepts I find myself looking deeply at why I am talking about what I perceive as the faults of others. Is it necessary to talk about such things? Why do I feel the need to share my opinion. How do I talk constructively with people when their actions feel harmful, unhealthy to me?

I’ve tried to keep focused on not judging a whole person by some of their actions, what I may perceive as an error or fault. I look deeply at why I may be feeling hurt, fearful or angry and if it is strong enough that I need to share with someone how their behavior is impacting me. I don’t talk about these kinds of issues as widely as I once did. It might be reasonable to discuss the behavior of one person with another, but in doing so I now try to keep focused on how the behavior in question is affecting me, is my response reasonable and what constructive approaches I can use to address it with that person. Using that third-party for their ability to observe the situation from a different view than I have, not to just have a “ranting session” with no real purpose to it.

I also have become very aware of how easy it is for groups to fall into discussing the perceived errors and faults of others, especially celebrities. Whole industries have arisen to enable this kind of behavior. It is perfectly acceptable in society to gossip about a celebrity. I don’t know any celebrities directly, so it has become pretty easy to just not participate in conversations like this.

Revisiting the Fifth Grave Precept

2009-09-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

Proceed clearly. Do not cloud the mind.

Why practice? The answer for me is that we practice because distraction does not work. Distraction is the essence of the Fifth Grave Precept.

Everything about us encourages distraction. Give me a boring, tedious OR a very challenging task (I'm intimidated then) and I find all kinds of was to procrastinate. Rather than proceed clearly with the task, for whatever mental story I'm telling myself about it, I choose to cloud the mind, to procrastinate, to not think about the task or why I'm avoiding it. If I think about the avoiding it I'll feel guilty and then need to procrastinate some more.

Alcohol, sex, opiates, shopping, donuts, exercise, running marathons, cribbage, carousing through Wikipedia, television, trashy novels....

Whatever. They're all ways we can choose to distract ourselves when taken too far. It isn't so bad in moderation. It is perfectly alright to make the choice to watch a television show, but perhaps not so cool to alienate your friends & loved-ones because you're not taking care of yourself because you're too busy watching shows. For some people a cupcake is just a cupcake, for others it is the beginning of a weekend-long cycle of binging and purging.

Why have I avoided writing about my weight loss for Chozen? Well, because talking about it such a public forum still makes me uncomfortable. I have found months worth of distraction, some of them I even cross-reference as "Zen Practice" (e.g., sesshin, sewing rakusu, writing about precepts, etc.) as a justification for my avoiding what my teacher has told me is of great value. Yep, we're back to my number one way to cloud the mind, procrastination. I'm good at it.

What does my distraction, my intently seeking to cloud my mind from the uncomfortable feelings that arise get me? Well, yes indeed-y, more GUILT. More Inner Critic assuring me my Dharma name will mean something along the lines of "Great Clumsiness" or "Remedial Zen Student" or "Slow Learner".

Proceed clearly. Drop the distractions. Drop the noise about needing the distractions. Just move forward in clarity even when, especially when the going is tough.

Revisiting the Fourth Grave Precept

2009-09-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

Manifest Truth. Do not lie.

Looking back on what I wrote in April 2008 and where I'm at in September 2009 is a lesson in seeking the truth of one's own life.

I'm divorced because of this precept. Of course it is at once more complicated, and yet as simple as that. It is the seeking of the Essential Self, the goal of the settled mind. That clarity does not mean that the consequences of the truth revealed will be simple or painless, but the way is clear.

"Are you self-identifying as a lesbian." a good friend asked during the divorce.

It felt weird, something about the words, "Self-Identifying" just didn't sit right. I guess I don't feel so much as I'm making a conscious decision to "identify" so much as a conscious decision to recognize, honor, and manifest the truth about myself. Acknowledging the Essential Self that is glimpsed when we settle the mind to silence.

I strive for such honesty, such transparency with others that I could easily dismiss this Precept as being "done". The truth of it is that I have the most difficult time when it comes to applying this precept to how I deal with myself. I find it far too easy to be untruthful with myself when it comes to looking honestly, compassionately at the whole of my life. The shiny bits and the ugly ones.

Especially the ugly bits.

Revisiting the Third Grave Precept

2009-09-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

Honor the body. Do not misuse sexuality.

This is such a sticky-feeling precept for me. As a person who has experienced sexual abuse my emotional response to the Third Grave Precept is pretty intense. Just this week I've found myself trying to respond calmly to some comments online where someone was suggesting that a celebrity had only now revealed sexual abuse because it was timed with a book being released. That no one would just keep stuff like that a secret.

But sexuality misused is all about secrecy, shame, and hidden things. I was livid at reading someone suggesting that hiding abuse was about attention-seeking and that gathering together the courage to speak about the abuse nothing more than a cheap ploy to generate book sales. I find it incomprehensible that someone could still suggest such a thing. That it was a man writing these awful things led me down the path of judging the majority of men for being abusers and doubters.

Loving, consensual sexuality is an act of sacredness. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the divinity that is arises from the sharing of vulnerability in sexual intimacy. When that honor, that trust is broken it can be so profoundly devastating at so many levels that it considerably easier to hide it in the silent abyss of shame.

My marriages were both, in their own way a misuse of sexuality. A way of staying "safe" and not exploring painful, difficult questions about myself. There just finally came a point where honoring myself, my essential self, meant recognizing that pretending I was something I was not. Pretending that I'm not a lesbian in order to not hurt someone is another way of misusing sexuality.

Even when I try to look at just the affirmation to "Honor the body." my mind jumps away from any connotation of sexuality. It is more comfortable to think about a healthful diet, weight loss, and exercise than it is to think about how this relates to sexuality. I immediately seek to distract myself from that discomfort by attempting to interpret the statement in a way I feel more confident speaking to.

But I am trying to see it as a way of learning to accept that our bodies have sexual feelings. Feeling desire for another person isn't a weakness nor is it something to be ashamed of, particularly not in the context of a loving relationship between adults. The sharing of intimacy should be an act of honoring the body.

Revisiting the Second Grave Precept

2009-09-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

Be giving. Do not steal.

In the time since I first took the vow to not steal I've really come to reflect more on the giving side of this precept. Perhaps it is because I've really looked at the Seventh Grave Precept much more closely, where we're encouraged further more to give generously. With reflection I've considered more the ways in which I want to not give, to not share my time or energy. "Robbing" other people of those intangible things.

I've also thought about the times when I try to over-extend myself, wanting so much to please another person that I'm willing to deplete, "steal" the energy I need to stay healthy. For some of us it is far to easy to be giving to the point of self-harm (and there we go breaking the First Grave Precept). People like it when you give, but we have to be willing to extend that generosity to ourselves as well.

On the other side is recognizing that other people need to set boundaries like this. Taking advantage of someone who gives generously and then being frustrated when they say they cannot feels to me as though it would fall into being weighed by this precept. Working with it has made me more aware of how people share with me (in ways emotional, material, and otherwise) and how I am given the opportunity to respond in kind.

Because I've spent a lot of time reflecting on my veganism I've also come to see how this precept applies to my interaction with animals. Just as I should not take advantage of a person's good-nature and willingness to help out, I don't feel it is right to take advantage of animals, to be part of the industry that "steals" their calves, etc. It is more giving to to animals to nurture myself on a plant-based diet

Revisiting the First Grave Precept

2009-09-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

Affirm life. Do not kill.

I wrote about the First Grave Precept in December 2007. It caused me to reflect upon my yoga practice, the Yama of ahimsa, and how I related to my husband at the time as well as students and co-workers.

In the nearly two years that have past my practice with honoring, affirming life has lead me to a divorce. It seems strange writing that, but in re-reading how the I saw the precept as being important for fostering honesty and supporting each other wholeheartedly, that's the truth of it. Staying married had not become a way for us to affirm who we are.

What has stayed constant, deepened, is my view of this precept as it relates to my decision to be a vegan. The first precept, to refrain from taking life and to affirm life whenever possible, is the foundation for how we work with all the other precepts. It directs how we interact in our life moment-by-moment, if we need any clarification we can always come back and ask ourselves questions directly related to this precept.

Is what I'm about to do going to harm another being, including myself, in any way? Is what I'm about to do something that will affirm the life of another being or myself?

Yes, I can look at honesty, intent to distract myself or others, generosity, anger, sexuality, gossip, self-aggrandizement, and speaking ill of other beings or the Three Treasures - in the end they all get held against the first precept. Am I harming or affirming life?

Following a vegan diet means that I am trying to nourish peace at a cellular level. After all, what I eat is what builds the very corporeal framework that lives this precept. Deciding that some suffering is acceptable to nourish myself with, turning a blind eye to the suffering of dairy cows so I can eat cheese isn't alright nor is pretending that there are "happy chickens" producing the eggs at the grocery store. I cannot pretend that suffering is somehow OK because the animal isn't actively being killed (at that moment) for the dairy or eggs. Yes, perhaps some chickens or cows suffer at a greater level than others, but I really don't think any of them can be considered happy; especially when they stop being "good producers".

I also choose not to split-hairs with non-vegan who insist on asking if I would change my mind if I owned and raised the chickens, etc. Even the arguing about the details detracts from the affirming, the honoring of life I am actively seeing. I am happy to explain why I choose to interpret the First Grave Precept as a reason for my veganism, I just don't seek to debate it.

I've come to see that I really don't need to sustain a healthy, peace-minded life by taking advantage of the fact that I can digest animal products. I'm easily capable of mindfully choosing a diet that translates to peace in every bite. From this place I know that I interact more compassionately to others. The peacefulness of my diet has helped me tremendously in learning to extend that same loving-kindness to myself. Even when I am frustrated I am more quickly capable of responding in a manner that seeks to actualize harmony because my life is fully nourished by the First Grave Precept.

The Grave Precepts

2009-09-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

In preparation for Jukai on October 8 I am writing about the 10 Grave Precepts. These vows, along with 6 others, I will take in front of my community (Sangha) when I formally become a Zen Buddhist. I've known I want to do this since 2006, but it has taken me 3 years to actually take the steps to do this. I was particularly anxious about sesshin practice, but the two I've done this year have been as hard as I feared and better than I could have hoped.

In spring of 2008 I took these first vows. CK was there, as she was when I completed a women's retreat at the beginning of 2008. These moments had the feeling of great importance when they happened. It feels very deeply right and wonderful that she will be taking the first five precepts when I am taking Jukai. The first five vows we'll say together.

I did not post what I've already written about the first five of the Grave Precepts. I have just posted them now and will be revisiting them in current writing. These are not tasks we check off and move onto the next step towards Enlightenment, rather they are part of our continuous practice. Like zazen, like asana, like the breath.

The Ten Grave Precepts

The Three Treasures

Taking refuge in the Buddha.
Taking refuge in the Dharma.
Taking refuge in the Sangha.

The Three Prue Precepts

Do not create evil.
Practice good.
Actualize good for others.

Fine, Just Fine

2009-09-17T19:53:00.001-07:00

Hawai'i was utterly astounding. A brief recap:

Black sand beaches? Check.
Tropical rain forest? Check.
Shave ice? Check, yum (can we manage to eat this daily?)!
Lush, tropical fruit? More yum and check (apple banana, anyone)!
Mongoose? Check (once we knew what they were... what is the plural of mongoose anyway?).
Amazingly friendly, giving, hugging people? Check (I've never been hugged by so many strangers in such a short amount of time. Close to daily hugs...)
Dolphins? Check (both spinner & spotted).
Sea Turtles? Check.
Toxic sulphuric dioxide fumes? Check, eeek and pick another hike!
Hiking in a still hot volcanic crater? Check (Kilauea Iki)!
Bus loads of tourists complete with Hawaiian tour guides in matching outfits? Uh... check.
Lava tube? Check.
Private warm pond with tropical fish? Check (ahhhhhhhh).

And...

LAVA FLOWING INTO THE SEA? OH BABY, CHECK!!!!

Now I'm home, integrating post sesshin, post vacation and trying madly to get my rakusu finished (yes, that is hand sewing) by the 24th to give to my teacher for Jukai next month. After it is done I do a bunch of writing I've not completed, including lots of blog posts.

For now... go look at the pretty pictures. A mere handful are posted, there will be more to come. We're working on a web "comic" using them.

Excited/Anxious

2009-08-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going back and forth between feeling really excited for the trip Wednesday mixed with my usual pre-trip anxiety. Like so much of the anxiety I don't expend as much energy trying to figure out why it happens and just try to work with it. A lot of people, even those without PTSD, get anxious about big trips. I'm just one of them and because I have PTSD it sometimes riles up other things making it seem more intense. End of story.

What's funny is that generally I'm anxious when the trip starts. CK is anxious the day before we're due to go home. Both of us have this fear that all hell will have broken loose while we're gone. I'm afraid I won't be there to help take care of it and CK fears having to come home to the uncertainty of it.

I started to pack clothing. I know I'm over packing but wanted to have a few options. The weather is supposed to be rather wet, especially the first few days. A tropical storm is coming near so a lot of rain. Should be dryer on the Kailua-Kona side, where we're headed on Thursday, and out on the boat/ocean on Friday. By the time we're hiking (probably Sunday) it should have some sunny times.

Hitting the Ground Running

2009-08-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

Got back from sesshin on Sunday night after a class on the Robes & Lineage in our Zen tradition followed by dinner! Whew! It was a heck of a long Sunday for me.

I've worked from home the past few days, just going into the office for the first time today. Monday had 5 meetings on the calendar, two of which I was supposed to run and send documentation out for. It has been pretty busy with the usual day-to-day, the catch-up from being gone a week, and the getting ready to be gone another week.

Not sure I'd recommend this planning method.

Between the busyness of work, swimming, teaching yoga, meeting kittens, getting a massage, and zazen tonight I've not had time to do much writing at all. It hasn't felt overwhelming, just, but trying to write as well would be asking too much. What time left has been for some connecting with CK and the chance to make some amazing tomato soup with the tomatoes from our garden!

Oh, and arranging for us to swim with dolphins on my birthday. This involves a side-trip to the Kona side of the Big Island since the excursion meets at 6:30AM. We'll be staying the night in Captain Cook in order to have a quick drive to the harbor. We'll spend the day after the drive exploring the Kona side and driving back along the north coast.

Sesshin was another deep experience, there's a lot there including what I felt I learned after a week of picking blackberries. There will just have to be some catch up reflections later!