Gratitude

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.