Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

abstraction, doing vs. being

Posted on by

fish in pond, Hocking Hills, OhioThe man who created personalities created a multifaceted self. He was a molish kind of man. At least that’s who he saw himself as at the moment. To others he was many things. Musician. Artist. Cook, Lover, Artist, Musician, Husband, Gardener, Egoist, Queen, queen, bottom, top, philosopher, poet, arrogant, self-absorbed, insecure, jerk, stupid, lazy bum, but always with that ever morphing idea of Self.

And the “instrument” one needs to learn in order to play out the natural grace of living is the body. Grace leads us to our core, the vibrant entity of our bodily existence.

There are two types of animals inside each of us. They are constantly in a fight for our personalities, one could say our souls.

One is greedy, malicious, selfish, lazy, hateful, bitter and leads to a living kind of hell, a numbness which says nothing about your life, or only that you missed the boat. This part never questions why, but just does, in order to get something: power, money, control, revenge. It runs ever faster to escape listening to its heart.

The other is loving, giving, modest, polite, nonjudgmental, honest, grateful, and leads to a graceful peace who’s value is never in question. This part knows that we can never really know why we are here, but also knows that the heart’s quiet voice nonetheless gives a simple answer: love and let love.

The outcome of the battle depends on which one you feed.

Sometimes I feel twisted, writhing with doubts, questioning my faults. Anyone who questions themselves will find faults. But living with grace allows us to notice and smile and be as modest about our weakness as we are our strengths.

According to my massage therapist, we are human beings, not human doings. I liked that idea. Just be.

Silence

Posted on by

Cherry BlossomsSo much takes place in the contemplative silence of observation.

How does one write of silence? …the silence of the sun setting, which closes the origami day of busy thoughts into curled, wet night? Of the clear pink ruffled petticoat and sweet smell of a cherry blossom in April? Of my aching back which reminds me not so much of all the garden work I’ve done, but of how old I feel?

A visit to family in Bethesda over the weekend allowed my body to relax, and also allowed a virus to infest my system, inspiring further sluggishness. I’ve been feeling like a slug in general these days: Don’t wanna talk, don’t wanna save the world, don’t wanna think. A general rejection of positive decorum burns within me. So I didn’t plan much for my visit. I just wanted to veg.

My sister and I ended up attending a performance of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. I wanted to do something to get out of the house. While near the big city, do big city things. The Passion was to be performed, appropriately, on Good Friday. Not being religious, I looked forward mainly to Bach’s glorious music. I had never heard this piece in it’s entirely. It’s very long and involved, basically recounting in detailed musical drama the last week of Jesus’ life. It ended up being a life turning experience for me.

How does one describe how great music kneads one’s emotions into a rum ball which silently melts in the hot breath of a hungry mouth?

The longest of Bach’s works, it fills three hours. This performance was led by Helmuth Rilling, the renowned German scholar and interpreter of Bach’s music. He led impressive forces, including two orchestra’s formed by members of the National Symphony, two choirs, a children’s chorus, and six soloists.

Believe it or not, Rilling conducted the entire performance from memory! Now that’s passion for music. He brought an ethereal lightness from the normally heavy music, yet it did not detract from the somber effect. He held together the large span of its structure by maintaining direction, with very little break between the many sections.

During the performance, an earthly problem added an ironic distraction. A guide dog whimpered a high pitched canine descant throughout most of the performance. It’s owner stubbornly remained, even as many patrons nearby had to leave. One patron finally convinced the owner to leave, perhaps offering to buy her ticket back. Too bad, since this music is rarely performed live.

passion of Jesus ChristWith a hefty head cold brewing in my head, I sat and absorbed this magnificent music, written centuries ago in 1727. With all the text set to music, it alternates between narration, dialog and emotional or poetic impressions. The narration and dialog tell the well known story from over two thousand years ago in a seamless set of scenes.

After each scene, the poetic exposition of its emotions featured the richest music. This is where the text and music appeals to the listener across time and history. As Bach’s music worked its magic, I silently warmed to a compelling message; one of empathy, forgiveness and renewal. I also felt a deep comfort under the mantle of gentle Spirit of this Son of Man, who suffered far more for his innocence than I ever will for my sinfulness.

My spirit unfolded its origami way into a new sheet of uncreased joy.

Pansies in PotsThe rest of the weekend was spent enduring the rise and fall of an empire of virus, which blossomed into a full head cold. Nonetheless, beautiful weather inspired some yard work to maintain and ever improve Platinum Glamor’s voluptuous garden.

This time my brother-in-law and I added several new Camellia bushes to replace some rhododendrons which had croaked. There wasn’t much else to do, except prune and clean a bit. My mother’s garden is healthy and vigorous. Each year it fills up and out as it matures. I’ve watched that garden grow for 35 years. Much has come and gone. I love the stories Spring gardens tell of years past, when I remember what used to grow there, or how small that tree was way back when. I’m more aware of time’s passing in Spring. Each dawn urges the garden into a new array, surprising us into noticing.

How does one measure the teaming chorale of Springs quiet vigor as it sprawls out over the abyss of time with such assurance?

Colored Easter EggsSomewhere in between gardening, shopping and attending the concert we managed to have several wonderful meals, including lamb for Easter dinner. We even dyed some eggs, color therapy to wash away winter grays.

I quietly breathe in these reminders that newness is always at hand, even when I’m feeling sick with an aching back and a sluggish soul.

Facing forward

Posted on by

stained glass leaded windowThere are things I just don’t like facing. I shut down. I tumble the discomfort into a jumble of words and throw the words out, lose them in the chaos.

I just had a party, a happy, boisterous noise of 15 people. When everyone left I was alone. Loneliness loomed. At first there was panic. But I sank down into it and it softened. Ultimately everything comes to an end. To believe otherwise is delusion. But to discount the value of the illusion of endlessness is also foolish. It is important to acknowledge the sadness of endings.

We are human, animal, flesh and blood. We need petting, barking, sniffing, munching, along with all the rich variety of human emotions attached to our bodies. Yet we forget this fact more often than we realize. There is so much activity that occupies us on a daily basis that we don’t often need to face our frailty, our mortal coil. Even our spiritual lessons distract us from the naked truth. Subscribing to the illusion of permanence causes suffering.

Yet beyond that truth, or perhaps encasing it, is the brute reality that we have no choice but to involve ourselves in the lives of others, as much as we can. Even though doing so causes us the suffering of endings. This paradox both intrigues me and shakes me to the core. Regardless of the “meaning” of life, it’s obvious we must live it somehow, embrace some belief. To do otherwise is suicide, unless you are meant to become an extreme ascetic. (or a lost puppy, like me)

Even within the company of another we are ultimately alone, a separate mass of nerves. I’ve never been comfortable with that idea, but none of my experience has proved otherwise. My own reality, my body, mind and unique path doesn’t permit full convergence with another person. At least not yet, not in this life. Sharing with others my deepest emotions, my deepest understanding, my greatest epiphanies, offers momentary connection, then passes like an orgasm. All we ultimately have is the illusion, frame by frame, to use in some cut and paste, pointillist storyline of meaning.

So the party is over. The joyous roar which filled the void has ended. I cradle the sweet sadness of being alone.

I watch. I see the curve, the rise and fall of those waves. Ultimately it’s the waves, rather than the epiphanies, which comfort me. It’s like breathing. I sigh and turn the page.

Beginnings and Endings

Posted on by

The maturity of man— that means, to have reacquired the seriousness one had as a child at play. F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

I wrote the following thoughts in 1987, inspired by the Nietzsche quote. Revisiting them now, I wonder if I’ve lived by them. I try to fill up all the gaps in my life. Why? Mortality. Fear of death. It’s only natural. Yet the original intent of those words still rings within me, muted by doubt, tempered by experience.

The very verbiage with which we play every day, like a child in a sandbox, often reveals shiny objects. But isn’t luster lost with too much handling? And aren’t the shiniest of those mere reflections of light from elsewhere? Yet who would deny the child chasing a butterfly or a star? What of the mother-of-pearl shell we’ve found, taken home, washed and put on the windowsill, then forgotten? What really matters?

The sadness I carry while burying my departed dog is a reflection, another side, of the sweet emotion I use to wet my lover’s lips today. It is the beginning of some end.

The artist alone know the complexity of the blackest black. And only she knows where and how to use it in the shadows of the sunniest painting.

To tattoo our entire body with the greatest symbols of man would not begin to betray the seriousness of the cat sitting by the window watching snow fall. But who watches the cat? Who watches the watcher?

May you love the seriousness which goes beyond Good and Evil.

Nearly 20 years has passed. Almost half my life has been lived in the meantime, done with, finished. Yet endings are continuous, always revealing something new. I face forward.

A few days ago I had a large Bradford pear tree cut down. It was at least 22 years old, pretty old for that kind of tree. The older varieties, of which this was one, were known for splitting at the “crotches” of their many, heavy limbs. Depending on where and how a large branch fell, it could cause severe damage. I had taken measures to support the weaker joints over the years. I had even had the canopy lowered to relieve the top heavy weight.

Luckily this one had not yet split. But a large crack had formed in one of the larger crotches. Besides, I was tired of raking leaves in December, since it held its leaves very late. Its span covered my entire front yard, so its branches were slowly shading to death all the plants beneath its canopy. The time had come.
before tree removal
That tree was there when I bought the house 15 years ago. Now it’s gone. It’s unique and particular branch structure is no more. I thought about how it came from a single seed. For twenty some years it carved its way upward against gravity. It endured heavy winds, ice storms and bitter cold. It was a vigorous tree, covered with white flowers in Spring. In Fall it often glowed with bright yellow to orange leaves. Its branches housed numerous squirrel and bird nests. I had hung several wind chimes in its branches. My cats had climbed it hundreds of times, sharpening their nails on its stout, craggy bark. Most Winters, on a warmish day when I felt a bit of Spring fever, I’d get out the saw and prune its branches. I enjoyed the exercise and feeling of accomplishment. This tree endured many, many prunings. I thank it for its shade, for its vigor, for its life.
Pear tree gone
The day it was cut down, I was tense. Naturally, I feared some kind of accident, damage to my house or my other plants, or perhaps the climber would fall. All went well. Upon seeing the empty space right after it was removed, I felt anxious about having done it. I don’t like cutting down trees. Too many beautiful trees have been removed on my street recently. But I knew I had little choice.

As I stood looking at the open front yard, my neighbor came over and told me she had seen a red tailed hawk circling interestedly over my fron yard within hours of the tree’s disappearance. It seemed a healthy omen from nature. What do you think?

Now my front yard is open for the first time since I’ve lived here, a third of my life. The house, with its rich colors, will be more visible from the street. With more light the ornamental plants around it will now flourish. I can begin to replant the 100’s of crocuses which used to flourish with a burst of rich color in the small lawn area each Spring.

I’m already dreaming about which small, ornamental tree will fill that prime spot in my front yard. The shocking change has inspired me toward gardening for the first time in years. The loss of that pear tree will perhaps mark other new beginnings for me. If I allow myself the childish seriousness Nietzsche wrote of, I can feel it. Change carries both death and life. Endings and Beginnings.

It’s All Good

Posted on by

double wedding ring quilt
This evening I meditated for the first time in awhile. I sat for over an hour in a chilly, dimly lit upstairs room, facing a north window, staring mostly at a desk I hardly use anymore. (especially since I set up this computer facing south in a different room on the first floor) I’m not sure why I meditated now or why I hadn’t for many months. I think I needed to reconcile the distance I feel from blogging, from words, thoughts, ideas. I needed to just experience, clean out.

Years ago I found a source of power in the detachment I learned from focused meditation. (I’m talking 15 years ago.) Detachment freed my fears, allowed me to breathe new air, new life and ideas. I felt free to grow and learn, to improve. Then I began to cling to that feeling, that essence of detachment. I began to mythologize it. And its power quickly faded. I wondered and searched for why it faded. I didn’t have a regular practice and soon “gave up”. (I don’t have a regular practice in anything, except irregularity.)

Sitting tonight, I tumbled with thoughts as I settled my posture to relieve the discomfort it caused. I tried to slow my breathing, which tends to become over excited and then I hyperventilate. I tried to calm my mind. Calming the mind is like trying to calm a restless sea. Doing less is better. So I just let. And let.

And let. The desk before me occasionally revealed itself directly in the swirl of words and images, the monkey mind flitting as a moth in the garden on a summer night. The desk’s wooden structure is as simple, platonic as it gets. Square angles, average proportions, no frills. Utilitarian. Probably oak, or some other hardwood, I’m guessing it was made in the forties of fifties, judging by the deco-ish drawer handles.

The three drawers at the right of a cubby hole for the user’s chair have been stained blackish, perhaps from thousands of touches by human hands. What of the lives of those hands? What of their fate? Did doubt tremble in some? Did sex film those fingers? Chocolate cake? Perhaps this desk was used in a factory office, where soot or other noxious particles permeated the building. Perhaps the lungs which breathed while sitting nearby have expired. Unknown, these possible histories flex in my imagination. What of the forests from which the wood came, each individual tree? And on. All this noticing happens in a second.

I shift my focus to the objects on the desk, which tell tales of my own recent history; a Japanese handmade paper candle shade, decorated with dried flowers within the fibers of the paper. It was given to me by a friend years ago. So simple and timeless and fragile. I consider its value, which soaks beyond its paper structure. Nearby sits is a small ceramic pot to burn fragrant oils. Functional, round, glazed white, it heats a few drops of oil by a candle placed below. Both remind me of past habits, now faded, to practice yoga and meditate here by candle light and (often lung-clogging) oil scented air. A tiny pocket notebook lies open, unused for months now, where ideas for poems or posts were noted. Other objects litter the desktop, adding to its history heap.

This bit of noticing brought me some clarity.

When I notice the ephemeral state of any thought or life, none of this matters. The pain and cold in my body are only temporary. Is any level of pain unbearable when considered against nothingness? Such awareness frees ties to the frail body. I can see so many choices, so many words, so many possible lives fanning out from here. Each choice excludes millions, and creates others. Yet just one is me just sitting. So I sit… and sit. I notice. I am older.

Long ago I read Sartre’s “Nausea” and was profoundly affected by it’s cynical, existential tone. I often feel the nausea of not knowing who I am, not really knowing, only placing meaning, choosing from the emptiness. Nothing matters in the long run. It’s all relative to the vast space and time we are so good at ignoring. I don’t behave so cynically, but inside, I still feel it’s all just illusions, temporary patterns. So I choose to live the illusions, the subjective experience in general, of beauty, happiness, food, love, sex, trust, music, family, friends. These are what I rely on to compose and anchor my detachment. Otherwise I would just float away.

This sitting session helped me. Detachment is powerful. Frightening. Enticing. A burden and a gift. I am responsible for how I live.

I have work to do. I have goodness to share. I matter. I know. It’s all good if I breathe in synchronicity with the heartbeats around me.

The photo above is part of an Amish “double wedding ring” pattern quilt, from OH, 1930s. The interwoven circles could symbolize the inter-relatedness of all life on this fragile sphere.

technorati tags- , , , ,