Be here now

I saw an old couple on the subway a few days ago. I couldn't take my eyes off them. They looked relaxed and cheerful, were having what appeared to be a very fun, interesting conversation. Their vibe was great, but just as great was their appearance. Neither one of them was trying to look young. They were grey haired and it was clear neither had had "work" of any kind. She was dressed in a colorful tunic and leggings, her long hair in a braid down her back. He wore a simple sweater and pair of jeans, black Chuck Connors. I always notice shoes, so I can tell you she was wearing some version of a clog; I didn't recognize the brand. Maybe she was wearing a little make-up, maybe none at all. They were stylish in an age appropriate way. More significant, they looked comfortable in their wrinkly skins. It came to me that the only time old people look really weird is when they try to look younger.

It's sad, the way our culture vilifies aging. It's not like we've done anything wrong by growing old, we just haven't died yet. Watching a family close by who is about to deal with the untimely death of their 28 year old daughter makes me want even more than ever to embrace the wonders, beauty, wisdom and liberations of older age.

For a long time, in accordance with cultural hatred for old age, I tried to slam the brakes on my aging appearance; I colored my hair until just a few years ago, for instance. I loved it when people said, "You don't look THAT OLD!" because I didn't get it. I really didn't get it, how powerful and freeing it is to grow older. I had no idea I would like it so much! I also didn't understand that when people say I look young, they are insulting me. Why is it wrong to look my age? It's like saying, "Don't worry, you can hide your dirty little secret. No one will know." Please!

Researchers and scientists work their asses off every day, figuring out how to help us live longer and longer. But no one is putting two and two together: that a long life, in this culture, means you'll have to spend the last half pretending it isn't a long life. Or said another way, do these people want to be old for a really long time? Crazy.

Yes yes, life is precious. Being young has its pros and cons, just like every age. For those of my age who try so hard to act/look young, I want to say we had our time to do all that! Now it's another generation's turn. Same as it ever was.

Live well and fully. Be who you are, act your age! L'chaim.

When I walk, I am sane

From inside the summerhouse on the Capitol grounds.

What a gentle "winter" we're having in DC. I can remember a time when I would find nice, warm 50 F. days in late January upsetting. For the life of me I can't remember why, because it's wonderful to be outside on a day like yesterday, walking around without gloves, a scarf, a hat, earmuffs, heavy coat, etc. Maybe for real I'm becoming a southerner! Is that possible?

May I name a very politically incorrect personal truth? Here goes: I don't enjoy sharing the streets with people on bicycles any more than the people driving cars. Some bike riders are calm, but a great many of them are just as likely to get all worked up about the flow of traffic as the people driving cars. They are far more likely to run red lights, weave in and out of cars and people, swear audibly and act crazy because a pedestrian (that would be me, for instance) DARES to walk and stroll, looking at the sky and taking pictures. No one in a car whips by me while I'm on a sidewalk, but bike riders do so all the time. No bell, no warning, no "on your left." Sometimes they come within an inch or two. It's as if they're entertaining the thought of running me down. It is unnerving.

It's better for the environment, but really what is up with people who ride bikes?

This morning the birds are singing and the squirrels are dashing around, hither and yon. It's going to rain today, but again the temps will climb into the 50s. After work, I'll be able to get out for at least a quick walk around Lincoln Park. I'll stay on the brick sidewalks where I stand the best chance of avoiding cyclists.

All is well. Shalom.


The green world is trying its best to go with the flow of this non-winter.

Bring it on

DISCLAIMER: It's a weird one.

"Speciation is the result of rare events in the environment, such as genetic mutations, a shift in climate, or a mountain range rising up." --evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel

Because there are so many of us, and we're a little bit too clever for our own good, the climate is shifting. There's no doubt that much of what we do, how we live these days, is creating genetic mutations.

And, too, we've reached the the end of the rope in terms of how we've evolved to this point. Our evolutionary strategy, increasing cranial size to accommodate ever bigger brains, has lead us to a place in which childbirth is dangerous and inordinately painful. Our heads literally can't grow any bigger. Hence we must learn how to use what's inside our freakishly huge skulls. Something's got to give!

I've been thinking about this for awhile now, noticing how ripe the environment is for change, looking for signs of an evolutionary shift.

Technology is the mountain range rising up, providing we homo sapiens a step-up to the change. The internet is, in its own way, a neural network. Through blogging, FB, twitter, even old fashioned email, a fairly hefty percentage of the seven billion of us on planet Earth are discovering ways to interconnect, to cooperate with each other in brand new ways. All together, through the internet, we are forming networks that have never existed before. This interconnection is physically changing our brains, also the way we think.



Any evolutionary leap brings with it chaos, at least initially. I see the fallout every day, don't you? Attention Deficit Disorder, for instance, did not exist when I was growing up. There was no such thing as multi-tasking. No one drove a car while texting or surfed the internet. There were no remotes, and only three channels on TV. To change the channel, you had to stand up, walk to the TV and manually turn the knob. Two generations prior to mine, there were no cars, no electric lights, phones or travel by air. Think about it.

When I was growing up, very few Americans did yoga or T'ai Chi or meditated. These practices, that steady the attention and help people feel centered and grounded, are an important anchor, a counterbalance, to the chaos of change.

It's happening fast!

“I’m certain that rapid evolution occurs. We just don’t know to look for it,” --evolutionary biologist Michael Travisano

Open your eyes, Dr. Travisano, and behold the iphone, an almost miraculous tool with which to further evolution. This device has become, for many of us, an extension of the body. I'm fascinated and thrilled, knowing that in my brain, there is a map that includes the iphone as part of my body/mind. I'm not at all embarrassed to admit it. Learn the technology, people! It will help us move forward, out of the era of fallout and chaos, towards what lies ahead.

Is what comes next the singularity? I have no idea, but if crazy dudes like Raymond Kurzweil are correct, it will behoove us all to learn the technology now, before it's incorporated into the body. Work with the algorhythms of Facebook, Pandora radio and such. Get inside the way these things work. It can only help.

Go ahead and multitask - safely, please! - because that practice creates neural networks of great complexity. Also, please meditate - you MUST meditate, actually. You must. Do yoga or take up a martial art; find a way to practice steadying your attention between bouts of multi-tasking. Stretch your mind in ways you've never stretched it before. Otherwise, the world will only become more bewildering to you. Eventually, those who resist this leap will die out, like the poor Neanderthals, the dodo, and all other species who could not, for one reason or another, adapt.

We can't keep doing what we've been doing. If we persist, it will be the end of us all. C'mon, y'all. It's happening, right now. Jump in with both feet, hey? Oh yeah.


We were so idealistic in the 70s - and may I say it straightaway? - dorky as all get out. But we saw something coming, we did.

How happy?

Revelations about happiness, pt. 2

I'm almost halfway through the Track Your Happiness study. The process continues to provide one revelation after another. I am a devoted naval gazer, and still, every day my eyes are opened to patterns and habits I had no idea existed.

My participation involves keeping an eye on the iphone (never a problem for me). Three times a day, at random, a text arrives with a link to a short survey. The questions are simple, but provocative. Almost always the first question is a slider from "very bad" to "very good." The question is, "How good do you feel right now?" It's a vague question, oh yeah. I have to stop, scan my body, mind and heart, I have to ask myself how good I feel at that second. When I meditate and pray in the morning, I do this sort of scan, after which I forget to check in with myself for the rest of the day. It is so interesting.

One of things I've learned is that I'm happier indoors than outdoors. This may be true only because we're in the middle of a dark, cold, gray winter weather pattern. But I would never have guessed that since I value spending time outside so deeply. Values and reality can clash. Wow.



Part of what the researchers are trying to correlate is the relationship between happiness and what is now called "flow" - the state of being fully present, focused and in the moment. The survey asks how focused I was on whatever I was doing just before the text arrived. If I'm not fully focused (most of the time), the survey will ask if my extraneous thoughts had to do with judgments about myself. The possible answers include "no," "yes, positively," "yes, neutrally," and "yes, negatively."

I am such a self-scolder! Almost always I must answer that I'm negatively judging myself. Even when I'm doing something very positive, productive or fun, I'm simultaneously waving a finger at myself because it's not good enough or I should be doing something else. Good lord.

It's a very low level sort of thing, which must account for why I have not noticed this before. Ten years on the couch in therapy helped me turn down the volume, but it's still there, ongoing at all times. Dear friends mention often that my self esteem is not up to snuff, but I haven't listened to them because I'm mostly happy, especially compared to when I was younger. I see now that I must unhinge this thought pattern, because life is short! What am I waiting for?

Who knows what else I'll discover?

Here's the link to the Track Your Happiness site. It only works on iphones. If you don't have an iphone, for heaven's sake, get one. It opens doors and windows to experiences you can't get any other way. Here's a link to my original post about the study.

Have a happy day! Shalom.

Kaddish

It was many years ago that a client I'll call S. died from breast cancer. She was 32 years old. Yes it was tragic, though she had suffered from the disease for four years. By the time she passed, she was ready. She was a soldier as is her husband. They had no kids, so they didn't have to contend with that. They were practical people. It was sad and it was a relief.

Here on Capitol Hill we are rallying around a family dealing with the imminent passing of their 28 year old daughter from a cancer so aggressive and rare, no one from Sloan Kettering to NIH has had a clue how to treat it. They tried every concoction of toxic chemo, all of which made this young woman miserable. Nothing slowed the growth of the cancer. The lesions are everywhere, growing exponentially.

She was diagnosed in September 2011. She's at home at last this weekend, away from the hospital setting. Home hospice has been set up. Now the family waits. It's the worst part.

This family has a lot of support from neighbors and friends, also from their spiritual community. Still, and of course, the parents are a wreck. I'm sending them a steady stream of Reiki, holding them in my heart of hearts.

In a situation like this it's hard to know what to pray for. I think it's more about giving it up, turning it over, surrendering to a greater wisdom, than asking for a particular outcome. Actually it's probably always better to surrender to a greater wisdom when praying. Yeah.

Like everyone else in the community, I'm waiting, thinking about the family, feeling grateful for my good health and well being, appreciating in ways I'm not normally able, how precious and beautiful life is.

Thanks for allowing me to share this sad news. Shalom.

Dance of the Lizard Brains

Contemplating the reasons why unrequited and star-crossed love is more compelling (in movies and books at least) than "live happily ever after" love, brings me back to a thought I often entertain: most, if not virtually all of our behavior is linked in some way to instinct.

The life force is very influential! That force powers survival and procreation of the species on a personal as well as tribal level. Because we can't help but create stories about everything - it's how we're built - of course the story of consummation would loom large in our psyches. The story of how we consummate love is more interesting than the settle-down-and-live-happily-ever part. Once a baby is conceived, the instinct to procreate has been satisfied. Without instinct driving the storytelling we're always engaged in, interest drops off.

We aren't the only species to do the mating dance; in fact I don't know of any species that doesn't have some form of mating ritual. With these dances, back and forth, closer then further away, fighting, making up, making love, we honor the life force in all its majesty.

Hence in fact the drama of star crossed love is a sacred enactment of one of our most deeply seated instincts. We make these stories fantastic, complex, heart warming or wrenching, even funny, but the behavior from where these stories arises comes from the brain stem, not the fancy machinations of the frontal lobes.

It's interesting to think about.

Today in DC is icy, bitter. The lizard brainstem inside my big ole skull is directing me to stay safe. What that looks like from the vantage point of my storyteller cerebral cortex is a day mostly indoors, drinking tea and listening to music. In so doing I serve the will to survive by staying safe and warm.

I'm good with that! Shalom.