Endorphins Happen

Today was my first day at Results, the gym, a place I'm going to be working a couple of half days a week. It's going to be fun, jovial and convivial, a nice balance to the serene tranquility of my usual workplace. Gyms are happy places because the people there are taking care of themselves, feeling good about what they're doing. All of us tightly wound Washingtonians need ways to release energy; sweating and breathing hard really helps.

I was so happy to work exclusively at Healing Arts for many years, though the last couple of years have not been as satisfying. Creature of habit that I am, I would probably dig in my heels and stay at Healing Arts forever. Fortunately the universe is showing me, without a shadow of a doubt, that the time has come to make the changes I've been contemplating. I tend to shy away from change even when it's clear that it's inevitable. After I finally work up my nerve to do something about what's no longer working, I always wonder why I waited so long.

Taking a couple of shifts at the gym is my first step out of the old pattern. OK. Onwards & upwards!

Stumps

I couldn't take my eyes off the trees today during my trudge to work and home. It was another gloomy day (we've had Connecticut weather all winter this year, except not cold). The light was perfect for highlighting all the branch stumps where the trees have been crudely trimmed.

Pruning is an art. Cut the wrong branch at the wrong moment and the tree shape will never quite recover itself. In summer when the trees are in full leaf, the structural oddities are hidden behind a thick blanket of green. But in winter, trunk, branch and twig are completely exposed.

All the chaos of empty trees with their gnarly trunks, blunt branch stumps, badly cut once upon a time, is far more fitting as a metaphor of my spiritual path than the graceful symmetry of the walking labyrinth.

In fact when I think about it, every spiritual journey I've ever heard of contains false starts, dead ends, branches chopped off at the wrong moment, in the wrong way. All spiritual paths require a lot of back tracking. More than a graceful walk, more than skillful navigation, the path of the spirit seems to me like a trial and error experiment (with many moment of bliss, many moments of confusion).

So, the pattern of spirit really is a maze, not a labyrinth after all. For heaven's sake!

Everyone I've ever met has longed to evolve beyond our quintessential human behavior of blundering around like idiots when it comes to God. We want to walk mindfully, with grace, reverance and openness through our lives. Who do you know who can really do it, though? Maybe the Dalai Lama? Maybe. The people who designed these walking meditations must surely have realized how much we humans need inspiration. Who wouldn't want to believe in the idealized path of the labyrinth? I do!

Maybe the labyrinth walk is our way of practicing all those things that no one can count on in real life. I'm talking about a smooth path, no sidetracks, no mistakes made. That would be lovely! Wouldn't it?

Maybe

Here's a story the Jin Shin Do teacher told our class last week. It's about a man whose only horse ran away. The neighbors came over when they heard the news and said, "What bad luck!" The man said, "Maybe."

The next day the horse came back, and brought 4 wild horses with it. The neighbors came over when they heard the news and said, "What good luck!" The man said, "Maybe."

The following day the man's son rode one of the wild horses, was thrown off and broke his leg. The neighbors came over when they heard the news and said, "What bad luck!" The man said, "Maybe."

The day after that the Army recruiters came to town, but because the boy's leg was broken, they didn't draft him into the army. The neighbors came over when they heard the news and said, "What good luck!" The man said,

"Maybe."



It's an interesting paradox to hold, my situation, I mean, as a lover of signs and portents who understands that all my attempts to interpret these signals are faulty at best. I believe reality is co-created, moment to moment, so how can I see the future? How?

Still I can't resist the temptation to try to understand in which direction I'm headed, even though I don't have a clue whether I'm spot on or way off base. At least I can try, right?


The artist’s will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. --Sol LeWitt


One reason I love walking the labyrinth is because it's a meandering path. When I started the practice, I often became disoriented as I walked the pattern, even though I knew intellectually that a labyrinth is not a maze. There's one path only on the Chartres style labyrinth. So many twists and turns, though, worse than Highway 1 north of San Francisco.

All the portents of the moment point to huge life changes this year, necessary but rigorous. I talked about these changes all last year but ended up doing nothing. But now it's clear I need to act. I'm trying to imagine that in my life path I've just reached another hairpin turn on the labyrinth. Today's strategy is to slow down on the inside in order to move more mindfully through this swirling pattern of change. Is that a good idea?

Maybe.

I'll be happy when ...

Mercury goes direct on the 19th. Sheesh.

Whole Hearted

Happy Valentine's Day to all. I'm feeling, after my birthday yesterday, so well loved. My heart feels spacious and luxurious. It's a wonderful feeling. Also feeling so old, yikes! Better than the alternative as they say.

And so goes the paradoxical mix of emotions that are always a part of my birthday. Another year older, and still so well loved. Could be worse, eh?

L'chaim, ya'all.

Many Happy Returns

It was an obsession of Eunice Goode’s that there was very little time left in the world, that whatever one wanted to do, one had better get it done quickly or it would be too late. Her conception of that segment of eternity which was hers to know was expressed somewhat bafflingly in a phrase she had written in her notebook shortly after arriving in Tangier: “Between the crackling that rends the air and the actual flash of lightning that strikes you, there is a split second which seems endless, and during which you are conscious that the end has come. That split second is now.” Yet the fact that her mind was constantly recalled to this fixed idea (as a bit of wood floating in the basin of a waterfall returns again and again to be plunged beneath the surface by the falling water), rather than inciting her to any sort of action, ordinarily served only to paralyze her faculties.

-- “Let It Come Down,” Paul Bowles, 1952


Thank you so much, Steve, for yesterday's post about time. I have stolen the quote shamelessly, in its entirety. Though I know you didn't consciously understand you were sending me the best birthday message possible, you were! Mr. Bowles wrote these words just a few months before I arrived, screaming, colicky and melancholy, exactly 55 years ago. Wow. Love being on your wavelength. Thank you!!

It's gloomy and rainy in Washington DC, but I have a very nice day ahead anyway, including a session with the Sufi acupuncturist, lunch at a fancy restaurant with a good friend, dinner tonight at the home of another good friend. In addition, my family got together and did a psychic reading for me for the coming year. Their divination tool of choice was a sushi deck of playing cards. Is that cool or what? I am in awe of this wonderful gift.

Another turning of the wheel, another birthday, another brief moment of awareness between the crackle and the flash. Life is good and I am grateful.

Kinship

Every time I encounter the ocean, I wonder how anyone could doubt that the earth is a living being. Just like you or me, the earth is constantly in motion, shifting and changing, aging, renewing itself. The continents are sliding around, one over the other not that differently than the way your shoulder blade (for instance) shifts itself up and down as you move your arms around. Mountains are growing and are also being eroded, so like our human bodies over the span of our lifetimes. I can understand the need for volcanic eruptions - I've experienced microcosmic versions of this phenomenon more times than I care to admit, even though it's perfectly natural. Rivers and springs flow just like the blood in our veins, down into the oceans. I could go on and on, talk about weather and seasons, blah blah blah. I won't - you get the idea, right?

We, just like this planet, are watery beings along with some structural components, i.e. minerals, and adornments of flora and fauna. It thrills me to think of myself as part of the family that includes Brother Sun and Mother Earth, it makes me proud. That's just one more reason why it's so good to connect with the oceans whenever possible. It's such a powerful reminder that I belong right here - in this body, on this unbelievably beautiful planet. There's no place like home.