Mother Pain & God Trust
By gartenfische | June 10, 2008
Today is a day for dealing with family stuff (mentally, I mean). I went to my homeopath* and somehow ended up on the topic of my mom. So much pain there.
Over the past couple of years, I had come to the conclusion that endlessly analyzing my family situation and all the problems it brought, and brings, into my psyche and my life doesn’t help. It actually keeps me stuck in the past and in the pain. And my homeopath said the same; she said trust your practices—meditation, yoga, prayer—to bring healing, you don’t need to know why this and why that to heal. Yes, I must continue to surrender. To trust that the story of my past (and even present) wounds is not the story of me. Can I trust God or not?
I have an ultra analytical mind that tries hard to understand the why of things. I didn’t grow up with spiritual training, so never learned about trust and faith—those concepts are new to me. I was taught that we have to rely on ourselves, but for me, that was a dead end. I tried hard, over many years, to figure out what to do to get better. (Go into any bookstore and look at all the volumes dedicated to helping us “get better.”) That it is about surrender more than effort is a revelation. And trust? When your own parents cannot really be trusted, where does it come from? Thankfully, my present family is polar opposite to my birth family and this is one place it comes from. My spiritual experiences, which I’ve written about here in the past, have also taught me trust. It takes time. It takes God.
Then I came home and read Linda’s post about her mother and her own painful past. Linda is truly a survivor. (I think I am too, but sometimes I have doubted how well I was doing it.) It seems the day for reliving mother stuff for some of us. And then I popped over to Trent’s and read this:
If God is found in our hard times, then all of life, no matter how apparently insignificant or difficult, can open us to God’s work among us. To be grateful does not mean repressing our remembered hurts. But as we come to God with our hurts—honestly, not superficially—something life changing can begin slowly to happen. We discover how God is the One who invites us to healing. We realize that any dance of celebration must weave both the sorrows and the blessings into a joyful step.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
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You may have noticed I haven’t been writing much. Words seem incredibly superfluous lately. Today, it was the intersection of three unrelated related things (and the people behind them) that brought me to words. I don’t want to dwell on my own pain, but I want healing for all of us and sometimes sharing our personal journeys can help.
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One day I will write about my experience with homeopathy—let’s just say it’s been life changing. Thanks to N, my life has been transformed; I went from suffering three to four horrific migraines a week to about two to three a month that are generally mild, and I keep improving. Before seeing N, I couldn’t do many things that most people take for granted—migraines ruled my life (and ruined many family get togethers and special events, etc).
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See part of J.K. Rowling’s commencement speech at Harvard—about Amnesty International and its amazing work—at wyrdbyrd.
Topics: God, family | 19 Comments »
The Desert
By gartenfische | May 29, 2008
The desert has always been holy for me, even before I knew what holy was. Or, I should say, when I knew in my bones what holy was but was ignorant of the larger truths of God. My dad took us desert camping when we were kids and that feeling of dry wind and the calm it carries has always stayed with me. It roots me. I close my eyes and feel God is close.
Friends who have been reading me for a while know that I’ve been in a spiritual desert of sorts (my sort, I guess) for a while. So this particular trip, where our two long hot dry hikes led to beautiful water—one a waterfall and the second a gorgeous spring, below—means a lot to me. I feel this is a message from God—if you stick with me, don’t wander off, but keep following this path through the desert, you will reach life-giving water. The photo above was taken on the same hike as the one below. Not a sign of water and then we round a bend and voilà (yes, that’s a sheer drop off on the upper left):
I see why the Abbas and Ammas chose the desert, rather than say the mountains—not because it is dead but because it is spare, there are few distractions and we come face to face with ourselves. For this reason, of course, it’s an excellent metaphor for the spiritual journey where we are forced to see ourselves in a bright light; we cannot hide. Everything, as the movie I haven’t seen says, is illuminated.
And the silence of the desert is complete—even when birds sing, there is a background of utter silence. I could have used a few more days in that silence. I’ll have to go back.
The image of the desert as dry and desolate is accurate, but it is also filled with life. And don’t forget the light!
Here’s some desert life (we were blessed to arrive in late spring when cacti and other wild growing things were blooming). See the evidence of little creatures in the first photo—probably lizards. Life we saw, aside from plants, include a coyote, rabbits, lizards, hawks, crows, hummingbirds, swallows, finches and other birds. But no snakes (sorry Yogamum).
And look how life manages to survive in a dry climate—this was taken on the way to those falls in yesterday’s post:
This was taken the day we left, which turned out to be rainy (a nice respite for a long drive):
Topics: travel, God, life | 12 Comments »
Nothing Like The Desert
By gartenfische | May 28, 2008
to clean out the mind. We had a wonderful trip, only it was so short. To be super cleaned out would take another few days, I think. I’m not complaining. Oh no—the beauty was incredible. What a gift.
Here I am, writing in my little book at a beautiful site called Devil’s Garden. Click here to see somebody else’s photos of this amazing place. Yeah, it’s easier to find a link than to upload a bunch of photos—call me lazy. Okay, now I feel pretty silly having said that, so here’s a photo I took of a gorgeous reward after a long hike in the hot sun.
Please see wyrdbyrd for a photo of Isabel and I in the car on the ride back. One of us looks happy. Take a guess which one it is!
Topics: travel, Isabel, photography, life | 9 Comments »
Love after Love
By gartenfische | May 16, 2008
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
-Derek Walcott
Topics: poetry | 13 Comments »
Still Here
By gartenfische | May 15, 2008
You may have noticed I’ve been taking a temporary (probably) sabbatical from blogging. There are several reasons for this: I was in the midst of a poetry workshop and spending much of my free time reading and writing poetry; plus, nothing was itching to crawl out of me and into cyberspace; and, as I wrote before, I have needed to find balance between writing/reading blogs and the rest of life (I think I’m finding it).
So. The poetry workshop has ended. I’m thinking of dedicating myself seriously to poetry and if I do, this will be a long and demanding journey. Satisfying, too, of course, but the work involved is serious. I am not aiming high, but would like to work toward becoming an artist whose medium is poetry. That is different than what I’ve always done, which is write poetry for fun (nothing wrong with that, but there are two paths here and I’m in the midst of deciding which one to take—anybody hear echoes of Robert Frost?!). I mean, what else am I going to do with my life? For me, writing has always been my true vocation. Poetry may be where I am meant to aim my efforts for now. I believe that if this idea pleases God, I will find validation one way or another in my choice. So we’ll see. . . .
Early Saturday morning we leave for here. We’ll be gone almost a week and look forward to immersing ourselves in beauty. Three adults and a dog in the car, plus all our stuff—yippee!
And just for fun:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Topics: writing, life | 11 Comments »
It Should Be Given Entirely To Love
By gartenfische | May 6, 2008
More and more since living alone I have wanted to stop fighting, and arguing, and proclaiming and criticizing. I think the points on which protest has been demanded of me and given by me are now well enough known. Obviously there may be other such situations in the future. In a world like ours—a world of war, riot, murder, racism, tyranny, and established banditry, one has to be able to stand up and say NO. But there are also other things to do. I am more and more convinced of the reality of my own job which is meditation and study and prayer in silence. I do not intend to give up writing, that too is obviously my vocation. But I hope I will be able to give up controversy some day. Pray for me. When one gets older (Jan. 31 is my fifty-second birthday) one realizes the futility of a life wasted in argument when it should be given entirely to love.
-Thomas Merton, From a Circular Letter: Septuagesima Sunday 1967 (Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing)
Topics: writing, Christianity | 10 Comments »
A Gift, Wrapped In A Gift
By gartenfische | April 28, 2008
Halfway through practice at Mysore class yesterday, an epiphany flung itself into my consciousness (now this is not going to sound epiphanic to you because it is not yours, but believe me, it was): Yoga is a gift. Yes, that’s it: Yoga is a gift.
It wasn’t a mere thought; we have thoughts all the time along these lines. What made it epiphany? It originated from deep inside, not from the logical mind. It rose up and bonked me on the head (gently). Yoohoo! Hey you in the black pants and lavender top: Pay attention! Yes, I knew instantly, without a doubt, that it was True and it was Important.
Well so what? you might say. Indeed, so what? Well this is what: If yoga is a gift, then a) it is not a chore b) it is not a means to get here or there—like feeling good, or a better body, and c) I must be continually grateful for the practice.
For me, it changes everything. I must have been harboring some subconscious ideas about what yoga was about (see the ABCs, above). I wouldn’t have said I looked at yoga in so shallow and thankless a manner, but I did. I realized that, as a gift, it was given to me and not earned by me.
The time I have at this point in my life to devote to yoga is a gift. Many of my friends, especially those with children at home, have to work to find time for yoga between family and work duties (for instance, a couple of my friends couldn’t come to class yesterday because they had to attend soccer games; one had to work). The body I have that is healthy and able to practice a type of yoga that is strenuous is a gift. The friends I am blessed to practice with are a gift. Online buddies who support my practice are a gift. The teachers who guide me are a gift. The practice, developed by Pattabhi Jois, is a gift. It is all, all, all gift.
After class, I felt so uplifted and awesomely wonderful—like I always do after a Mysore class, only more so. What a beautiful gift I was given.
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Dear friends, over at wyrdbyrd I wrote about a difficult episode in my life. It’s called A Story of Injustice (Mostly) And Justice (A Little). Please read it, comment if you feel inclined.
Topics: Ashtanga, yoga | 9 Comments »
Authentic Creation
By gartenfische | April 21, 2008
Critics slammed Denise Levertov when religion became an obvious element in her poetry in the ’80s. They said she was making her writing inaccessible to readers who didn’t share her religious sensibilities. What an asinine criticism! How could she not write what was inside of her? As she became more religious, naturally, her art reflected that change. If she had shut off her inner voice to please others, her art would have become inauthentic. There are poets of every stripe because there are individuals of every stripe. If a person didn’t like Levertov’s religious poems, they were free not to read them. Criticizing the religion in her poetry was, of course, criticizing her true self—the deepest, realest part of her.
Where does authentic art come from?
In 1955, Flannery O’Connor wrote to a friend, “Ultimately, you write what you can, what God gives you.”*
Writer Andre Dubus,** a devoted Catholic, wrote at the bottom of each page of his writing, “Thank you.”
Thank you, God—I know that I am not the source, but you are; thank you for expressing yourself through me.
In a letter to Elizabeth McKee, O’Connor wrote to a friend:
Let me make no bones about it: I write with a solid belief in all the Christian dogmas. I find that this in no way limits my freedom as a writer and that it increases rather than decreases my vision. It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing. I don’t write to bring anybody a message, as you know yourself that this is not the purpose of the novelist; but the message I find in the life I see is a moral message.
I think one of the reasons her beliefs increased her vision is that she did not shut out the religious part of her in the interest of pleasing a non-believing literary establishment. She wrote who she was and never apologized for it. Therein lies the seed of authentic art.
Levertov, whose poetry had always reflected her concern with justice, also believed her religion was essential to her art. “In the early 1980s Levertov felt, as she put it later, that a ‘respons-ability’ to our world and our fellow men—particularly the victimized and the poor—requires a religious grounding.”*** This religious grounding was intrinsic to Levertov’s poetry, not just her politics; it was a part of her.
I also suspect that the best art comes from stillness, from silence, because then we are intentionally bringing ourselves closer to our Source: the source of all that is good and meaning-full (not meaning insipid or sentimental).
When our art arises from our true selves communing with God, it is decidedly uninsipid—distinctly not sentimental—meaning real. Why wouldn’t God want us to fully participate in our human reality and to express the truth of that? O’Connor wrote: “I mortally and strongly defend the right of the artist to select a negative aspect of the world to portray and as the world gets more materialistic [this, written in 1956] there will be more such to select from.” In a poem published in 1992, Levertov asked, “Where is the Giver to whom my gratitude/rose? In this emptiness/there seems no Presence.” Doubt and questions are endemic to the religious journey. I don’t believe God is offended at the expression of our frustrations and struggles, at honesty (or I’m in trouble).
I’ve been participating in a poetry workshop for the past month. My poetry may not be great, but it isn’t simply an intellectual exercise. Is painting? Is writing a song? No! Creativity comes from a deeper place than the (left brain) mind or it is stunted. Our creations must come from what is most authentically ourselves. The more we are in touch with who we really are and with our Source, the freer and realer our art will be.
If God created you as an individual, with all your uniqueness and peculiarities, wouldn’t God be pleased when you most truly express the truth that only you—you, in your particular body, in your particular mind and heart and soul—can express? God did not create you to be anybody but you and you are only called to create from the you that God made.
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*From The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald. A great read—highly recommended to you writers out there.
**From Wikipedia on Andre Dubus:
Dubus experienced a personal tragedy late on the night of July 23, 1986, when he was seriously injured in a car accident. He was driving from Boston to his home in Haverhill, Massachusetts and he stopped to assist two disabled motorists–brother and sister Luis and Luz Santiago. As Dubus assisted the injured Luz to the side of the highway, an oncoming car swerved and hit them. Luis was killed instantly; Luz survived because Dubus had pushed her out of the way. Dubus himself was critically injured. As a result of the accident, both Dubus’s legs were crushed. His left leg had to be amputated above the knee, and Dubus would eventually lose the use of his right leg. Dubus would spend three painful years undergoing a series of operations, and extensive physical therapy. Despite his efforts to walk with a prosthesis, chronic infections confined him to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. Dubus continued to battle the physical pains imposed by his condition, and with clinical depression. Over the course of his struggles Dubus’s third wife left him, taking their two young daughters.
To help Dubus with his mounting medical bills, his friends and fellow writers, Kurt Vonnegut and John Updike held a special literary benefit. Dubus was extremely grateful, and his appreciation extended to holding workshops and reading sessions for aspiring writers. Despite these physical, psychological, and emotional difficulties, Dubus continued to write, producing two books of essays and a collection of short stories. He also conducted a weekly writers’ workshop in his home, meeting with a group of young writers, many of whom were teenage girls in a residential program for abused adolescents.
Dubus also found a deeper religious faith at this time. A practicing Catholic all his life, Dubus found that the loss of his mobility drew him closer to God, and renewed his Catholic faith at a deeper, personal level. Those who knew him admired the peace and acceptance he had achieved, as well as his ability to live his life without bitterness or self-pity.
***From ”‘The Servant-Girl at Emmaus (After a Painting by Velazquez)’ Denise Levertov’s Religious Ekphrasis,” by Cristina Giorcelli
Topics: art, God, writing, Christianity | 13 Comments »
The Reason
By gartenfische | April 13, 2008
Hi, my name is gartenfische, and I am here today to reaffirm my Reason for blogging.
Yes, there has been one from the beginning, and there still is. I will attempt to not get lost in side issues, like the pitfalls of blogging (which, incidentally, dovetail perfectly with the pitfalls of being me), which you got a dose of already.
I started the blog because I wanted to share my readings and writings with others. Maybe I could even serve God in a small way. I wasn’t a blog reader before I started to publish my own, so I didn’t realize what a community it could be. I quickly learned, and sharing with others—meaning give and take, rather than throwing my stuff at the Great Wall of the Internet—-quickly became important.
But then, in the scramble of trying to read everything all the time (some people publish a lot), in trying to keep up and finding myself unable to without feeling overwhelmed, I began to lose sight of the Reason. I flailed about. And I thought, I can’t do this anymore—I don’t want to.
But it was not supposed to be about me and my comfort. Sometimes the struggle is meant to be dealt with, not avoided.
Following the I-may-be-quitting post, a dear friend wrote me, and part of what this friend said was that things “have reasons for existence far greater than our own self-satisfaction, are to an extent not always ours to dispose of as we will.” Sometimes Truth just about knocks you down when you come across it. In the interest of not posting another lengthy angsty entry, I will not divulge the other two insights (one from Ruth Burrows, the other from Flannery O’Connor) that winged their way across my path yesterday, letting me know that just because blogging didn’t feel good right now, didn’t mean it was a right or good thing to quit. Who am I doing this for, anyway?
Through these three people’s messages, I realized: 1) I was being selfish (no, this isn’t what my friend said, but it’s true). 2) I must remind myself of the Reason for doing this. 3) It is possible to put it in a box, if I make the effort. And 4) I should make the effort.
This blog will come to its natural end one day, but struggles with my imperfections shouldn’t hasten along its demise.
Blogging can be a great waste of time if not done intentionally, and I have not been intentional (oops, a pitfall, sorry). My intention is to get intentional. I am not even going to try to keep up with blog reading on an obsessive basis. I will read all of my friends’ blogs, but will not worry if I’m not getting there every day, or every other day, or even, God forbid, for a whole entire week (well, okay—I will try not to worry). I apologize in advance for my comments being outdated. I love reading what you all write and I will be there. Part of being friends is putting up with one another’s quirks, right? I thank you in advance for putting up with mine, and am grateful to you for being here, for reading my long posts (see—you already are patient with me!).
The Reason? To Serve God. Yes, it may sound quaint, but there it is. Next time I lurch off into whiny selfishness, I hope I will remember the Reason for keeping this blog. If I forget, feel free to remind me (forgetfulness is another of my shortcomings—for all I know, I’m posting the same entry over and over and over).
And pray for my garden. Kidding, ha ha.
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Special thanks and lots of love to my friend, you know who you are: you are a true Light.
Topics: God, life | 17 Comments »
Mindly Stuff
By gartenfische | April 7, 2008
It may be obvious by now that I am interested in meditation, mind training, mind/brain stuff. Linda pointed me toward this fascinating conversation about the Shamatha Project with Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. So I listened, and, as she said, it is right up my alley.
B. Alan Wallace, author of The Attention Revolution and Embracing Mind, joins us to discuss the initial results from The Shamatha Project—one of the most extensive studies on the long-term benefits of meditation practice ever conducted. The terabytes of data that were collected during the course of the retreat-study included physiological and psychological measurements, thousands of entries from student journals, and the ongoing evaluations from Dr. Wallace as he interviewed with the students. Find out what his evaluations were, and how deeply the yogi’s progressed over the course of their 3-month retreats.
The subjects were trained in meditation and then spent six to twelve (!) hours a day—eight average—sitting in meditation for three months. My half hour of morning meditation is beginning to seem piddling! (And even with that small commitment, I have noticed significant changes over the past six and a half years—doubtless, they’d be more significant if I devoted more time.)
Some of what I gleaned from Reverberations from The Shamatha Project:
Dr. Wallace describes “areas where there was very clear benefit”—effects that were immediately clear, in spite of the fact that the results will take a long time to fully analyze:
° as weeks and months went by, people’s attentional sustainability definitely increased—their minds calmed down, they were able to sustain focus for longer and longer periods (One to two hours without losing attention.)
° meta-cognitive awareness—their ability to monitor their own mental states—got sharper and more and more discerning
° their overall vividness of attention clearly increased
And he describes “one of the strongest characteristics”: I saw people shifting priorities . . . away from looking for happiness from the outside world (from stimuli, from senses, etc) and shifting to cultivating the inner causes of happiness and recognizing the true causes of suffering are within our own minds.
Wallace explains that, People over time gradually became happier and happier—people were experiencing greater well-being.
And here is something that even I, with my limited practice, have experienced: “You end up dredging your psyche”—old memories, desires, emotions, fantasies come up. They come up, and then, bit by bit, they lose their hold. You become freer. This is why meditation is so healing.
He says that meditation practice may develop attention skills, but it is essentially “a path of self-knowledge”: You start to know your mind: your impulses, your motivations, your values. You’ve got this ringside seat on your mind. And that’s all you’re doing for maybe eight hours a day. It was really a path to self-discovery for everybody.
You can read background on the project at the Shambhala site.
The Dalai Lama’s statement on the project:
I am delighted at the progress being made in developing the Shamatha Project, a scientific study designed to examine the effects of long-term, intensive practice of shamatha together with the four immeasurable qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. I believe this research project has the potential to be of significant benefit for advancing scientific understanding of the effects of meditation on attention and emotional regulation, as well as in showing that traditional Buddhist meditative practices can be extremely effective in alleviating the inner causes of suffering and bringing forth the potentials of human consciousness in today’s world.
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA, 1/31/06
A wonderful aspect of meditation is that anybody can practice it and obtain the benefits, you don’t have to be a Buddhist.
Listen to the interview, it’s enlightening. (Also can be downloaded as a podcast.)
Topics: meditation | 5 Comments »
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