Category: Lifestyles of Poets (Page 2 of 9)

My Aunt Jane, who lives now in California, is over 90s years old and has written her life story, a lot of it near Roy, New Mexico, (along with maps!) and I'm really enjoying reading it. Last night I was reading her reference to "dirt farms." She said when she was a kid and her family moved back to Mills, New Mexico (near Roy), in the 1920s they bought a dirt farm, what they sarcastically called a farm there up on the mesa. Because they had to try to farm dirt. Northeastern New Mexico is famously failed homestead country, now ranch lands. It's unfarmable due to lack of water. But how sweet that this week's prompt references the broom being identical to the dirt. 

We are the dirt farm.

The Prompt: Like Dirt

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"Originally there's
No dust to sweep off:
The mind of the person
Who holds the broom is
Exactly like the dirt."
        – Shunryu Suzuki

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

A slope in the fields
Rocky loam, lines of strata
Sand slips from head to heart

The Reflection

Oh this makes housekeeping so much easier. 🙂

I seem to love the little sprout of grass on a hill. I keep doing it. And I keep making it my little crop of hair on a head. I wonder what that's about? I love the idea of a dirt head. Dirt is great! Full of amazing smells and textures and sounds. Yes, that is what thinking is too!

Now you go…

This ku is actually from last week, which was astoundingly harsh. Nothing shows you your true self than hard times, right? Whew. I spent much of the week in Tennessee helping my friend try to locate his lost dog. A lot of the trip was very, very challenging: it rained a ton (huge setback in finding a stray), it was hot and we had two elderly dogs along on the trip, there were other setbacks of a personal nature. But anyway, this one thing went right: a Fox News story. We pressed a lot of flesh and put up a lot of signs (some in the pouring rain). But I went into a weird shut-down when I got home.

I want to say how helpful and friendly everyone was in Tennessee…in Nashville, Lebanon, Crossville, and Ashville, North Carolina…at the shelters, vets, neighborhoods and animal control centers. We got free color copies of our sign from an office supply store and other helpful gestures that were really appreciated. I would even say people in Tennessee were the most friendly I've seen (and California and Albuquerque folks are pretty friendly, mid-westerners and New York City people–despite their reputation–can be friendly too but you just need to puncture a bit of a crusty or reserved exterior).

Anyway, the only exception (and it was big exception) were the workers at the Pilot truck stops (part of the largest truck stop company in America: Pilot-Flying J). Employees there didn't even want to make eye contact with us and didn't want to hear our story (even though there was a high probability the dog was actually lost at either the Lebanon or Crossville truck stop). You could see it in their faces. The manager and one employee at Lebanon actually did end up helping us a lot, reviewing video and letting us put up signs. But the Crossville station gave us a hard no, telling us to contact "Corporate Office"….

for a lost dog sign in a window.

Not only did Pilot not have a process (forget about a small billboard!) for travelers in this kind of distress (what would happen for lost belongings or, God forbid, lost people!), they adamantly refused to help us on the fly. The acting manager first sent us away to wait for a phone call that never came, she then complained that helping us would result in her losing her job, falling behind on her mortgage and not being able to feed her kids… 

for a lost dog sign. 

Either Pilot-Flying J is draconian with its employees or the employees stonewalled us for other reasons. You'd think the biggest truck stop in America would want to be considered a safe place for travelers to stop. Just don't lose anything at one of them while you spend your money there.

The Prompt: (Deep Breath) Our True Selves

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"Without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, to express yourself as you are is the most important thing."
        – Shunryu Suzuki

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

The hardest substance
of me, the most substantial:
feather and air.  

The Reflection

I felt like my main Me last week was just dealing with the now and what was coming at me minute by minute. I was worried about being a stranger in Tennessee (didn't end up being a problem), I was worried about my parents driving home alone from New Mexico to Ohio, I was worried about my friend and his partner and I was worried about myself dealing with all the worry when I was pretty tired to begin with.

Now I'm in this process of decompressing and letting go or as one of our friends likes to say, "You did what you could. Let go, let God." You begin to see how little substance you have after all.

Now you go…

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. We often attribute this quote to John Lennon from his "Beautiful Boy" lyric but the idea is traced back to Allen Saunders in a 1957 Reader's Digest article. But it bears repeating because my little plan for the weekly 52 Haiku just got sideswiped by the events of life. I did this #21 exercise two weeks ago but life drama intervened quite harshly.

I found myself suddenly helping one of my best friends deal with a seriously crazy life crisis involving his partner with sudden memory loss and possible head injury, the result of which is my upcoming trip to Nashville to drive to Charlotte to help them locate their lost dog. My friend said we will be like Daphne and Fred solving the mystery of finding Scooby. This has all been complicated by an eye illness. My parents have also been visiting from Cleveland to see my new house and that trip has been complicated by their health issues and struggles to get around. I've been feeling heartsick on many fronts for many days.

Sometimes loss isn't specific but a general sense of life's sad entropy. Anyway….for now…another haiku…

The Prompt: Dealing With Loss, Part 3

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"The old pond,
A frog jumps in–
The water's sound"
        – Basho

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

The famous old frog
Making noise again in the pond 
Keeping me awake.

The Reflection

Monsieur Big Bang really laughed at my frog drawing, unable to decipher it. My earlier versions looked like two cartoon forks jumping into a pond.

Basho's old poem has been rewritten so many times. I blogged some years ago about the book "One Hundred Frogs" which looks at many of the more known translations of the poem. At different times in your life you hear that splash differently, as if your heart and mind were the pond itself.

Now it's your turn…

This is the first week I've fallen behind. I'll try to make it up with two haiku this week.

What a week it was. What a harsh, sad week. Not to dwell too much but this was a week of madness (in one case tragic). Which pulls everything into silence. And it wasn't simply me, but the accumulation of stories from my friends and my own sad encounter with the unreasonable (and an unrelated health drama). 

I remember my one attempt to write out the positive, but it was so bittersweet I couldn't even touch it. Even that felt too sad.

The Prompt: Dealing With Loss, Part 2

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"The spring flowers, the autumn moon;
Summer breezes, winter snow.
If useless things do not clutter your mind,
You have the best days of your life."
        – Mumonkan

And again, first task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Doleful petals
Growing pink to green to brown.
Growing up to fall.

The Reflection

Not much to say for this one. Just walking through it.

There you go…

There are good times and bad times, basically extreme times when we need to breathe in order to re-center our frenetic brain. It feels like bad times right now just dealing with the news, but also creative times. Or maybe it's just that bad times demand more creativity from us. I'm thinking a lot today about cultural loss, as well as the great suffering that is caused by those who want to assert, gain or keep power and money. I'm trying to breathe through it and look between those breaths for ideas I can use.

The Prompt: Dealing With Loss

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"When in wordly activity, keep attentive between two breaths and so practicing, in a few days be born anew."
        – Shiva

And again, first task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Between two mountains
the open valley of breaths.
This is where we live.

The Reflection

I'm noticing that I'm gravitating to landscape depictions of meditation and the breath. I'm beginning to wonder if this might be the appeal of New Mexico to Zen Buddhists and mindfulness practitioners.

I recently won a silver Nautilus award.  (Have I mentioned that twenty times yet?) Anyway, I purchased the other books of the Silver and Gold winners. The other two Silver winners are both Zen books, interestingly enough. But amazingly to me, both also mention New Mexico as a prominent place of inspiration or a place where some of the poems were written. That makes all three Silver winners books about Buddhism and, to some degree, New Mexico.

I think there's something about the light here, or the water maybe, but probably the wabi sabi of the architecture and landscape that facilitates Zen Buddhist mindfulness. Can't quite put my finger on it, but it's obviously gotten into my head too.

What about you?

This was a good week. Met with some friends from CNM, cleaned, planted, did some consistent workouts, getting ready for my parents to visit.

The Prompt: Enlightened

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"Enlightened or not–
It is all the very same.
Have a cup of tea."
            – Myochi

And again, first task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

So what, the tea says.
Your blooming epiphany
is fuzz in the breeze.

The Reflection

This reminds me of the very funny line in Gigi by Maurice Chevalier as he's trying to calm down Louis Jourdan: "Have a piece of cheese." It serves the same purpose as the tea in the quote above. Enlightenment is a big word for a small thing. And possibly a meaningless red herring.

Relax. Do something ordinary. When you're upset, sit down and have a piece of cheese.

What say you?

We have company from Kansas here this week and we've been having a lot of fun tooling around Albuquerque (eating lots of salsa). This is a good prompt for me this week. How do I see ABQ with new eyes when visitors come?

The Prompt: Open Field

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities;
In the experts there are few"
            – Shunryu Suzuki

And again, first task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Imagine the trees
of green possibility
in an open field

The Reflection

This might just be one of my favorite Zen quotes. We live in a time where everyone's identity is wrapped up in what they know and lording that knowledge over everyone else or really wanting to prove something. And believe me, I'm right there in the middle of it. I'm a real Hermione Granger myself. But you can get really tangled up in what you think you know. And isn't it amazing what genius ideas beginners come up with? Because they have no preconceived expertise. They have no prejudices around what wont work and ideas around limits. We're so proud of what we know and much of the time, this is our handicap. 

I'm constantly trying to tell myself "shut up and forget what you know." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Now, you go.

It's a dog's life. So I'm working from home now and I can really monitor what the dogs do all day long and as I contemplate my own sense of peace, I can contemplate theirs as well. They do a lot of sleeping, begging and barking at the world outside the house. Occasionally, they will play with each other.

The last time I worked from home, four years ago, Franz would always try to get up into my lap. He doesn't do that anymore. He's getting too old. I bought him a fancy couch (advertised at left)s to get him to stay in the office with me. Sometimes he'll sleep in it. But only when he feels like it. 

Everyone always tells me one of my dog is is a Zen master. Just the other day the vet looked shocked when she was listening to his heart beat calmly up on the table. No vet appointment is going to rattle him! Years ago I went on an archaeological trip with the students at Highlands University in Las Vegas, NM, and one of them spent 10 minutes staring at Franz before saying, "Your dog is intense man!" 

The Prompt: Animal Nature

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"Does a dog have the Buddha nature?"
            – Zen phrase

And again, first task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing (which looks nothing like Franz but that's the best dog I could do):

Stares like an old sage
Barking out the window now
Will be asleep soon

The Reflection

I always find it strange when people question the spirituality of animals, especially dogs, who snap to the moment better than anyone. Sure, there are dogs that fret and there's a spectrum of dog-calm and they get furiously off-kilter over territorial disputes…and they do seem to dream (going over all the drama of the day). But they still seem better suited to paying attention than we are. Watch a dog beg at the dinner table. I give them people food just to be able to experience it. They're masters of manipulation and the long game.

How about you?

Not much to report this week. Had good news and bad news. Settling down, working out again, routine is good. Getting ready for a summer of visitors. Flowers are coming up in the yard. 

The Prompt: Going Deep and Light

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"Moonlight penetrates
to the bottom of the lake
yet no trace is left."
            – Zen poem

And again, first task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my blurry moon drawing. 

Soft half of the moon
runs deep into the balance
of tipping horizons

The Reflection

I was doing some reading about how a lot of life's work is calibrating to the challenges and changes. I also liked the prompt poem's idea of making an impression, both deep yet unobtrusive. Yeah, I like that. The book's drawing was the back of Buddha meditating under a full moon. My own drawing took me a while of complicated ideation where the moon was where the heart was. But I had to go full Thoreau and "simplify, simplify."

Now it's yours to turn around.