Category: Poets in Action (Page 3 of 14)

Well, we are at the end of 52 Haiku. I am humbled to be here. And grateful that I was able to do this for 52 days. 

We also meet the end of this challenge at the exact week Coronavirus has provided us with a daunting new challenge (at least here in the U.S.). Life does not seem the same this week as it did last week. The world has shut down in so many ways. And that does not feel very good. The statistics are horrifying, almost 9 thousand people are dead after 4 months of this new virus. And that's just the beginning of a curve. The first wave is soon to end but nobody knows what to expect over the next few years. Our ancestors lived through similar uncertainties but this is frightfully new to us softy narcissists who are used to an easy life of predictability and self-gratification. For us, this week was a let-down of cancelled plans and disappointments. 

So what do you do when you're feeling this way? Well, you can keep going or start over. Plan A or plan B. Your choice. 

I can hear someone saying, "what about plan C: giving up?" And to that I would ask, "Is this part of a pattern for you, though?" If so, then that is really just plan B. Or if you're giving the final give-up, that's actually plan A for all anybody knows. 

And then there's this thing about finishing being scary. Ends are scary. They imply an unknown, "what next?" They are not the euphoria of a runner bursting through a ribbon. And they don't really exist anyway. You either keep going or start over.

The Prompt: Finishing

This week's prompt: 

"Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray."
        – Sengstan

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:

Leaves fall to the ground.
They rise up invisibly
and sprout from the dead.

The Reflection

Enlightenment is like an ending. It's not a helpful goal. When you get to the end of the line, or what feels like the end of the line, the best thing is to keep on going or start over, just like little poems do. And like leaves do. I picked up this leaf from a cottonwood tree on the grounds of Abiquiu Inn. It's become a memento to my transition between last week and this week. 

The last few days before I sequestered my self in a self-quarantine, I visited Abiquiu, New Mexico, with some friends. We hiked around the Abiquiu Inn (which we had to ourselves) and it's neighboring White Place and around Ghost Ranch, all areas were Georgia O'Keeffe lived and painted. It was very quiet and reflective. I thought about how there are no big sunset endings to life because life is really not movie-like or novel-like. Life is poem like, which is why philosophical people are drawn to it. And why haikus are good for it. 

To keep going, here some more Zen sayings to explore.

To start over with the challenge, visit the table of contents. 

Thank you for taking this challenge with me!

Off you go with my many hopeful blessings to you and meditations, haikus and drawings!

Wow. This is our penultimate post. We only have one more meditation after this. I can't believe we're here. What a small weekly amazing journey this has been.

And as I'm writing this the world is facing a huge pandemic with Cornoavirus. My own company has moved to fully working from home and (making some sort of Internet history by) having meetings remotely. Toilet paper and hand sanitizer and faces masks are hard to come by. A lot of elderly people and those with health challenges already are getting very sick and many people are not making it. So, it's a very scary time with a lot of disruption and anxiety for people (not just regarding the virus but their jobs and all of life's schedules and plans being overturned).

Image at the top of the post is from FatCatArt. Go there for some cheer in these dark times. 

So what an amazing quote came up in my list of quotes today. I'll never stop being amazed at how apropos some of these weekly quotes have been. 

The Prompt: Challenges

This week's prompt: 

"We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us."
        – Epictetus

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:

Turn and a mountain!
Gift of stones or the bar against
Dreams of mountain.

The Reflection

Of course there are some challenges that should be respected as real challenges and absolutely sucky things: anything to do with war or similar violence against people. And coronavirus. But that still leaves a whole mess of challenges we overreact to, challenges that we feel we can't overcome, mountains we can't climb. My M.O. as a kid was "Oh no, I can't do that!" Failure seemed too heartbreaking to bear. And then later I learned a lot of good outcomes and knowledge result from the disastrous and hilarious ways we deal with challenges– if we look at them in a positive light. And if we have a sense of humor about the results. This has helped me do many a household maintenance project I never would have believed I could do: calking, plumbing, wielding a leaf blower. I can tell you I curse every draw string I've had to pull out of a hoodie that just got out of the dryer and I have not mastered even simple sewing. But how small these things look in the face of a word like pandemic.

So fascinating to me that toilet paper is the thing that flew off the shelves at Costco before food. We're shitting our pants way too much due to fear and stress, instead of good fiber products.

It's your second-to-last turn! How exciting!

If you've been following the caronavirus stories or political news stories, everyone sounds like they're down in the dumps. Even some of my relatives-of-another party are saying they're worn down by politics and viruses. It's a good time to feel blue. I'd say it's a good time to give everybody a hug but it's actually not a good time for that.

The Prompt: A Good Cry

This week's prompt: 

"If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate."
        – Ajahn Chah

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:

Waterfalls, feeling
all the sufferings, filling
the pool with beauty

The Reflection

Not everyone loves a good cathartic cry. There are still a lot of folks who feel crying shows weakness, even touchy-feely types. Crying is a line they will not cross. They'll do intensive body cleanses involving drinking nightmare concoctions for seven days (that's makes me want to cry), or mental intense psychological mental cleanses (ones that don't involve crying anyway). Imagine a waterfall that refused to flow. 

How does it feel for you?

I have these energy deficit weeks. This week is one of those. Maybe it's the flu. Maybe it's just an energy crash. But when walking seems challenging, you pay attention to it. You think about it more.

The Prompt: Walking

This week's prompt: 

"Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet."
        – Thich Nhat Hanh

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:

Bare feet on packed earth
fingers rolling on paper
the sun in your heart

The Reflection

I love walking on dirt paths. Really love it. I love the sound of crunching on all the many earth rock sounds: gravel, caliche, raw earth stuff. You can't always do that barefoot of course. Packed dirt is best for that and it feels so great when it's warm or cool. And then it smells good after a rain! You really think about your feet when you get off of pavement and onto the dirt. You get contact with walking in a very old and pleasant way.

And….you.

Last weekend was total crazy-town. House and work. And I'm pooped. Over President's Day weekend I cleaned out a lot of garage stuff, made some tough decisions for Goodwill. Then went and bid on something crazy on eBay that I've wanted since I was eight. I always thought someday it would turn up on eBay and I've had a watch set for it for about 4 years. 

My flight or fight response always kicks in before a last-minute, predictively-contested eBay bid. And in a kind of meditative way, I was able to notice my heart beating fast and feeling very intense five minutes before the bid (for an eBay thing! Yes, I know.)

Anyway, two minutes before the deadline I discovered my phone app had logged me out of eBay and I couldn't find my password written down. I literally ran in circles in a panic. I badly suck in a panic. My brain shuts down. I made two frantic password guesses (my hands literally shaking) and got my bid in at the exact second the auction closed. Too late by a second???? Oh the humanity!! How could this happen to me, I thought. I've been prepping all day for this auction (while cleaning out my garage and setting up an IKEA doll case). After 42 years of waiting: whyyyy??

And then I looked down at my phone and I had won the darn thing.

How. Did. That. Happen? How did my the impression of button accepting my bid amount travel all through the internets all the way to eBay headquarters in less than a nanosecond? I'm still in disbelief. You will be too when you see what it is that I got into such a turmoil about.

The Prompt: Some Day

This week's prompt: 

"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
        – A. A. Milne

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:

Even the river
has roots and as you float through
you can change the course.

The Reflection

Some day. Oof. Who likes that idea?

I've always been conflicted about the riding-a-river spiritual analogy. There's something a bit passive-seeming about a river. Being able to go with the flow is a useful skill (and it brings interesting surprises to you) but it's not always the best strategy. Sometimes you have to dig you heels into the riverbed. It's hard to know when to flow and when to fight the current. And yet, this is also an idea that has helped me in my life. You have goals in your life and often if you struggle too hard to achieve them (using very logical means) and you get nowhere. And then you just go with the flow and mysteriously end up there. Life is a very delicate dance, a give and take, a try this and try that. 

And I like this quote because we've all seen the suffering that arises from people who peak too fast and win too soon. You see how they find themselves defeated by all the time they have left. Late-life discoveries, leaving something for yourself to find later on, trusting the river…spacing it out through all the lives you have ahead.

What is your some day?

Last week was a whirlwind of a visit to Los Angeles for work and fun. I took in Randy Rainbow at the Wiltern with some friends and was able to see my work office (they moved many years ago and I've never visited…boo me). Great food: Noma in Santa Monica, Korean tofu bowl in Torrance, Little Fatty off Venice. All good stuff. Visited friends as well. Saw the Edgar the Winter Dog.

But two trips in a row really depleted me. As does the energy now in LA tax me sometimes. But I still love it there and this trip was full of bittersweet nostalgia. 

The Prompt: Competition

This week's prompt: 

"A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms."
        – Zen Shin

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:

Flowers on the hill
race for light but they give seeds
for acres, for free.

The Reflection

Not to nitpick but plants and trees technically do compete for light and water. But according to the novel The Overstory and maybe some scientific evidence, trees at least are very cooperative with their underground root systems, possibly sharing resources via connecting roots. So you could argue that all trees are one tree. But who hasn't seen flowers with greater advantage run ram-shod over slow growers? In any case, the point of the quote is probably not to do with this technicality. Flowers are not consciously pushy-shovey. And so to the naked eye, they look more preoccupied with their each individual jams. They're not backstabbing each other overtly anyway. The point is: focus on your own bloom, not everyone elses.

Now you.

Hectic time now with work and trips. When I'm overwhelmed I tend to cling to as much routine-moments of self care (sleeping, meditating, exercising, massaging the freaked-out muscles, going slowly with everything, letting things pile up). When too many people want too many things from me, I tend to slow down so I don't mess up anything.

Superbowl excitement last weekend over the Kansas City Chiefs also reminded me about the nets and snares of winning and losing, the emotional roller-coaster of wanting things to work out in a certain way. So stressful. Even winning, especially winning after 50 years of losing. Time to repair.

The Prompt: Repairing

This week's prompt: 

"When fisherman cannot go to sea, they repair nets."
        – Nabil Sabio Azadi

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:

Knots and waterfalls
unfurling over the edge.
They are the same thing.

The Reflection

Two things: there's work to do even when you are not feeling like you are progressing in the direction you want or need to go, when you feel stalled, when there seem like there are no opportunities to move forward. What a happy time to float and repair your sense of enjoying the now. 

Secondly, repairing nets is all about unsorting knots. And even success and excitement are full of knots. You know when you wash a pair of pants or a sweatshirt with a draw string and the string pulls out of the material. Ugh! How do you even start to enjoy fixing that?

Get into unsorting knots. It's better than hating unsorting knots. Because they're always there no matter how you feel about them.

Now it's your turn.