Category: Whole Life of the Poet (Page 6 of 18)

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.

The week I've been struggling with technology. I have so many boxes for my TV, it's ridiculous and a sign of the times. Multimedia means we're now entangled in all sorts of platforms (androids, iphones, a PC, a Mac, streaming video on a zip drive, DVD, Blu-ray, CDs, vinyl, bluetooth, wifi, Sirius, old-timey TV antenna) – and I've dealt with each of those media in the last week for some reason or other. I've replaced batteries in three remotes!

At times like this, I need a haiku written down on a piece of paper. I NEED IT.

The Prompt: Waiting

This week's prompt:

"It is when your practice is rather greedy that you become discouraged with it."
        – 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:

Famished for apples.
Just wait for what comes to you.
The Fall will feed you.

The Reflection

Don't try so hard. Easier said then done but you see it clearly in other people. It's a controlling desire: to get that thing out of the way, get it done already, tick that task off your lengthy list. So pleasurable to check off and cross out a list item!! But this is another requirement for patience. It's also a lesson in wanting too much, more than you really need (which is the definition of more than your share). You can hoard guidance and spirit as much as anything else. Let someone else cut in line. As a practice.

What have you got?

This week my friend Natalie and I were on the phone talking about perfectionism because we really wanted to reduce our anxiety and issues around our tendencies toward being perfect. My desire to work on this was mainly in response to reading the book Selfie by Will Storr. Culture today, with all its self-help books, podcasts, classes and all the reality "game" shows on the air seeking the most perfect singer, clothes designer, cook, survivor on some island of woebegones, has resulted only in a sad mess of narcissism. Well, that's not everybody, but it's a lot of us. 

Some people are driven by their negative self-loathing voices. I'm not that person. I'm driven by the high of doing something perfectly, like Mary Poppins. Early model. 

I'm that guy who will polish the silver appliances and faucets before a diner party. My house is a mess until the diner party, but everything must sparkle and be a full-sensory adventure of amazing-ness for my friends. It becomes controlling and ridiculous, with all due respect to Mary Poppins. I don't imagine I'm going to stop doing this but I'd like to tone it down.

But even our drive to reduce our perfectionism seeks to do it perfectly. It's a hard habit to break.  You see it when people first try to meditate and are convinced they're doing it wrong. 

I'm trying to acclimate to the idea that I'm a mess of imperfections in many tragic areas and these issues may not be resolved in my lifetime. I may end this life without having fixed my imperfections. And that's okay. 

The Prompt: Waiting

This week's prompt:

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."
        – Zen Proverb

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 wood of knowledge
on the throne of readiness:
the cusp of blooming.

The Reflection

But giving up on perfectionism is not the same thing as giving up on yourself, giving up on growth and being better. It's just giving up control of when and how that happens. Another thing you can't control is when your epiphanies will come, when you will get those enlightened moments. I hate to use the word patience but it does involve waiting. A better goal is to forget the whole idea of self-improvement on a set schedule. If you relax into your life and take things as they comes, the teacher does appear.

And now…you.

When you have a big list of todos, sometimes you can't get them all todone and you have to just go with the flow. I was doing really well on my enormous checklist this week when two illnesses took me down on two separate days. Flexibility…it's what keeps us in the game of unpredictability! Not the same thing as giving in exactly, but a regrouping!

The picture top is of poet May Sarton in her office. I really love the look of a cluttered office! All that beautiful paper in toppling towers. So much work to do! How fun! Just this week I published a poem of hers online that pertains tangentially to the political situation in 2020. I have a page that's getting a lot of visits right now, an anthology of poems about dictators and political struggle.  This week I posted her poem "An Observation" which is very similar to our quote this week (how serendipitous!) but where this quote says be soft to be tough, her poem talks about an individual toughness needed for a gentle world. 

The Prompt: What is Strength?

This week's prompt:

"Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft, can you be extremely hard and strong."
        – Zen Proverb

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:

Roots and stem, then wind.
All across the valley floor
the tough plans disperse.

The Reflection

I love the Zen proverbs that are paradoxes, that ask you to accept the absurd contractions. And isn't that the magic of it all?

Go and get 'er done!

A lot of people don't like housework. Although I don't like vacuuming particularly and I never have time to do the full abode regularly, I don't hate doing it. I hate the looming pressure of it, but not the actually task. And I think this wisdom below has helped me in that area of "things the living must do," unless you hire these activities out to a cleaning service, to which I would say (unless you're old and ailing), too bad for you. 

The Prompt: Washing Dishes

This week's prompt:

"When walking, walk. When eating, eat."
        – Zen Proverb

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:

Focus of calmness
Mind for what the hand can hold
Chopping, washing, love

The Reflection

There's a kick to doing something mundane with purpose and concentration, something you first learned to do very long ago, like walking. Or something you learned when you were still forming into a person with an identity, like cooking, cleaning, mowing. It's fascinating to focus on your resistance to the task: what is upsetting you? Why don't you want to do it? How do you feel when you're doing it and why? Is another feeling an option?

Things like this seem mundane, but they can change your life.

You try it.