Embers and Ash

Nature of Mind 24"x24"

As I write this I am sitting in front of a brilliant fire.  A garland of lights and pine branches still add sparkle to the hearth. It seems the perfect place on a dark night and it reminds me of the words "embers and ash" that crossed my path last week in two different places. That always makes me sit up and pay attention. This evening embers and ash whisper to me about the old year that has burned away as the new one catches fire?

Usually I am anxious to stow the festive bits away by now but for some reason this year I am savouring their brightness a little longer. Perhaps it is the unusual crispness of the outdoor air, with a promise of snow later this week that makes them seem seasonally appropriate or maybe the lovely newsletter from my homeopath, Seraphina Capranos where she describes her process of stretching the winter solstice period to envelop Dec 21- Jan 6th.  After a few weeks of mixing quiet reflection with visits and activities it feels restorative to retreat just a little longer to let the stillness of the season really sink in.

Field Work 12"x 9"

These dark days of winter feel like a time to turn inward and deeply nourish the inner self, to sit by the fire, to contemplate and write. Seraphina talks about dreaming ourselves into being. I like that. I think we are more ethereal than we take ourselves to be in this modern world, as much stardust as bone.

One of my favourite activities at the turning of the year is to gather up my journal and ponder the old year's path and the new one stretched out in front of me. The year that lies behind me was a fairly ordinary year in many ways. I didn't fall in any big holes or attach myself to any bright stars. It was a year of garden and paint and minor this and that's. One of the highlights was taking refuge with Geshe YongDong in the Tibetan Bon tradition. That simple act has had more power than I might have imagined. In 2016 I resolved to just let my art be, to paint, to let the work evolve without expectation, without looking to make the work support itself. There's a whole bunch of dharma in there!! There was evolution but of course not as much as the wanting mind would like. You can never please the ego.  And of course the inevitable comparisons and pangs of envy engendered by places like Instagram. Always ever more grist for the dharma mill :)

Tree's Innermost Thoughts 16"x 20"

I am much more of a look forward-er than a look back-er so that tends to be my focus as I contemplate. This year I found a curious theme emerge. As I wrote I found it was all about qualities of "BEING" rather than about intentions, aspirations or goals. I didn't want to "do" so much as "be". It's surprising what you find when you sit down to write. :)

 I found words emerge that would clearly lead the way. I woke up in the middle of the night and in response to a problem I'd been grappling with, the words "just SURRENDER" were waiting for me. And I mean surrender in the best sense of the word :). So that has clearly become a 2017 state of being I want to embrace.  I have been working a lot with "TRUST" in a number of circumstances: trusting what is, trusting what comes to me, trusting me, so trust is another key word for me in the year ahead. And I think it goes well with surrender. Another word that came to me via my Pilgrim Cards and seemed to resonate is "COURAGE".  Curiously each word arrived at a separate moment but they feel like they fit together perfectly. I mean you need courage and trust to surrender, otherwise you just give up instead :)

Storm Watch 10"x 10"

And what little seasonal tidbits do I have to offer as tiny treats? As a gift to our meditation practice we bought a fun little biofeedback gizmo called Muse that snoops on your brain to see if you are meditating or making your grocery list when you sit your cushion :) Muse tells all :)  This last week I have been enjoying Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's short Facebook teachings. And a quote.  I can't exist long without something short and sweet to nourish me. Here's my most recent favourite: "You will see in the world, what you carry in your heart." Creig Crippen

And here's to your hearts dear friends, may they be filled with a passion and aliveness for this new year. May they awaken to the amazing, hidden potential inside you. May your creative spirit be nourished in surprising ways. May this year ahead bring you everything you need to make your heart sing.

On Not Wanting To Be Somewhere Else

Mending Snow Fences 24"x20"

I have just returned from a snowy trek through the woods to visit neighbours, share a glass of wine (not literally, they gave me my own glass), sit in front of their fire, hear about how mindfulness practice has been life changing for someone, which always warms my heart. I spoke of something that has troubled me recently. (Sitting in front of a fire can have that effect on you.) In general it is the koan of "how can you live close by to someone and not know anything much about them?" More specifically I was speaking of  the death of another neighbour's son; people who live a stones throw away, whose lives I know nothing of, just the friendly hello, pat of the dog, only to see an obit in the paper about their son. The great  desperation of depression that caused a young man to take his own life just down the road. What strange lives we lead. What's that saying a joy shared is multiplied, a grief shared in halved. Privacy: the pleasure and plague of the modern world.  Outward smiles, inward tragedy.

Blue Air & Rust 16"x 16"

I listened to a talk this afternoon by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche on "Living With Joy, Dying In Peace." With a sly grin he noted that we westerners don't like to think or talk about death. We see only the loss and sadness in it, something we fear and prefer to ignore. It seemed like a surprising comment, that we see only loss and sadness. "Well of course." And yet he talked about it being a gateway to liberation. I think we must dedicate our lives to practice to get to this gateway.

Squirrel Nutkin's Secret 11"x14"

On the art front I am painting more. Weeds and grass grow less and many outdoor ills are hidden by the relentless downpours and surprise snowfalls. A lovely release into studio life. It feels like time has stretched out at the foot of winter, but that's just one of time's little tricks; speeding up, slowing down, pretending not to exist.

Always I start my studio time by kneeling in front of the wood stove, carefully crumpling paper and arranging kindling, head bowed, match struck. It's a kind of prayer, a prayer to the gods of warmth, a prayer that requires attention lest I end up with smoke and ash instead of fire. Short cuts and scattered attention are trouble makers in the fire department and many others.

The fire teaches me focus and attention. It sets the tone for the attention that needs to be poured into the work.  I am always learning and refining if I pay attention. Otherwise there is just smoke. Ah, the way is never straight forward. Mary Oliver says: "there is little the creatively inclined person can do but to prepare himself, body and spirit, for the labour to come, for his adventures are all unknown."

The Other Side of The Mountain 16"x 20"

Last weekend I attended a weekend retreat with Howie Cohn. His delivery of the Dharma is at once complex and simple, uplifting, gentle and entertaining. He carries with him a haphazard file loaded with quotes and stories. I'm never quite sure how he finds the one he's looking for but he always does. Here's my favourite one from the weekend on self compassion.  He has written a little book called "An Invitation To Meditation" which at first glance looks a little light weight but after just a few pages you find it packs a mighty Dharma punch. I  highly recommend it for lines like this: "Imagine feeling calm and content wherever you are. Imagine feeling that your life is so complete -- right here, right now --that you do not wish to be anywhere else." It would make a perfect gift for anyone on your list that needs a bit of calm and relaxation in their life.

Elves In Their Workshop

Wishing you a wonderful turn of the year and holiday season. May you have the delicious luxury to spend some time contemplating  the year behind you and the one ahead. It is not necessary to offer you the fabled Chinese curse, because in fact we do live in interesting times. Perhaps it is some strange Pollyanna, ostrich like quality that has me believing that Truth always prevails. It takes a circuitous route, but never the less....

Working With Hope, Fear And Blocks

Field Notes 16"x16"

Life is full of painting right now. My work table is covered in open tubes of paint, bits of oily rag, and multiple canvases and panels. I am doing an online course called "The Sacred Arts" with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, though nothing about my workspace looks sacred. The focus of the course  is creativity and part of that is working with what blocks us.

It is a given that true art, whatever it's form, comes from somewhere other than the head. Does it come from somewhere deep inside us or are we tapping into something outside of us, or maybe a combination of both? A lot of artists will tell you," I didn't feel like I painted that or wrote that, I felt like something came through me."

In the west we put a lot of value on our thinking minds.  The old "I think, therefore I am" permeates us at such a deep level we hardly notice it.  We believe in the power of our minds and in part we are right.  What we believe strongly influences what we do.  And yet it is not the whole picture.  My old Zen teacher used to say, "the mind is a good servant, but not a very good master.  This sounds a little medieval but there is truth in it. Sometimes the thinking mind is not enough.  Sometimes the thinking mind is the obstacle.

How To Get There 16"x 16"

In this course we have been exploring what blocks us in expressing our authentic creative selves.  We've been exploring fear and hope as blockages to our work.  Pema Chodron says the human condition consists of bouncing back and forth between hope and fear.  To allow our creative voices to speak we need to move beyond these conditions. Working from a place of stillness and spaciousness allows us to be open to what wants to be expressed through us. And yet we can't brush aside or ignore those hopes and fears.  What are your fears about your creative self and work? Do you fear you are a talentless lout? Do you hope it will be easy? Those thoughts flying below your radar might be standing between you and your best work.

On Mountain Time 12"x 16"

The course is a reorientation for me. I have big tendency to work from my head, to muck, to get frustrated, to believe I can't yet hope I will. (I think that last bit should be added to the definition of insanity!) And in the end it is about the having habits that support us and spending time working.  Ultimately our work will teach us everything we need to know if we pay attention. And the process is transferable to the ultimate art, the most precious canvas of our own lives.  Whatever we learn from our art practice seeps out into our life and the other way around. It is a rich, interconnected tapestry that we have the good fortune to be weaving. May your needle be sharp and your glasses never far away.

Nature, The Ultimate Artist And Teacher?

Kanaskin Lake, BC

I think the artistry of nature has always astounded humans.  To view its sheer vastness, its startling beauty can leave us with only an oooo or an awww coming out of our cake holes.  A lot of art is either inspired by the natural world or seeks to imitate it.  As an abstract artist I'm not so interested in art that seeks to imitate the natural world though I can see how an image of a stunning scene above the couch would bring peace and joy to a home.  I am more interested in the translation of the natural world by the artist into form that evokes some feeling or response in us.  But that is my particular preference. Art is like spiritual practice in a way.  No one thing suits us all and so the many expressions of art. In a recent talk, Stephen Batchelor commented that the Buddha said his teachings were like medicine. Batchelor reasoned that not everyone has the same "illness" so not everyone needs the same medicine. So for art, if it feeds our soul, not all of us are nourished by the same thing. Even the same person may need different food at different times. Sometimes our soul requires peace, sometimes fiery inspiration.

Above Dawson City, Yukon, after midnight

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a teacher in the Bon tradition, likes to remind of the healing and nourishing qualities of the natural world, how just a short time connecting with the natural world can improve our state of mind and health. The earth can ground us, the sun can warm us and inspire joy, the water of a stream can remind us of the natural flow of all life.  A big sky offers a feeling of spaciousness and the wind shows us how things just move on through.  We can focus on these aspects of the elements to help us become more spacious, inspired, grounded or flowing or we can simply experience it all without thought and be nourished by it's wise and welcome presence in our life. Especially if we spend a lot of time indoors (and most of us do) or in cities, it can be interesting to commit to spending more time immersing ourselves in the natural world and experiment with its impact on us.

Rain passing through at Kinaskin Lake

As I travel through northern BC and the Yukon I am struck by the sheer expanses of untouched wilderness. With less tree cover than I am used to in the rain forested area where I live my heart is deeply touched by the spacious feeling of the big sky.  There is a drama to this landscape, it's wild openness, it's ability to startle, it's rough beauty. One feels a privilege in being able to witness it; to see the alpine tundra with it's permafrost along the Dempster Highway, to see a Ptarmigan half white still from winter, flowers bursting everywhere, wise about the shortness of opportunity. Vastness and drama are the words that come to mind when viewing this landscape.  One gets a sense of the forces of nature, the strength and intractability of the natural world.

Tombstone Park, view from Dempster Highway

To spend time in this open place, to watch weather pass through, experience the strangeness of 24 hours of light and it's effect on the body, to watch bears saunter out to the road with little regard for our presence, reminds me of our smallness in the grand scheme of things.  Someone recently remarked about all the talk of "saving the planet" but in fact what we are really concerned with is saving ourselves.  When you see the vastness of the natural world one senses the planet will survive despite the grave damage we may do, that it will remain in some form long after we have, in our greed and ignorance laid waste to ourselves.  If this sounds negative in some way, it is not meant to, it is simply a reflection based on the seeing the strength, intractability and vastness of this landscape.  With a bow to the unknowable source and presence of it all.

Seasonal Koan: What's The Opposite of Namaste?

10"x10" Deep In The Forest

It's that time of year when the opportunity to see if you're enlightened offers itself up to you. It's kind of like a little gift disguised as family dressed up in holiday duds. It's our collective opportunity to put our practice where our mouth is, if you care to see it that way. You know that quip, "if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family." Well here come the holidays. My mother used to say we all have our own "mishigas" (which means craziness in Yiddish) and this time of year brings it out.  Mostly we panic, grit our teeth and fall victim to our old familiar "pain speech".  Here they are, our "famous person(s) ringing the doorbell, all ready to drag us through our personal mishigas.  It's kind of like the reverse of "Namaste", it's "the pain in me recognizes the pain in you", and we're off to the races.  We become the living embodiment of the email that should have been left in the "draft" folder.

16"x16" Crossing The Inner Landscape

But there are other ways, really, I'm not kidding you, not that I'm so skilled, but I'm working on it. This fall I attended several retreats with a Buddhist teacher whose wisdom speaks directly to my heart: Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. He talks about how we are constantly "draining" ourselves, depleting our precious human battery. And it's bad enough when that happens to your car, but we tend to forget  about what's under our human hood. And when we feel our depletion do we know how to nourish and recharge ourselves? Do we think TV or a glass of wine, or a little treat might do the trick? Perhaps temporarily, but then we end right back there in drain mode. Tenzin Wangyal's teachings aim at connecting us with the stillness of the body, the silence of our speech and the spaciousness of our minds so that we might consistently nourish that deep place in us the is the source of our strength, peace, creativity and fearlessness.

10"x10" Notes From The Evening

How do we remember to pause and connect with our inner refuges of stillness, silence and spaciousness when Uncle Henry tells the same story for the 10th time?  Tenzin Wangyal offers us a great little trick. When we feel the tug of that pain that's just the reminder we need.  And mostly we're pretty familiar with those painful feelings, it's just we forget the next step.  We either sink deeply into the pain or reject it completely, or maybe dance between the two. His suggestion is that the nagging thoughts of the egoic mind that are constantly finding fault can remind us to connect with the stillness of our bodies. The nattering of our internal voice or perhaps our unkind speech to others is the reminder to connect with silence.  And our crazy imaginings, run wild can offer us the opportunity to sense the space that is always around and within us.

16"x16" Cloud Mountain

In his attempts to help us bring our practice into the parts of our life that need it the most he suggests we think of it as a game.  Our challenge is how can we win at this tricky, moving, ever challenging game of deinstalling the things that push our buttons.  This can help make our "problems" lively in  an upbeat way that encourages us to work with them rather than lament them or crumple from them into the perfect little Christmas ball.  What's your game this season?  May it be merry and bright. 

ps: with many thanks to technical wizardry of Lynette Monteiro for helping me retrieve this lost post from the ether. Many bows to her.  

Throwing Out The Emotional Barometer

36"x36"  Mixed media " Across The See"

It's always interesting to me what comes up on my radar for examination.  Last week after a couple of social interactions I became aware of the subtle (or not so subtle) measuring that was going on inside me.  What was this strange barometer thing constantly scanning the internal air pressure?  This interaction left me feeling good, that one made me feel slightly unsettled. And then I could see how these feelings lingered and flavoured the the day.  At the end of the week I could see how truly unpleasant all this unconscious measuring really was, how the sheer movement of the scales made me feel a bit internally seasick.

Rather than just being with whatever was I was using my experience in the world to determine something, using my emotional life as some sort of guiding compass. This underground current that I suspect stirs in all of us wants to weigh and measure and tot up a score.  How am I doing?  We may only notice the measuring by the feeling it leaves.  It goes on at Olympic speed, mostly under the radar.

24"x24" mixed media "Travel Plans"

If I don't notice the process, then I use the feelings generated to navigate my world by.  Hmmm, seems a pretty shaky basis to steer the old ship by.  At a deeper level if I want to simplify it, I want life to make me feel good.  I believe somehow that my internal state is determined by the outer world  and what goes on there. I keep track of how that's all going with my barometer.  Sheesh, I'm tired just thinking about the craziness of my internal life! But weighing and measuring tools in the slippery hands of the ego are never a good thing.  Given the Western mind's relationship with itself and the nature of scales I am never going to come out pounds ahead.  And to digress, is this crazy world a good place to get our sanity from?

 In his book "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream And Sleep" Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche tells us that these emotional reactions I'm thinking about arise from "karmic traces". He says, "All moods, thoughts, emotions, mental images, perceptions, instinctive reactions are governed by the workings of karma" (karma simply meaning for every action there is a reaction).  Act with anger once, the seeds of karma for future anger are sown.  And ditto for everything else.

His explanation offers me information on where these "emotional" responses of mine come from, feelings that feel so puzzling sometimes. Their arising is based in past action and contains no conscious intention for how I might want to live my current or future life.  In a way, if I don't consider this I am held hostage by my past (both from this life and past ones, if you care to see it that way).

So as the week wound down I realized that it was unlikely that I could cart this barometer off to a thrift store and get rid of it.  But what I could do was see it for what it was, a very unreliable measuring tool that I could simply see and choose not to use as a barometer. Maybe it's more like a laugh meter or an alarm button or a kitchen timer reminding me to wake up?  How about you?  What's in your internal measuring chest?

Two Things

36"x36"  From This Shore

I am thinking about 2 things. Not at the same time because that would cause my pea brain to explode and pea green would be a hideous colour on the walls...  But I digress into my ideas about colour theory and home decor.

 I've been mulling over the idea of "familiarity" after hearing a comment by a favourite teacher of mine, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. He answered a question about why we find it so hard to keep up a meditation practice by saying: "We are more familiar with our pain, our blockages, our darkness than with our bliss and warmth. We are trying to become more familiar with these qualities by going inside to our inner refuge. But what are you more familiar with your breakfast or your morning practice?  If you don't have your breakfast you will miss it because you know the immediate effect of your breakfast but you're not sure of the immediate effect of your practice so you go where there is no doubt.  If you trust your practice as much as you trust your breakfast your life will begin to change for the better." 

How many people have you heard say, "I can't meditate".  Maybe you have even said it yourself?  It seems simple and obvious really, that we are drawn to the familiar.  And yet we don't see how it blocks us from doing or being the things that we aspire to, those things that we have "intention" toward but somehow don't get to.  When we talk about familiarity we are really addressing the pull of habit in a slightly different way.  But somehow it seems more doable if I think to myself that I am increasing my familiarity with something, rather than feel that I am pushing against or trying to break a habit.  Perhaps it is just about language, but then language is a powerful thing.

I've also been looking at the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) difference between "thinking" and paying "attention".  This seems central to meditation and any awareness practice.  I am often startled to see that when I think I have been "aware" of something, I am actually just thinking about it.   Jan Frazier describes the difference  so clearly in her book, "The Freedom of Being" : "One of the great discoveries in the life of spiritual inquiry is the difference between attention and thought.... Attention is encounter, without any charge to it. It simply looks. There is a feeling of stillness... Attending is simply being with, acknowledging the presence of something.. There's no resistance, no mental activity, no reactivity... Thinking involves processing, applying prior learning, projecting ahead. There's a tendency to label, analyze, imagine and rehash... Thinking about something is more likely to stir anxiety, excitement, obsessiveness, unlike attending which is more calm."

36"x36" Ode to Jimmy Wright

And don't get me wrong I am not tossing out thinking with the bath water, it serves a perfectly good function (the bath water), in it's place.  But the fact is we would suffer less and lead lives of much more sanity if much of the time we simply attended or were aware of things.  Ideas and solutions could bubble up out of this spacious place of awareness, instead of the dog's breakfast that comes from chewing the bone of our familiar thoughts, especially when something troubles us (says she to herself).

I am all about the words this week. A friend has me listening to some Stephen Batchelor talks that he wants to talk about and I liked Batchelor's translation of delusion, the last of the 3 poisons that Buddhism refers to (greed, hate and delusion). Instead of delusion, Batchelor talks about bewilderment.  I certainly observe my own bewilderment often enough. I can cosy up to bewilderment. I reserve delusion for others :)

So there it is. I have spent part of my week pondering words and part purging old photographs in an effort to clear away some of the things in my home that I never use or even look at. Last week it was clearing away the snowbanks on the old paper trail.  It feels like a little ritual of "as on the outside, so is the inside". It must be Spring.  And of course there is always time to paint.  Hibernation seems to be lifting. I am rising earlier.  I feel more energetic to actually "do" things, rather than simply nestle into the lair.

Wishing you some good words of your own to explore, some glimpses of Spring and perhaps the inclination to clean a drawer or two in either your inner or outer homes, or both.

The Sweet Heart of Winter

Winter Monks 20"x24" acrylic and collage

It could be the winter of our discontent -- or not.  Brutal temperatures and storms are blasting their way across the landscape. The weather has gone mad in many places. Here on the west coast of Canada, I am really ineligible to comment on the weather lest you bombard me with snow balls and sharp icicles.

But winter still exists here in lotus land, with it's grey, foggy days, shortened by how the sun brushes by our tilted, blue sphere. Winter has its effect on sentient beings, whether we care to admit it or not, whether we choose to live in a big city and carry on a pace that hardly nods in the direction of the short, cold days or whether we batten down the hatches for winter. And for some reason unknown to me, this year I am embracing the full heart of winter as it exists here. Sharon Zappha Barfoot wrote about her experience of winter in a much snowier place here.  And wherever you live the question seems to me, do we resist what is or do we somehow enter into it? Do we acknowledge our place in the natural world or do we live in separation from it? Do we try to make light out of dark, in either our inner or outer worlds? These are the bigger questions for me?  To what lengths will we go to sustain our delusion? Where do we shine the flashlight of our awareness?

Before winter's weathery course was set, something in me knew I was going to savour hibernation this year. Other years I have tried, but ended up doing a lot of grumbling about the darkness and feeling lonely and hurumphing that this year I might go away for a bit. But as I watched others plan their holidays and listened to stories of winter getaways to come nothing was tempted in me.  No beaches called to me, no warm breezes beckoned, no spots on the map flashed hotly, come here. Instead like a dozy black bear I slowed my pace and prepared for the delicious decent into hibernation. My cave is warmed by a fire, the lair offers all manner of comforts. And the internal world has many hillsides, rock walls to scale and tumultuous oceans to explore. I am never bored.

16"x20" Oil & Cold Wax  "Tracking"

It is interesting to watch the slowed call to activity.  I have become some lumbering creature of the earth. The slowness of the day sometimes feels shocking to me. How could I get so little done? And yet I seem powerless against this feet in molasses feeling, like I am some small creature ruled by a masterful force. There is a gentle joy to it. I am simply surprised how appropriate it feels, how it seems to be calling me to some deeper state.  There is a feeling that there is purpose and a reason for this, that there is some strange call to a landscape deep within.

There is lots of time for meditation and here's one of my favourite guided meditations. It's called Nourishing Your Inner Being and that feels like that's what this winter is about, offering internal nourishment that will support more active times.  This is my winter project if I need to give it a name.  And in nourishing this inner being there is a feeling that I am nourishing all parts of my life: the inner life, the spirit, my art and writing life, and my physical body; that when the winter earth thaws and the days lengthen there will be a natural movement into the next season.

I realize I am fortunate to have the time to live in harmony with this season, to sleep late, to be still, to do less. Even here where the animals of the woods don't hibernate, they slow. We see the deer and the squirrels less often, the birds are less busy. Only the tiny hummingbird keeps up its frantic pace. Living close to the natural world reminds me on a daily basis of how the planet sustains itself, cycling back and forth to create balance.

And so that is where you'll find me these days, meditating by the fire, contemplating and reading, sipping tea, painting a little and residing in the deep heart of winter.  No matter what your circumstances I invite you in ways large or small to join me in tasting the sweetness of winter. It's about creating a different story around the real or imagined winter life, or perhaps creating no story at all?

Tip Toe Through The Demons

Cold Wax, Oil, Pan pastel 10"x10"

Yesterday I went to a day long teaching on "Chod" practice.  What, you say, does this involve chocolate or shoes?  No, not for the moment anyhow. It's a practice from the Bon tradition, a lovely Shamanic, Buddhist tradition from Tibet that predates Buddhism. I love that the originator of the practice was a woman, a rather old woman,Machig Labdron,1054-1155.

The one day teaching on chod was a bit like an amuse bouche, a little something tiny and delicious to make you feel happy inside. It's an ancient practice laced with a large helping of fierceness and depth. The shamans who practiced chod used to travel around to fearful places known to have bad energy (are you thinking Walmart? I thought so.) They hung out in charnal grounds (places of sky burials) and generally worked to tame and release dark energies. They cured illnesses, turned around epidemics and delved deeply into their fears. Quite the calling card.

Chod translates as "cutting through".  And in the modern world, as urban, householder shamans, what we're cutting through is attachments, those things we think we must have to make us happy.  Those things we absolutely need. Fill in the blanks.  What is that for you?  In the 42" screen view of your life, what must happen for it to be okay?  In the minutiae of daily life, how are things supposed to shake down? What attachments are so subtle that they breath you without you even noticing? Do you think things should be fair? People respectful of you?

 In my world I like things being reasonably easy, not too much trouble. I like it that way, and start to grumble when things don't comply with this world view.  I have opinions and beliefs that I consider right. Many of the things we want and like are fine in themselves, it's the "needing", the insistence that tips us over into attachment and trouble.  Geshe YongDong who led the Chod teaching said, "we have 84,000 thoughts a day. Sixty percent of those thoughts are about our attachments.  Any time you find yourself in a struggle, you've got attachment."  That's a sobering thought that I'm probably not attached to.

Ego clinging and fear is where the chod knife aims to cut, aiming to sever the attachment we have to ourselves, because ultimately one day we will have to give up our bodies, our loved ones and all the accessories we have accumulated.  Our practice is to learn to give up "stuff", views,  expectations as we travel around with our trusty chod knife.  When we get to the ultimate giving up, it will be less difficult, since we have been practicing internal and external closet cleaning in the days of our life. That's the plan and chod is the road map. Geshe YongDong pointed out that we are just renting this skin covered real estate. We don't get to keep it in any lasting way.

It's a shamanic practice so of course there are songs and a lovely little Damaru drum and some bells that get played to work on the unseen energies that bind us to our attachments, to give us the unseen help that we need to navigate the path toward living in harmony with what is.  We make our plans, we buy our stuff, we go about our daily lives.  But we spend our energies on learning to be more content and peaceful and generous. If we are successful it becomes less about us and the demons tiptoe off into the night.

How Simple Are You?

Have I posted a picture of my repainted Zendo (which is really code for a living room with no furniture)?  We lightened it up a while ago from a browny, pink colour to a soft green, a testament to how a paint colour can change a room.  But really all this chat stand in for the fact that I don't have any artwork to post.  However I can report that the little outbuilding that will become, at least my summer studio, is almost clean, after removing several vaccum loads of sawdust from it.  Now all that's left is the wall washing and moving in.  I am not convinced the roof holds water, so I  will move in a tentative kind of way.  The old workshop lends a new meaning to "living roof" with it's several inches of moss on cedar shakes.  We'll see.

Meanwhile I have time to post as I twisted my ankle in an act of over zealous gardening around the studio building.  Is this my body restoring some balance to my life?  "If you won't sit down, I'll sit you down."  But then sometimes a twisted ankle is just a twisted ankle.

And so I got to watch myself feeling a bit bummed out about this enforced couch potatoing I've done today. I get to see my busy, agenda setting self, sidelined.  It's not a bad thing to be reminded of your tendency to want to barrel through things, your impatience for a finished product.  It's a good thing to look at habits that are not altogether wholesome and be reminded there are other ways.

 I gathered drawing things and dharma talks and some Shamanic journey things I've been reading but in truth I ended up doing a lot of dozing and not that much else, a couple of small sketches, a half slept through dharma talk on creativity by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche that you can find here.  But by this evening I am letting go of all the expectations of how things "should" go.

On Friday we went to hear Jim Merkel, author of "Radical Simplicity" speak and I must admit all the talk of downsizing and living on $5000 a year made me feel squirmy, guilty and uncomfortable at first.  Oh no I've moved to the country, I need to drive everywhere.  Oh no we wanted a smaller house, but couldn't find one we liked.  After judgmental mind quieted down I realized we do a lot of things Jim recommends to improve your ecological footprint.  We are mostly vegan, we grow our own veg (make that, we're trying to grow our own veg, it's been a bad yr on the coast, no radishes, can you imagine??)  We don't go into town everyday and mostly do a bunch of errands,  and there's not much shopping to lure you in here.  One of the reasons for coming here.  Errands done in 1/2 an hour. Other things that contribute to a simpler life  here are the lack of places to eat out and  a choice to not hook up to TV, that visual crack box.

After feeling guilty about renos that were done mostly to please my aesthetic sense, I realized there are more things we can do to reduce our ecological footprint, mostly small things that constitute thinking before we buy things.  Do I need that soft tie for my tomato plants?   No, I can rip small pieces of an old tea towel to do the same job.  I can make sure we pick more blackberries for the freezer this summer, dry some apple rings.  Do I really need that new sweater?

I like his reminder that when you are buying something, you might consider the life blood of the person that went into to making it (and in "Your Money or Life" style, think about your own life energy that it took to supply the $$ to buy it).  This idea reminded me a lot of the Buddhist idea of interdependence which Thich Nhat Hanh is so famous for describing.  When you look at a slice of bread on your plate, think of all the people it took to make it, the person that planted, cared for and harvested the wheat, the person who took it to the flour mill, the people that ground the grain into flour, the people who baked the bread, the people that transported it to the grocery store, the clerk who stocked the shelf, the cashier who rang it up and popped it in your bag.  It took all these folks to get this simple slice of bread to your plate. We don't often think of this or feel grateful for their part in our slice of bread.

So that's where the Dharma went this week for me.  How about you?

"The Unknown, The Territory of the Creative

I am hoping for rain tomorrow.  Did you hear me say that?  I can't believe I just said that.  But there is an ulterior motive.  If it rains I can stay in and paint all day!  Recently I have been weed obsessed.  I jump out of bed in the morning and race outside to spend time in the company of weeds.

 The definition of a weed is simply a plant growing where we don't want it to.  Aren't we bossy, we humans, wanting plants to grow only in particular places.  We are so not like the natural world that just accepts things wherever they grow.  I aspire to be more like nature but meanwhile I have my own ideas of beauty which doesn't include small green things growing in pathways and filling up ancient herb beds in a helter skelter sort of way.  And this idea of beauty comes with a cost.

I have spent many days working in my yard as a weed tamer, (not as dangerous as lion taming and no whip or chair required) hoeing and digging and pulling until my wrists and finger tips ache and my hands look like those of an ancient peasant woman.  I love it really, pulling weeds.  I love being outside with the birds and the squirrel, the deer.  I remind the quail not to eat the grass seed I've spread on some bare patches and listen to the buzz of hummingbird wings aiming themselves at my sagging prayer flags. I am treated to the strong sound and huge expanse of eagle wings cruising past me as I work.  Sometimes I think about the spiritual aspect of weeding.  As I pull each misplaced green thing, I think of weeding my mind of its less wholesome thoughts, it's worries, it's doubts, it's inclination to manufacture problems and blockages where really there is just open space and situations.

But back to painting and the creative life.  Here's a wonderful talk by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche where he takes a broad approach to creativity.  He talks about living creatively with openness and joy as essential ingredients to this way of being.  He invites us to open to our resistance and fears, to "host" them as he calls it.  He invites us to enliven ourselves by orienting ourselves to what's right in our life.  He teases that this will energize us more than a cup of coffee in a mid afternoon slump.

I also wanted to draw your attention to a great creative resource I have been exploring.  It's a site called the awakened eye created by miriam louisa who has been exploring the ground of creativity for many years.  She has a free 8 chapter ebook of exercises that I have plunged into which are inspirational and packed with years of exploration and teaching.  Her site also offers bios and links of artists that explore the dual path of spirituality and creativity.  She has kindly featured me there in her latest post.  Her list of artists is extensive and a fun place to wander away the hours.  I have discovered many amazing artists with fascinating orientations to their art.  Favourites of mine such as Frederick Franck (her site is a nod to Franck and his book of the same title, "the awakened eye"), John Daido Loori, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche all rub elbows together here.

I will end with a little teaser from the first of  miriam louisa's ebooks.  "Making things provides an opportunity to observe all the strategies we blindly, as well as intentionally use to avoid encountering the unknown.  The unknown is the territory of the creative."  Join me tomorrow at the corner of unknown and openness.  I'll be the one in the tatty sweater with the crazy hair and a rumpled paint brush in my hand.

XOX Buddha & The Shoe Salesman

Here's a new work, 24"x 24". As time goes on I find I like to work on bigger surfaces. An interesting admission from someone who started their art career on 5"x7" card stock! I was so intimidated by large surfaces but now I find small ones constraining. Another hard left for the guy in the impermanence corner! "All things arise and they pass away," as the the little chant goes that we sometimes do to end our meditation evenings.

I want to share a lovely, at times hilarious Dharma talk that I watched last night here. It's by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and I have to say there is something I totally love about this guy's Dharma and the Bon tradition. There is a wisp of the ethereal in it, a large measure of practicality; it overflows with wisdom and his talks are never without the sweet taste of humour. A great recipe in my mind and the more you listen to him, the more you see how deeply understands the western mind.

The talk I listened to was on creativity, but I would say it applies to all of life, rather than "the arts". He's talking about a creative approach. He talks a lot about the stories we run with, the ones we tell ourselves and others. And it is in fact belly laugh material. At one point he says something like, "I don't know all of your family and friends but I know that one person who gives you trouble. I hear about them all the time. I don't know if you even have other family members other than this one difficult person."

At one point he proposes that what we really need is therapists we go to and all we can tell is the good stories about our life, the happy picnic we remember as a child, the co-worker who we get along with. Hmm, sign me up!

And he reminds us of the impact our habitual negative thoughts have on our whole being. He is encouraging us to lighten up, to nourish ourselves with stories of what is right in our lives; what was right in the past, what was nourishing today, what's delicious on the horizon.

And of course it's not about living in stories, but it's about using our mind in wholesome ways. It is inevitable that we will think thoughts, why not train the mind to give weight to the nourishing ones, instead of the old patterns of worry, fear and depression. If unwholesome thoughts arise as they will, we don't need to energize them. This is our work. It's as RM Jiyu Kennett of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives said, "The mind makes a good servant but not a very good master." And never to negate the value of simply being present with what is, without words or stories. This too is incredibly nourishing.

I will end with a story that he shares. Two shoe salesmen go to Africa and find a huge population of bare footed people. One salesman says, "no, this will never work, no one wears shoes here." The other salesman looks at the same sight and says, "wow, look at the potential here." Which salesman are you? I know what I've been selling myself. Time to change my mind shopping habits.

Nourishing Your Inner Being

"Nourishing Your Inner Being" is the title of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's latest webcast which you can watch here. I love that he even asks this question, "how do you nourish your inner being?" There are a lot of similarities in the various traditions of spiritual practice and some differences.

These days I find myself gravitating to the positive, nourishing aspects of practice. Probably for a couple of reasons. I am familiar with suffering and have a personal tendency to be a bit of a glass half empty type. So to bring this body mind into balance it is helpful to pull a little in the direction of the sunny side. Breaking my habitual patterns means focusing on the positive. And I want to be clear that this does not mean putting on a pair of rose coloured classes and a flowered mu-mu and stumbling around giddy with crazy joy.

But nourishing my inner being is something that appeals in the form of building my own strength (physically, mentally and spiritually). In his webcast Rinpoche talks about the 4 qualities of a nourished inner being: peace, creativity and expansiveness, power, strength and confidence and fearlessness. He asks "what quality do you especially need in your life right now?" If perhaps we are feeling stuck or frustrated then maybe we need creativity to approach this. How can I be of help to any other beings if I am not nourished myself? If I am depleted and crabby? Perhaps as an example of what not to emulate??

And in true Bon spirit Tenzin Wangyal describes how we are nourished by the elements of water, fire, earth and air. If we feel suffocated in our lives, maybe we need more air? Try it. Deep nourishing breaths? Time in the great outdoors? Are you someone who loves to swim? Perhaps you find your nourishment in water. Fire is the element that brings creativity and love, warmth and enthusiasm. You probably know some firey folks or maybe you are one?

Rinpoche always goes back to the source of nourishment as stillness of the body, silence of speech and mind and spaciousness of our minds and hearts. We connect with these he tells us through our awareness. The old simple but not always easy.

I always find that the great outdoors is a nourishing place for me. Lately a wander around my pond, a trek in the bush can lift both my spirit, improve how I feel physically and bring a delicous sense of peace to my day. A little hanging out with some tall, straight fir trees is truly nourishing for me (something I learned to pay attention from my wise qi gong teacher). And how do you nourish your inner being these days?

Is Your Life A Dream?

I promised I would share my spiritual thrashings with you and here's a bit. I am reading "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream And Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Dreams have always intrigued me and I have a dream that has followed me in different variations throughout my life. I am always driving in this dream and of course there's lots of variation, mostly troubling like the brakes don't work, or I'm driving from the backseat. Various people accompany me on these crazy drives. Most recently I was surprised and confused to find myself driving a right hand drive car.

But I digress gigantically. The main focus of "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream And Sleep" revolves around developing lucid dreaming capabilities. Rinpoche says: "If we cannot carry our practice into sleep, if we lose ourselves every night, what chance do we have to be aware when death comes. Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Look to your experience of sleep to discover whether or not you are truly awake." Sheesh, I am barely aware when I'm awake was my first thought! But there is something that strikes me as a practice worthy of exploration.

One of the concrete practices Tenzin Wangyal suggests is this: "Throughout the day practice the recognition of the dream-like nature of life... Upon waking in the morning, think to yourself, "I am awake in a dream. When you enter the kitchen, recognize it as a dream kitchen. Pour dream milk into your dream coffee. It's all a dream, you think to yourself, this is a dream. Remind yourself of this constantly throughout the day.... Keep reminding yourself that you are dreaming up your experiences, the anger you feel, the happiness, the anxiety, -- it's all part of the dream... In this way a new tendency is created in the mind, that of looking at experience as insubstantial, transient and intimately related to the minds projections. As phenomena are seen to be fleeting and essenceless, grasping decreases... Doing this practice, like all practice changes the way one engages the world... When we think of an experience as "only a dream" it is less "real" to us. It loses its power over us -- power that it only had because we gave it power, and can no longer disturb us and drive us into negative emotional states. Instead we begin to encounter all experience with greater calm and increased clarity, and even with greater appreciation."

While this practice is aimed at eventually helping us be aware while dreaming, I like the immediate payoff of reminding us that things and circumstances are ever changing and can't be held on to. As I tried this last night (and he recommends making it a deeper experience than just a thought) I noticed that I was okay with regarding the things I find difficult or unpleasant as a dream but wanted the things I loved to be solid and real. In an instant it was apparent where attachment rested it's hook and claw. I also found there was something slightly disorienting in regarding my life as a dream. I could feel the shaky groundlessness of it all.

So I think I might teeter off and have a piece of dream chocolate with a dream cup of tea. Where will your dreams lead you?

Exploring the Spiritual Landscape

Here's a picture of the carpenter's helpers that have been staying off and on at our house. Sometimes they get a bit bushed from all the work they do and sneak into the zendo to do a little closed eye meditation.

On a slightly different topic from cute little puppies....or perhaps we can say i've been following the scent of something that's been enticing me, at least spiritually. For a while now I have felt drawn to the Bon tradition of Tibetan Buddhism (dare I call it Buddhism?). I started with a book by Lama Surya Das on Dzogchen and then stumbled across some talks by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and loved the simple directness of his guided meditations and his talks. It felt like the Tibetan version of Zen and I felt somehow at home here. There was a sense that I could connect easily with the meditation instructions and the directness of the teaching. I liked the earthiness of it, the shamanic connection to the earth, the use of the body. I like that it addresses healing of the body, mind and spirit through its practices of healing sounds and dream & sleep yoga.

While the practice feels simple enough even for my pea brain, there are many aspects of it to add and build on as you explore the tradition, breathing exercises, yoga, healing sounds and the intriguing dream yoga. And of course like many Buddhist traditions it works with our pain and encourages us to develop our compassion toward ourselves and others.

There is also a Bon Sangha nearby and Geshe Yong Dong who leads it does Tibetan astrology and offers it on-line. I gave my daughter a reading for her birthday which seemed appropriate as she embarks on professional life as a nutritionist.

Recently after circling them for a long time, I finally closed in on some books on the Bon tradition and bought them. I am currently reading and listening to the CD that came with "Tibetan Sound Healing". Also on the reading list is "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream & Sleep" and "Wonders of the Natural Mind", all by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. I will keep you posted as I explore the tradition.

Where are your spiritual explorations leading you these days?

A Prescription For Pain

This image is a portion of the mixed media piece "Quan Yin". I recently added some text to it. If you look closely you will see om mani padme hum in tiny letters and then the larger text "She who hears the cries of the world". The prayer for all sentient beings appears in the upper right of the piece (not shown here).

On the topic of compassion, this evening I listened to a recorded webcast by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche called Turning Pain Into The Path. His talk, from the Dzogchen perspective offered fairly simple (not easy), straightforward suggestions for approaching our lives. First he talked about how mostly we try to escape our own pain and that of others. If we have a problem, in the hopes of feeling better, we might say, oh, look at John over there, his problems are worse. Mine are not so bad. But Rinpoche points out that all we are doing is replacing one thought with another. We haven't really addressed the basic problem. Our pain will pop up again. It exists. Attempts to pretend it doesn't simply don't work.

His solution to our pain is to be with it, to acknowledge it, to care for it. Mostly we just want it to be over and use our energy to push it away. He offers a prescription, 3 pills: stillness, silence, and spaciousness. These are the things we want to apply to our own pain and that of others. We want to surround our pain with these medications (or is that meditations), just to sit with them, to care for them. Normally if we have a problem we feel agitated and restless. We want to do something, say something. We want to eat something, have a drink, go to a movie. The chatter in our heads can drive us crazy. Or if it's someone else who has the problem we want to solve it for them, offer advice rather than support. "Think of your pain as a friend or family member in trouble," Rinpoche suggests. "What would you do that would really feel supportive to them" Ultimately the most helpful thing is to offer them your undivided presence.

Of course surrounding pain with silence and stillness and spaciousness, whether it's physical or emotional pain, whether it's our own anger or a friend's problem, is not easy for us. Rinpoche suggests that is because we are unaccustomed to doing this and because it is so unfamiliar we doubt its ability to be helpful. He suggests that this still place inside of us is who we really are (not our busy chattering egos) and that we can access it by, yes, get this, by being still. He teases that if we have a lot of pain we will need to take a lot of pills. And I don't know about you but I think I am going to swallow a whole bottle of these little pills and still need more. So I am hustling my little Rx down to the spiritual pharmacy. I think I'll take 3 pills and call you in the morning.