The Shape of the Day

Here's an oldie that I've added some finishing touches to, a little text and some bits from a vintage sewing pattern, a recent infatuation of mine. It's a little guy 8"x8", using some hand stamping and paint and experimenting with some walnut ink that gives things a kind of aged, tea washed look.

Yesterday a lot of art happened around here. It struck me in the morning that there are a usual number of things I get done during the day and that if I want to get to some of the long suffering tasks on my imaginary list of things I might someday do, I needed to rouse some extra energy and intention. Otherwise the status quo prevails.

I figured it's about being mindful about how I use my time and paying attention to the subtle momentum of habit; the way I move through the day rather unconsciously, drinking my tea, checking email and blogs, wandering here and there, doing this and that. It's amazing where the day goes.

So intention and mindfulness were the fuel that breathed life into 2 new projects and a cluster of old ones. I learned something about directing my energy instead of sliding along on the surface of the day, nothing aggressive or pushy about it, just a little forward momentum and the universe cooperating with me.

On a slightly different note I'd like to share a book with you that I've been reading. Our bodies are always reminding us about impermanence, how things change. The aches and pains, the wrinkles and bumps, nothing could be a more immediate reminder of this. A massage therapist I met on retreat, recommended a book called "Pain Free" by Pete Egoscue, saying it was the most intelligent book on the body she had ever read. His basic premise is in our modern lives, there is much of the body we don't use and conversely we use the rest of it in ways that promote misalignment of the body. He offers simple exercises to help with sore parts. Your sore shoulder may be the result of misaligned hips. Your dizziness could be corrected by a series of exercises that don't even involve your head (remember that thing that thinks its in charge?)

And I am really on a ramble tonight because I'm going to tell you about kombucha tea. I drank it while travelling in the US in March & April and it seemed to be everywhere. It's expensive to buy by the bottle but you can make it yourself. It's made from a fungus like thing (called a scoby which stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts.). It' a fermented entity and you need a "mother" (not your average mother, though). to start a batch.

So I put a note out saying I was looking for a mother (the fermenting variety), on the wonderful Salt Spring Island List Serve (which is like a mini round-up of what's up on the island, lost cats, found goats, free cows, rescued lamas (the furry kind), things for sale, things wanted) And by the kindness of strangers (which still always amazes and humbles me) a young woman offered me a kombucha starter. I met my kombucha connection today, have brewed up my tea and am using a positive attitude to get me to day 7 which will find me sipping delicious, healthy kombucha. A part of me always thinks I won't get it quite right and (in this case I'll kill my mother and poison myself) (hmm sounds like a Shakespeare play). Kombucha's claim to fame is that it's supposed to improve immune system function, detoxify the body and provide healthy bacteria and lactobacilli for the gut. So with any luck my mother will make me some fine tea.

Learning To Be Here Now, Over and Over and Over

Today as I sat in meditation I watched my mind wander.  And I wondered to myself what keeps me from being present, right here, right now in this very moment?  And the answer I came up with is my desire, my clinging, my attachment.  What my mind is most often up to is planning, what needs to be done: a list of would do"s, could do"s, should do's.  And if I look a little deeper these things embody what I want to happen.  I want to paint this, I want to send that email, yada, yada, yada.  Each person's mind has it's own habitual pattern.  Your's might be drawn to the past rather than the future like mine.  Meditation and practice really are all about getting to know yourself.

So in the case of my "little miss busy mind" (at least I'm not a busy body), there's nothing wrong with having plans or making plans but we miss so much if our minds are constantly wandering off on little side trips of their own, instead of taking part in what is happening right now.  If I look a little deeper it's as if I don't trust myself.  My planning is like mom nagging the school kid just before he heads out the door, now don't forget your lunch and your homework and remember not to loose your gym shoes and button your coat at recess, (and 3 more yada's).

And of course there's the deeply ingrained habit of not being present, the neural pathways that  cause me to drive down the same old rutted road of inattention.  It takes effort and awareness and diligence to focus on the present moment and sometimes I am just too lazy.  I love the Buddhist choice of words for this laziness, sloth and torpor, one of the 5 hindrances.  Seems so accurate.  There I am hanging in a tree, just slothing about in an old sweater, with my hair darting off in every direction, kind of half awake.

The other reason we tend to go off in our minds, Buddhism points out, is that we sometimes find the present moment boring.  There is so much more drama in the "he said, she said" of our lives than say, just paying attention to a plate while we wash it, seeing every contour and chip of it's lovely plateness.  But because we never look very deeply we dismiss many things as uninteresting.  This is I think related to the piece I wrote yesterday on knowing too much, too soon.  If you think about the poor little plate, we are not familiar with it because we never pay enough attention to it find it interesting.  Mostly we skim the surface of life,  like dragon flies passing over the pond  looking for mosquitoes. 

So what can I do?  Well here I am aware of the issue.  So step number one taken care of, because if I don't even notice that I'm not here now, I couldn't possibly do anything about it.  There are stories of people who meditate for years and seem not to reap the benefits.  The classic story is one of a monk who spends 25 years in a cave and comes out to be jostled by someone in a line up and push back.  

Once I am aware I need to be willing to do something about it, really willing, at a deep level.  And then I need to set my intention to change my behaviour, whatever that is; in this case be more present when I sit and throughout the day, to not be okay and lazy about wandering mind, to not be okay with sitting on the cushion while my mind goes out for a beer and pizza.  And I need to be patient and kind as I would with a small child, to continually redirecting and persevering. 

Singing and Dancing With Karma

I watched part of the news last night, something I don't do very often.  For me it's kind of like a soap opera.  You can tune in every now and then and it hasn't changed that much.  Lots of suffering, reported in great detail.  Can I do anything about most of that suffering?  Does it add to my life or is it helpful in some way?  We each come to our own conclusions about this.  A comment made by a Zen teacher regarding the news rings true for me: "Just because there's mud out there, doesn't mean I have to roll in it."  So a daily fix of news is no longer part of my life.

But last night I watched a report with curiosity and couldn't help thinking about karma.  A young school principal in New Brunswick decided to discontinue the singing of the National Anthem in classrooms because children from a particular religious group were not permitted by their parents to participate.  He felt it was uncomfortable and exclusionary to ask them to leave the class each day.  Guess what happened.  Entrance stage right.....  A mother of some children in the school opposed this and opposition mounted.  It became a big deal.  He received death threats by phone and finally an angry visit from someone who said some extremely unpleasant things to him and told him he would be run out of town (original typo said "fun" out of town I wish this were true!).  The school board decided against him and daily anthem singing resumed.

At the beginning of the interview he looked self assured and what he said did not seem unreasonable.  He seemed caring and with good intention. I could see poor little children being packed off into the hallway at the beginning of the day.  I could definitely sympathize that this did not seem good.  Then the woman who opposed him spoke (her nephew had been killed in Afghanistan) and she too had some interesting points.  As the cuts back and forth progressed showing the argument, you could see the slide from composed principal to distraught man crying on camera saying he didn't know if he could ever teach or work as a principal again.  I thought about karma.  Wow.  How did he get from here to there?  From a single well intentioned action to someone who felt devastated and run out of town?

It reminded me of how we can cling so tightly to our  opinions.  Both sides.   And end up in places we never imagined or intended.  We get started on something and end up in over our head.  We can't find our way home. No one wants to give an inch.  No one wants to let go, give in, let the buck stop here.  We take so much personally.  And the dances we get into with other folks require us to put on combat boots instead of ballet slippers.  It's a tough one. Perhaps he was a little arrogant about his position, maybe a little self righteous, he was after all the principal, he was in charge, he gets to decide, right?    I think we all spend a little time in the "I know best chair" every now and then.  I know how badly that plays out but sometimes I climb into that big comfy chair anyway.  It's like a law of physics, the swing of the pendulum, pull it far over to one side and it's bound to swing far over to the other side.  I could see the suffering that this man was experiencing.  It was truly saddening, that this action that started with good intentions ended in such personal grief.  For me it was instructive.  It reminded me to be careful, to see heel digging, opinion clinging on my part as a red light..... a place to stop and ask "what's this about?"   So I will say a little prayer for this man and his town and all the beings suffering in this same way.  And I will say thanks to him for reminding me which shoes to wear when I go out dancing.

This colourful little collage is an older piece and it reminds me that there we are, some of us dancing lightly on the top of the porridge bowl, some of us falling in and getting oatmeal up our nose.  Which bear are you today?