Old Moon, New Adventures In Being Human

The Full Cold Moon on Dec 28th

It's new year's eve and the light is just beginning to drain from the day.  A small deer stands in the meadow down by the pond. He stares strangely toward the house of a neighbour that hunts his kind. It's a strange behaviour that I've witnessed often on our property.  Can he sense something?  What catches his attention? Am I imagining this? Or are the roosters just making noise? I really can't know, in a definitive way.

His small gesture reminds me that this year I have come to more deeply appreciate that this world is alive with energy that I cannot see, pulsing with sounds I can't hear and filled with things I cannot understand with my linear mind. In short this year has convinced me that world is a magical place, full of mystery. It is a blend of simplicity and complexity that defies wrapping it up neatly in a ball.  It is what makes life truly tantalizing.

I have learned that to live in this world with some grace it is important to be able to hold opposing thoughts in my mind. While I have learned that I am not in control of what happens, I have also learned that there is power in my intentions.  So while I can relax and not push so hard for what I "want" to happen, I can also hold the good and beautiful in my mind in an unattached way. Maybe it sounds confusing when I try to reduce it to mere words, but when I can actually live this way it is strong and powerful.

I think I was born knowing that nothing is ever wasted if you learn something from it, but this year I've bumped up against this one in ways that have left me bruised and scraped and deeply humbled. I'm not at all as nice as I hoped I was.  Perhaps I need to get a dog so I can see myself through her eyes, but alas I am a cat person.  I've learned that anger can bubble up like a mad cauldron and that it can be hard to keep from getting burnt and burning others with it's fire.  And sometimes you just need to see those glowing embers to really get it. I've learned how tangled up with expectation, attachment, hurt and self protection, anger can be.

I've learned that so much hinges on gratitude and intention.  I've learned that I need to remind myself of that everyday, that I have the choice, to lift 5 lbs of gratitude each morning or let the muscle atrophy out of neglect. I've learned how these feelings inspire the beauty of the day to smile back at me.

And I hope I've learned a smidge about kindness and compassion. I hope that sometimes when people say or do something that seems unkind that I recall my own less than stellar behaviour and am reminded that we are all riding in the same leaky little boat.

And I have learned that sometimes I have more choices than I think, that I can find a creative solution when I think I feel like I'm backed into a corner. I like to think I have learned just a little more this year how to follow that still, small voice inside.

moon through rain on the window

So I would just like to say thank-you to 2012 for being such a rich year, full of learning and magic and beauty, peppered with the inevitable sadness that comes from living a life here on earth.

I wish you all a new year of great joy and health, filled with all the beauty this world has to offer (and a few excellent adventures). May you venture out past your comfortable boundaries, may you have some deeply satisfying conversations, may you enjoy the warmth of interesting humans and animals. May the sun of 2013 warm your bones and the breezes blow sweetly through your hair. May you be fully alive. These are my wishes for you as you step with gusto into another new year.

The Body As Teacher

This large enso hangs over the big old river rock fireplace in my living room.  It brightens a room that has dark wood wains-cotting 3/4 of the way up the wall.  My daughter started work on the canvas before she left home and the half finished canvas sat around  looking sad for a long time.  One day I finished the background with different shades of orange and red and painted the big enso on it.  That was several years ago now. I like that it has a tiny drip coming down from the right hand corner.  I cheated!  I did not do the enso  in a single stroke as a true Zen painter would.

I am getting ready for a couple of art shows right now, The Fairfield Artist's Studio Tour on April 25-26 in my home and The Make It show in Vancouver on the May 1st weekend.  My habitual tendency is to get very focused on what needs to be done (but not in a good way)  ... I start thinking about and listing the things that need to be done.  And then I think well if I can just get this out of the way....  And it seems with that very statement I am transported into a state of grim determination.  I am no longer standing contemplatively in front of a canvas working out the next step.  I have become the demanding boss shouting out orders to myself, what about those business cards and the poster and you need a sign for the corner of the street and how about some stands to hang paintings on at the show, and, and, and.  Sheesh, I really can be Mrs. No Fun.   

I become a list nazi (remember the soup nazi from Seinfeld?) and before I can say enough already, my body often reminds me that this is no way to behave.  My body is a great teacher but I have not always been a very willing student.  In fact I think that if my body didn't rebel I'd probably just keep doing the same old thing, running on adrelalin and grim determination.  But somehow we always get what we need from somewhere.

Here's how the scenario usually plays itself out:  my mind starts cranking out a full menu of stress laden entrees which my body finds quite unpalatable.  My body responds by getting stress poisoning (a lot like food poisoning).  I then have no choice but to  slow down and spend time in the present moment.  The more I abuse, the bigger the reminder.  And I have had some big ones.  So nowadays I am pretty good with small warnings.  Okay, I get it, thanks for the reminder, I'm taking the stress ragu off the menu right now.  So today my little mantra is everything will get done and things are fine just as they are.  No need to be Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen.  I used to say "I need a vacation from myself"  but I never did find a travel agent offering that package.

I know I make it sound like the mind and body are separate and of course they're not.  What I am really talking about is the awareness that goes back and forth between our thoughts and feelings and the sensations in our body.  We are like this chemical soup of hormones which is instantly and constantly conversing.  It's kind of like karma, nothing is unaccounted for.  

Does your body talk to you, with aches and pains and strangely mysterious symptoms?  Have you learned it's language?  Do you know what it's trying to tell  you?  Just like we get to know our minds we can get to know our bodies.  Who is a pain in the neck?  What gives you a headache?  Listening to my body reminds me of what works in my life and what is destructive.  It is a matter of seeing and  adjusting course (to use a sailing analogy), forgetting and then returning to my intention, just as we do when we sit.  As time goes on I like to think we get quicker at seeing what we're up to and quicker at stumbling back to the path.  I like to think as time goes on we spend more time making wholesome choices, that require less correction.   Some say that our body is our temple.  Mine is one with creaky stairs and rattling windows.  It's fairly high maintenance in the world of places to live, but it's what I've got to work with this time around and it's a pretty powerful teacher.  Obviously built to specifications, just ask the architect.