You know the story.  You’re thinking about something that aches in your heart.  And then … Think about something else!  Good luck on that.

It’s the same when I consider what to write.  There’s a burning issue that demands expression.  But No!  Not that.  Go somewhere safer.

How about the book I’m absorbing right now?  Inkheart.  It chronicles the adventures of daughter Meggie and father Mo.  There’s lots I could say.  But every word would be false to the moment.  Oh, I could make it interesting.  You’d probably like it.  Maybe you’d even buy the book.

But it wouldn’t be real

Ultimately useless in the world

***

Yesterday my cello teacher Lieven told Anja, “Marie” and me about two of his university-level cellists.  The school had changed their class schedules and they could no longer come for their lesson at the usual time.  Actually the only period the young men could show up was at our time – Thursday at 4:00.

(Sigh)

So the four of us sat down and struggled to come up with solutions.  It was great to see how each of us was committed to the well-being of everyone.

The result?  My lesson now is Tuesday at 4:00, with an adult male student I’ve never met.

The sadness rolls over me.  I will no longer be in lessons with my two musical colleagues.  And I will no longer be talking to the three teenagers who come into the room as we’re leaving.

I’m such a social person.  I see friendships ebbing away.  I see opportunities to contribute to the lives of three teen cellists … leaving.  They’re virtually the only “kids” I know here.  I reached so many in Canada.

(Sigh again)

Maybe I’ll approach schools about volunteer opportunities

Even though my Dutch is minimal

But right now, I’ll invite the sadness to sit quietly with me on the couch

“Would you like some coffee?”

Yesterday I was doing the Mutual Awakening practice with another participant on an Evolutionary Collective Zoom call.  Our hearts were opening.  The connection was real.

And then something new …

My eyes were narrowing rather than widening.  My forehead was wrinkling.  My jaw was set.

When it was my turn to speak, it felt like I was speeding up.  And the volume was climbing.  I was spitting out nouns and verbs.  And then … Am I yelling?!

That’s not me.  Except in the moment it was.  Bruce as fierce?  How can that be?  Surely I’m the nice little Buddhist guy I’ve known for years.  Well … maybe not!

In my mind, I saw my hand pounding the table.  I flew back to the 1960’s, when Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the USSR, was angry with the words of a Philippines delegate at a United Nations meeting.  He banged his desk repeatedly with his fist, and later shouted from the podium.

I’m not angry.  I’m determined.  For however many years I have left, I vow to live big.  To have countless conversations that actually mean something to the heart.  To sing my guts out – songs that tell the stories of our lives.  To love deeply, asking nothing in return.  To walk tall.

I owe it to me

I owe it to the world

It was Music Theory class this morning and my confusion reigned once more.

The class is full of Dutch speakers, and then there’s me … with merely a light dusting of the language.  The naming of the notes in different clefs, the intervals between notes, the rhythms – mostly they’re difficult for me.  And the teaching is in Nederlands, as it should be.

There were so many moments of “not knowing” today, of sorrow in the absence of “getting it”.  It didn’t matter to me how well my seven classmates were absorbing the knowledge.  I was lost.

Symbols covered the white board … incomprehensible to this human being.

There’s a nakedness in this, having my soul exposed to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” – no protection.

As I wallowed in the despair, I was suddenly flooded with a bolt of ecstasy (!)  Eyes opened wide, mouth dropped open.  Another kind of lost.

Deeply … all was well.  Cradled in a love.  In a realm far beyond accomplishment and skill. 

I didn’t know where I was

And I still don’t

I saw an old friend at a concert last night.  I’ll call her Brigitte.  The trouble was I haven’t called her a friend for the last year.

Before then, I had asked her to go for coffee many times, and she always said no.  One of the last things she said to me was “We’ll see each other around.”  I was sad.

From that point on, I turned my back on her … and I didn’t even notice (!)  I was unconscious.  And I’ve remained so for at least twelve months. 

And last night, before the music began, there she was.

Talk to her, Bruce!  Apologize

And so I did.

I told Brigitte the truth.  I felt hurt.  I rejected her.  I have been avoiding her.  We were no longer friends.  In the words of probably the Buddha, I threw you out of my heart.  I had promised to never do that to another human being, and I did it to you.

I apologize.  I’m sorry.

And then … the release.  It’s like I had been holding my breath for a year when I thought of Brigitte.  Ahhh …

This morning I looked up the quote on the Internet.  Turns out it was Kabir who said it.

Do what you do with another human being but never put them out of your heart

Thank you, Kabir.  Thank you, Brigitte.  We hugged for the new beginning.  There may never be coffee in our future … but there is peace.

In our Evolutionary Collective Zoom meetings, each of us is paired randomly with another participant to do a practice which takes 15 or 30 minutes.

The main question we ask each other is “What are you experiencing?”  Responses typically focus not on thinking, feelings or body sensations … but on simple adjectives, verbs, images. 

What frequently comes to me in those moments is something hanging above me and us … often a mysterious cloud.  Sometimes shimmering, alive in its gentleness, a blessing from above.  The tiny droplets fall upon us and moisten our foreheads.

This morning, as I walked on the Oudburg, my home street, I looked up.  Above the turquoise walls of Number 55 sat six beings.  I’d been aware of them for months but I’d never really seen them.

Six kids, left to right: sucking her thumb, holding a finger to the cheek in wonder, spreading the fingers wide, punching the air, and two letting the sunshine caress their faces.

It was the same as many of my EC practices … goodness descending, a young spirit, well-wishing.

***

I am accompanied in life

By marvelous human beings

And by others …

My dear wife Jody used to describe my spasms of strangeness as “idiot-syncrasies”.  Perhaps she was right.  Perhaps she still is.

Exhibit A:

See the folded hand towel on the left.  I have a ritual as I wait for the shower water to heat up.  The day before, I’ve made sure that the tag faces me … so it’s on the lower half of the towel.  This is important.

I hold the low edge with my right hand and gently pull.  Too little force and the towel stays where it is, just a little down on the rack.  Too much force and the little one immediately falls.

Ahh … but there’s the mystical middle ground!  My pull has lowered the right side of the bottom edge a little.  Slowly, almost imperceptably, the line of the edge moves to horizontal.  So slightly lower, moment by moment …

And as the water continues to bathe the cubicle, the towel … gives way, falling into my waiting hand. 

Yes!

After the initial pulling, the process of descent could take twenty seconds.  I patiently wait, yearning for the moment of ecstasy.

***

That’s enough for today.  There is no Exhibit B

And maybe Jody was on to something

I don’t know who wrote this … but I’m glad they did:

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless”.  We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.  When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped.  Nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear.  We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.

The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies.  Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential.  It seems to be constantly in the process of change.  Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.

What is beautiful?  Only the sixth picture?  No.

What is young?  Only the first three pictures?  No.

What is red?  Only the fourth, fifth and sixth pictures?  No.

And there is one more image to consider, which also encompasses it all:

I see you, whether you’re 10 or 90.  I feel your heart.  I know your yearnings.  I know your sorrows.

For you and I are one in our redness

Usually my Thursday cello lesson consists of two adult students (Anja and Bruce) and one teacher (Lieven).  Occasionally, such as yesterday, a girl joins us.  She’s about 16.  I’ll call her Marie.

I was the first to play.  The girl sat across the way, head down.  When she raised her head, her eyes were heavy …  I sensed great sadness.

I was concentrating on the music but a part of me was being slowly torn apart.  When it was Anja’s turn, I often closed my eyes and prayed for Marie.  I sent her love.  Usually when I do this, it feels like the other person doesn’t know they’re being blessed.  I thought the same about Marie.  And I kept going.

As our lesson completed, Marie and I were leaving at the same time.  Will I say something or not?  Maybe I’ll just let my well-wishing hang silently in the air.

But no … I chose otherwise.

Bruce:  You seemed so sad in there.  (Pause)  Are you religious?

Marie:  Yes.

Bruce:  I prayed for you.

(Marie starts to cry)

Bruce:  May I continue to pray for you?

Marie:  Yes.

(Moist eyes together … saying goodbye)

***

An old lesson takes up residence in my head: Don’t make someone cry.  And now I invite it to leave.

Two fragile human beings

Connecting

From Facebook yesterday, quoting the American writer Ernest Hemingway:

In our darkest moments, we don’t need advice.  What we truly need is presence, someone to sit with us in the shadows, to acknowledge our suffering without trying to fix it.  In those moments, silence and understanding speak louder than words, offering a quiet strength that reminds us we’re not alone.  It’s not solutions we seek, but connection.

And here’s a response from a Spirit named Bob Rufsvold:

So true.  So sad that he did not himself make that connection in his darkest moments.  I would like to not just wonder, but really understand the irony of it.  Perhaps if we truly understood the depths of each other’s suffering, we could be more available to stand in the breach, to be that presence standing in the shadows.  Perhaps we must simply be that presence even when we do not understand, simply knowing that your suffering touches my suffering.  Not advice, but love.  Only love allows us to be truly present.

Well and lovingly said, Ernest and Bob

It’s a word that Patricia Albere, the founder and leader of the Evolutionary Collective, has been using a lot recently.

Intuitively I get it … but I wondered what the dictionary had to say:

This word is now obsolete.  It is only recorded in the Middle English period (1150 – 1500).

Oh.

Let’s try “met”:

The past tense and past participle of meet

Not particularly helpful.

Okay … “meet”:

To arrange or happen to come into the presence of someone

When I think “in the presence of”, my mind goes deeper then merely being physically next to a person.  There’s a mystery there.

To come into contact with

Yes, true spiritual contact.

To come together for a common purpose

Such as bathing in the Divinity of the other

To face directly

As in a right angle – looking into the eyes, glimpsing what’s within

***

I met eight people yesterday.  That makes me happy.  The first two were in conversations with my friends Prabigya and Yvet.  The last six were in a Zoom meeting with fifty members of the EC.  Sometimes during our practices I was paired with one other person, at other times with two.

How astounding to have that level of connection with so many folks, none of whom I’ve met physically.  Two of whom I’d never been in a practice with.

***

I am blessed to be in this world

With the opportunity to “be with” so many