Yes, I’d like my dreams to be full of meandering paths bordered by flowers, but it ain’t always so.
I’d like photos of me to show grace and kindness, not the fury of the kid you see here, but it ain’t always so.
I guess I’m all of it, including both my public sweetness and my private agonies.
The black part showed up overnight. I was standing on a slight hill. Below me a tiny cat (a kitten?) was running full speed, chased by a huge tabby … from my right to left.
Then again, coming left to right. I stepped down the hill and drew back my leg like a football player (soccer). The kitten saw the movement and sidestepped out of the way.
I followed through, and my foot caught the big cat square in the forehead.
Much of the unknown, of the “beyond”, has shown up in my mind lately. I welcome the wayward, the tilted, the upside down.
Sometimes I shake my head in response. Often I nod.
Exhibit A
My Polar watch keeps track of my sleep. The total for the past five nights is 48 hours … that’s nine-and-a-half per snooze. Huh? Unheard of in this body. I remember some virtually sleepless nights when I was a teacher. Such contrast.
Yes, I’ve been sick with some sort of virus, and the organs need to repair. But this elongated slumber?
Exhibit B
It’s a dream remembered from last night. I’m looking at the doors of a car. The colour is robin’s egg blue … and it overwhelms. And right in the middle of this glory is a large patch of pink, complete with outlined circles and spreading tree branches. The whole story took my sleeping breath away.
Exhibit C
A simple and sad question:
How could millions of American women vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 US election?
Mark Kelly is a Senator in the US Congress. A leader in governing, in guiding the future of the country.
The President of the USA has a vision for the future that places himself at the centre. Mark sees all the American people in that location.
He has courage:
Everybody needs to wake up. The occupant of the Oval Office is ignorant to the Constitution and has no regard for the rule of law … I will not be intimidated by this president. I am not going to be silenced by this president.
There is danger in the air. As Glenn Carr says on Facebook:
Time Zones are so crazy In Denmark, it’s noon In Canada, it’s 6 am In the USA … It’s late 1930s Germany
Mark is both embraced and reviled. Here’s a hug from Ginger Kimbrell:
Please keep up the fight! Our whole country needs you and others with your knowledge and experience to help us become what we have stood for since our Constitution was written
And from an unknown poet:
Sit like a mountain Sit with a sense of strength and dignity Be steadfast, be majestic, be natural and at ease in awareness No matter how many winds are blowing, be intimate with everything and sit like a mountain
I’ve slept for eleven hours two nights in a row. This has got to be a world record for me. There’s not much oomph in the bod but I wanted to put something out into the world today. So here goes …
The photo is of Donald Lopez Jr. He’s a professor of Buddhism at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. My antennae are always up for good teachers.
First of all, a note about vocabulary:
“In Buddhism, sutras are sacred scriptures, considered records of the oral teachings of Gautama Buddha or his close disciples”
Donald had an assignment for his students. In his words …
The second paper topic pointed out that Buddhist sutras were written for centuries after the death of the Buddha, with anonymous authors attributing their own words to the Buddha, thus allowing the Buddha to address important issues of the time, sometimes in the form of prophecy. Using the literary style of a Buddhist sutra, the students were asked to compose a sutra, setting forth what the Buddha might teach those living in America today.
What a cool task to present to young minds! The article I read didn’t give examples of student sutras but I bet there was a lot of spiritual energy flowing from student to prof within computer files.
My brain is mush, as is my body. I slept eleven hours last night and some more today. Wayward, floating, wide open spaces … sounds transformational but actually it’s some type of virus.
(Oh … this is going to be a short post!)
This weekend is a Zoom retreat for the Core group of the Evolutionary Collective – six hours a day. If you subtract for breaks, it’s about four-and-a-half hours of focusing. On the words of the teacher, on the words when people share in the large group, on the words of my partner when we’re doing a practice.
I just didn’t have it. Sentences drifted off into the ether, with their meanings invisible to me. My mind floated away as well. All I could do was “be with” my fellow members as best as I could, and silently love them.
But the sun was setting on Bruce …
This afternoon I decided not to attend the retreat today. Four more hours would be beyond my grasp. It was a good decision. I’ll listen to the recording this week.
I woke up mid-afternoon from a long slumber. I had closed the blinds. And this is what I beheld:
I mentioned Darlene Cohen a few days ago, that she had insights about pain that I decided to share only when I had some. (This is not a photo of her)
Be careful of what you ask for!
The body isn’t working well right now. Some virus has leaked the air out of my tires. I’ll spare you the details. It’s not extreme but it is a dis-ease.
And so it’s time for Darlene and me …
Here’s what she has to say:
We must penetrate our anguish and pain so thoroughly that illness and health lose their distinction, [allowing] us to just live our lives. Our relief from pain and our healing have to be given up again and again to set us free from the desire to be well. Otherwise, getting well is just another hindrance to us … another idea that enslaves us, like any other achievement. Healing ourselves is like living our lives. It is not preparation for anything else, nor a journey to another situation called wellness. It is its own self; it has its own value. It is each thing as it is.
Okay, this is difficult. The content of Darlene’s message is clearly a challenge. But so is stringing thoughts together when my head is woozy.
I understand, Bruce. Now write
“To set us free from the desire to be well.” It sounds crazy, but it’s pointing me to the moon. Am I willing to go there?
Is Darlene asking me to accept my current disorientation for the rest of my life? On one level, I’m doing what I need to to have health return, such as taking an effective medication, drinking lots of fluids, etc.
She’s not suggesting that I don’t take action. She’s asking my eyes to see illness and health through a wider lens: simply life events, ones that we all face. To hold them in a far bigger universe, to feel the space around them.
I’m back to wondering how I’m creating these words. Wouldn’t it be better to write this stuff in a few days when I’m feeling better? No.
Getting well as an “achievement”, more of the ego doing its thing. How strange.
Just a glimpse now … a world beyond the horizon of health.
And a disclaimer: my current health problem is not large. How would Darlene show herself to me if right now I was in excruciating pain?
This is Natalie Hampton. Years ago she had a deep problem. She felt the pain of it and didn’t stop there. She acted.
Seventh grade.
Natalie Hampton walked into the cafeteria holding her tray, eyes searching for a place – any place – to sit.
Every table was taken. Groups laughing, talking, locked inside their own worlds. She already knew how this would end. She’d tried before.
The rejection was instant. Loud. Public. So she sat at an empty table in the corner. Alone. Again.
Have you been there? I sure have. And I’ve been on the other side of things too. Once my emotional maturity started showing up, I became a welcomer for the alone ones.
Back to Natalie. She created an app called Sit With Us, finding a way for teens to link up online, and at the table. Brilliant! And talk about viral …
Messages arrived from everywhere – Morocco. Australia. England. The Philippines. France.
Kids who’d been eating alone finally felt seen.
…
Today Sit With Us operates in 30 countries. Natalie – now in her mid-twenties – remains CEO.
Now kids everywhere can open an app, find a table, and sit down knowing they’re welcome.
I read marvelous words from Darlene Cohen this morning. She talked about physical pain in a way that I’ve hardly ever glimpsed.
And I thought: “Write about this in your blog, Bruce!”
And then I hesitated. “I don’t know” showed up …
I realized a basic fact: “I’m not in pain right now.” And my head started shaking “No.”
I need to reflect on Darlene’s thoughts when I’m in the middle of experiencing what she’s talking about: It hurts!
Of course, I don’t have to do it that way, but it would be far more valuable for me (and I expect for you) if I was living the life experience of pain in the moment.
And so I will wait for the nausea, or the dizziness, or the muscle ache to return. Because they will.
It might be tomorrow or it might be three weeks from now, but the speaking will be spoken. Today something else was alive.
I left Canada three years ago, and now I’m home in Gent. So deeply home.
As I look to my future, I know that I’ll visit my Canadian friends again and again. But I have no desire to slog through deep snow and shiver in -20 Celsius temperatures.
So … I’ve had the thought: “I’ll never throw a snowball again.”
Wrong!
Five centimetres have landed, and it keeps falling! Magical. It’s the first time for me – Gentian snow staying on the ground.
I made a snowball on my way to The Cobbler this morning. I dropped into various stores, threatening friends and employees with my white weapon. Nobody seemed impressed, and I didn’t launch the ball towards any face. No one thought it was funny. Oh well.
My snowball ended up in the sink at The Cobbler. Upon leaving the building, I made another. I came across three young boys doing what Canadian kids do – having a snowball fight.
I stood nearby with my hand behind my back. I picked a victim. And when he was focused on his friends, I wheeled around and launched! Missed his head, got his chest. Lots of laughs in every direction.
Okay, this may be a “one-off”. Perhaps I won’t see this much snow in Gent again.
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