Tag Archives: Intimacy

Lunch with Jody

Dear inspiring ones,

It’s been 13 days since I’ve probed my laptop keyboard with these digits … Wow.  First sentence and it feels like I just don’t have it.  But one of my joys in life is to communicate, so I will keep going.

Since Jody’s death, my life has been covered with crying, flatness, a pinched nerve in my neck, pain often about 6 or 7 out of 10, and the dullness that the pain meds have given me.  More importantly, this little life of mine has received a huge flow of love … face to face, on the phone, and in my Inbox.  Thank you for loving me.

Twenty-six of us shared a meal last Saturday.  Twenty-five told Jody stories, animated with great love.  The 26th human being cried a lot and couldn’t bring words forward into the group.  So … all of us let our inner heart shine.

At one point, I stood up and started singing “Annie’s Song”, a piece that I sung to Jody for 20 years or more.  A few words into the singing, my grief blanketed the phrases.  But people heard, and many of them continued the song.  “Like a night in the forest.  Like the mountains in springtime.”  I’ve always added a special verse, but after “May the road rise to meet you”, everything tightened again.  And once more, kind souls held me with their singing.  How blessed I am to receive such love.

Julie, our family doctor, spoke of how well prepared Jody was for her appointments, armed with pertinent questions about her medical well-being. Many folks reflected on Jody’s smile, and on how she brightened their day.  It was family around the dinner table.

I played a YouTube video of Cyndi Lauper singing “True Colors”, one of Jody’s favourites.  She loved singing it with the SingStar microphone poised by her lips.  I see the song as a request from Jody to all who loved, and love, her.  “Of course you have tears for me.  May your smile return soon.  I love you because you show me what’s true for you.  You speak and act as an expression of the great soul you are.  I’m so glad you do that.”

Wow. I’m all drugged up.  I sure wouldn’t want this to be my daily life.  I think I’ve had enough writing for today.  But it is a blessing for me to speak with you again.

Oh, one more thing.  I said in my last e-mail that I’d respond to all of the messages I received after Jody went back into the hospital.  There’s about 300 of them, and I’ve said hi to 25.  I expect that I’ll get a few e-mails saying “Don’t bother.  Take care of yourself.”  The thing is, though, talking to you is taking care of myself.  So I will write to all of you who wrote me.  Just not right now.  Is answering an e-mail a month after I got it too weird?  Oh well.

Second more thing. I’m going to Cuba for two weeks, from December 5 till December 19.  I’m going alone.  Haven’t gone on a vacation by myself since my 20s.  The hotel didn’t even charge me a single supplement.  Yay!  I’ll be staying at the Memories Paraiso Azul Beach Resort, on Cayo Santa Maria, an island just off the northern coast of Cuba.  For part of my time there, I will be silent.  A lovely meditation retreat on the beach, on the jungle paths, in the dining room.  For another part of the time, I will be anything but silent.  I love talking, and I’m going to gab with all sorts of folks from all sorts of Canada, Cuba and the world.  Jody thinks it’s a great idea.  Me too.

And the third more thing.  Jody’s Celebration of Life will be held at 11:00 am on Saturday, January 31, 2015, at the Bellamere Winery in the northwest corner of London.  For all of you within easy travel, I hope you’ll come, and perhaps speak of my lovely wife.  Our room has beams and panels of vibrantly brown wood, with a vaulted ceiling animated by tiny chandeliers.  A good space for honouring Jodiette.

I will talk to you soon.  Travel well.

I love you all,

Bruce

Tonglen

In meditation, picture someone you know and love who is going through much suffering – an illness, a loss, depression, pain, anxiety, fear.  As you breathe in, imagine all of that person’s suffering – in the form of dark, black, smokelike, tarlike, thick and heavy clouds – entering your nostrils and travelling down into your heart.  Hold that suffering in your heart.  Then, on the outbreath, take all of your peace, freedom, health, goodness and virtue, and send it out to the person in the form of healing, liberating light.  Imagine they take it all in, and feel completely free, released and happy.  Do that for several breaths.  Then imagine the town that person is in, and on the inbreath take in all of the suffering of that town, and send back all of your health and happiness to everyone in it.  Then do that for the entire country, the entire planet, the universe.  You are taking in all the suffering of beings everywhere and sending them back health and happiness and virtue.

It sounds so masochistic, doesn’t it?  This practice of tonglen.  Drawing in smoke and tar through the nostrils and sucking it into your heart?  Who would ever do such a thing?  Is it a form of insanity, an expression of a consciousness that is “less than” what our society says is normal?  Or could it possibly reflect someone who has largely let go of “I, me and mine”, someone  who has come to define themselves in a broader way, to love more expansively?  I think the latter.

I’ve had my glimpses of tonglen when faced with the suffering of a person, a group, or the world.  I’ve let it emerge, be a part of me, but then it goes away so quickly.  What then do I do?  Let the word disappear from my vocabulary, or start again, breathing in people’s pain in this moment, and the next, … ?   I think the latter.

It feels like the process of letting go of thoughts when I’m meditating.  First they come rapid-fire, then later a little less frequently.  But they always return.  More and more, I look at a thought’s arrival, smile, say hello, and begin again.

So I choose to embark on another experiment.  I will “be with” the newspaper headlines, such as the ebola crisis in Africa, and I will breathe in the agony of thousands, perhaps millions as it unfolds.  Then I will send them love.  Same for Jody.  Same for the folks I encounter on the streets of London.  Same for me.  Perhaps my heart is big enough to hold it all.

My Song

Thoughts from Jack Kornfield, in his book A Path With Heart:

There is a tribe in east Africa in which the art of true intimacy is fostered even before birth.  In this tribe, the birth date of a child is not counted from the day of its physical birth nor even the day of conception, as in other village cultures.  For this tribe, the birth date comes the first time the child is thought of in its mother’s mind.  Aware of her intention to conceive a child with a particular father, the mother then goes off to sit alone under a tree.  There she sits and listens until she can hear the song of the child that she hopes to conceive.  Once she has heard it, she returns to her village and teaches it to the father so that they can sing it together as they make love, inviting the child to join them.  After the child is conceived, she sings it to the baby in her womb.  Then she teaches it to the old women and midwives of the village, so that throughout the labor and at the miraculous moment of birth itself, the child is greeted with its song.  After the birth, all the villagers learn the song of their new member and sing it to the child when it falls or hurts itself.  It is sung in times of triumph, or in rituals and initiations.  This song becomes a part of the marriage ceremony when the child is grown, and at the end of life, his or her loved ones will gather around the deathbed and sing this song for the last time.

Truly lovely.  And I ask myself what song I would have my mother choose for me.  To see me through the length of my life.  I’d want it to be sung for me during the tough times, when I was stripped bare of my usual comforts, standing naked before the agony of the moment.  I’d want it to rock me gently, like floating in some amniotic fluid.  I’d want the words and music to be something I could come back to again and again.  Something like this:

Be Not Afraid

You shall cross the barren desert but you shall not die of thirst
You shall wander far in safety though you do not know the way
You shall speak your words to foreign men and they will understand
You shall see the face of God and live

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest

If you pass through raging waters in the sea you shall not drown
If you walk amid the burning flames you shall not be harmed
If you stand before the powers of hell and death is at your side
Know that I am with you through it all

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest

Blessed are your poor for the kingdom shall be theirs
Blessed are you who weep and mourn
For one day you shall laugh
And if wicked men insult and hate you all because of me
Blessed, blessed are you

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest

And who is the “I” that goes before me always?  Something interior rather than exterior, and yet something up, up and away.  A part of me that embraces fear and everything else as merely a passing show.  A storm coming in, raining hard, and then disappearing.

May I be sung to as I die.

Voices

I think that voices can heal.  It’s not just the pitch, the inflection, the flow. Something can reside behind those, and can reach out and touch us, if we have ears and souls to hear.  Like this:

He began with a simple song, something in Gaelic with a strong rhyming chime to the lines, accompanied by the merest touch of his harp strings, so that each plucked string seemed by its vibration to carry the echo of the words from one line to the next.  The voice was also deceptively simple.  You thought at first there was nothing much to it – pleasant, but without much strength.  And then you found that the sound went straight through you, and each syllable was crystal clear, whether you understood it or not, echoing poignantly inside your head.

It’s good to have the sound go straight through you.  And to be affected profoundly, whether you’re conscious of that or not.

Here are two voices that have moved me:

Frank Muller was the narrator of many audio books, including “The Body” by Stephen King.  I was right there with him as four young boys went in search of a dead body by the railroad tracks.  Those four guys seeped inside me, thanks to Stephen and Frank.  Here is what Mr. Muller had to say about his art:

Building to crescendos, weaving the arc of a story over so many hours, requires total perspective and sure sense of direction.  And intimacy.  An audio book is a very intimate one-on-one relationship between reader and listener.  The microphone is the ear of the listener.  I often imagine that I’m sitting on a comfortable couch speaking the narrative text into the listener’s ear.  When the characters speak, they parade around in front of us, and we watch them together.

Patrick Stewart was the actor who portrayed Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.  Sure he had a Shakespearean background, but he mesmerized me far beyond that.  He seemed to stop, to sit in the middle of the present moment, when he spoke.  He often used few words, with my favourites being “Make it so”.  His rich baritone enveloped me.  And then there were the inexpressibles … about which therefore there is nothing to say.

I like my voice.  I don’t try to make it “good”.  I just speak.  And I do believe it reaches people.  I want to embrace the world in any way I can … by eyes, ears, fingers and mouth.

Alone in a Room

Somehow, this is special – to be all alone in a large room, one that’s used for meetings, gatherings, and socializing.  Me and a big space.  And when I’m quiet in that space, all by myself, it’s a holy feeling.

My most vivid memory of this is one late evening during a retreat at the Insight Meditation Society.  The last sitting was over at 9:30, and I had gone outside to sit with a cup of tea and the stars.  And now to bed?  No, actually, back into the meditation hall.  I walked in, glanced around, and saw that I was alone.  Facing the statue of the Buddha at the front were rows of square purple meditation cushions, with chairs at the sides and back.  Just me.  I sat on a chair in the back middle, central to the Buddha’s gaze.  And something slowly happened.  In my meditation, I could feel warmth cuddle me close.  I got glimmers of all the human beings who had sat here since 1976, and I felt cradled in their company.  I stayed a long time.

About ten years ago, I had the rare opportunity to visit my former high school during school hours – Lawrence Park Collegiate in Toronto.  I walked into the foyer to find my name on a plaque … and there I was, circa 1967.  Ahead of me were the doors to the auditorium.  I pulled on a handle and it gave, opening to me a grand space of soft chairs sloping down to the stage.  I walked a few rows in and sat down.  Just me.  And so quiet.  I remembered the acne-sprouted teenager who sat in these chairs – for assemblies, concerts and plays.  I also remember the young cellist who got to play some stunning symphonies on the stage, surrounded by many gifted musicians.  A younger man, and he sat there quietly beside me.

And then there was the fall of 1974 when I helped the caretaker close up the Prince of Wales Hotel in the Rockies of Alberta.  Built in 1927 as a huge chalet, the PW’s interior beams and posts of the darkest wood, plus its chandelier and interior walkways, left me in awe.  And that fall I often got to be on the fourth floor balcony alone, looking down into the lobby as I sang a little song.  And then fall silent as the space of history wrapped itself around me.  Just me.

***

Three big rooms and an itsy bitsy human being, enjoying each other’s company

 

You and Me

A popular fable describes hell as a room in which a bunch of angry, emaciated people sit around a banquet table.  On the table is piled a wonderful feast, with many platters of the most delicious-smelling foods that one can imagine.  Strapped to the forearms of the famished people sitting around this table in hell are four-foot-long forks and spoons, so no matter how they try, they cannot get any food into their mouths.

Heaven, on the other hand, is a room in which jovial, well-fed people sit around a banquet table that is piled high with a wonderful feast, with many platters of the most delicious-smelling foods that one can imagine.  Strapped to the forearms of the happy people sitting around this table in heaven are four-foot-long forks and spoons … and the people are feeding one another across the table.

When I’m in a room with other folks, I have a choice: make contact or don’t.  Right now, I’m sitting in an Emergency waiting room with my friend Neal who is having pain under his ribs.  He’s trying to read a magazine.  Around us are a few men and women, and some appear to be suffering.  Should I say something, trying to make people smile?  Any comment of the “Do you come here often?” variety isn’t likely to have a positive effect.  Would my words invade the other person’s privacy?  Should I say them anyway, and be willing to be misinterpreted, out of my commitment to contribute?

I decide that I’ll use what’s in front of me – anything that’s happening now – to connect with one of my fellow sitters.  The current waiting room issue is getting access to the washroom.  Staff have coached us about the proper technique.  Pull the handle down while you also turn the thumb lock that (strangely) is on the outside of the door.  I look in the direction of a woman who’s just commented on the task, and I say “Maybe hospitals create challenges like this so we can solve them and feel good about succeeding.”  And in return … a smile.  Good.  I guess I could have received a big frown instead, but I figure it’s worth the gamble.  We need to help each other emerge from loneliness.

A few minutes later, as news was coming through on the TV about this morning’s earthquake in the San Francisco area, I ventured another comment.  No one near me was saying anything, so I directed my words to Neal.  “Have you ever experienced an earthquake?”  “Yes, in Washington State.”  “I never have.  I’ve seen videos about the ground shaking, cans falling off shelves, etc., but it still doesn’t seem real.”

A second woman looked at me and started talking about a mild earthquake that happened in London a few years ago.  We had a good conversation.

Little moments of contact.  Perhaps the second woman heard me mention washroom doors and decided that I’d be an okay person to talk to.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I’ll keep taking chances.  Who knows what impact I’ll make with someone?  Maybe they’ll forget about me an hour later, but I still might linger inside them.

May we always see each other
May we always hear each other
May we always nourish each other

Hugging

What would I include among the best experiences of life?  Hugging would have to be right up there.  I mean a real hug, not one of the reasonable facsimiles that have come my way.  In fact, there’s nothing reasonable about a true hug.  The mind stops chattering.  I stop.  I get to “be with” another human being.

I remember long ago being hugged by Hal, a fellow participant in a leadership course I was taking.  Hal hugged hard.  He squeezed the air out of me and held on.  It was just about an act of violence, rather than the touch of love I always yearn for.  The vice grip was like a closed fist, not an open hand.  I didn’t think much of hugging that day.

Then there are the quickies, where the other person pounds my back rhythmically.  Percussive seems like an apt word.  It’s like the tenderness is only there for a millisecond and then withdrawn.  And it hurts to see it go, over and over again.  Then the contact is gone, leaving both of us anxious, and at least me sad.

Some folks are so tight when they hug, it’s as if they’re wearing armour.  Some of them seem to twist their bodies to avoid full-on contact.  Some practice long distance hugging, where it’s just our arms touching.  None of these ways meet my need for intimacy.

And a bona fide hug is intimate.  Although I’ve often felt sexual urges while hugging, the touch provides an opening beyond that, into a sense of union with the other, into a realm where we merge, rendering the skin barrier meaningless.

The hugs that Jody and I share are quiet ones, just holding, letting our loves mingle and caress.  Nothing to be added.  Just here and just now.  Jodiette and me.

Once I hugged a woman named Gayle for over two minutes, feeling the same sort of interweaving that Jody and I experience.  With Gayle, neither one of us wanted to end the hug, so we didn’t, for the longest time.  We weren’t needy.  Rather, it seemed like a mutual expression of abundance.

Rosie is a woman who decided to hug anyone who would accept the offer.  Here’s a snippet from her story:

The best hug so far came when Rosie approached an elderly man. “He just looked so sad.  I went up to him and asked if he needed a hug.  For a split second, he looked bewildered and then his arms rose up and he actually gave me a mighty hug.  As he pulled away from the embrace, I could see his eyes welling up in tears.  He told me, ‘I’m 92 years old and I haven’t had a hug since my wife passed, 30 years ago.  You have no idea how much this has meant to me.’”

And from a Tim Hortons coffee poster:
Not so much held as embraced