It's hard to write when you censor yourself...which is what I'm doing now. Sitting here, staring at flashes of orange from those pumpkins up there and watching the cursor blink at me, demanding "write. write. write." with each appearance, I think of all the reasons I shouldn't write the many things on my mind this week. So, I'll share some pictures and what ever's left after that... let's see...
I've been doing a lot of walking lately. It could be that I have so much on my mind...but it's become a meditation of sorts. While I was in the city I walked for practically every hour of daylight and even into the night. Back in the valley, although the necessity is gone, the novelty of walking through these little neighborhoods makes me feel peaceful and takes the monotony out of living in the isolation of suburbia. It gets a bit lonely. I miss the paradoxical simultaneous anonymity and familiarity of faces on city streets.
But the transition from summer to fall--that sense of change that happens (in New England) so suddenly--always makes my insides swell with possibility. Maybe it's the sense I get from looking at the leaves change that things around me are maturing, shifting into something that seems aged and full of a rich season of growth. As I watch them let go and drift off their branches, I think the leaves are telling a tale of surrender. Autumn never strikes me as a season of wilting or dying, but as the embodiment of this perfect surrender to the flow of life, symbolizing this peaceful release to the next phase. Changes are happening within me and without. I'm trying to be with autumn this year, physically...metaphysically...
Being with my family isn't always easy for me. There's something about being in close quarters with people who know you so thoroughly; interactions have a tendency to get skewed with assumptions and things we take for granted about one another, sometimes it's tough to really see people clearly through what we think we know. I am both the culprit and the victim of this phenomenon. Every day I challenge myself to look at the members of my family with clean eyes, as if we are just getting to know each other. Because, really, what do I know about them? In fact our interactions are all new! They are at new chapters in their lives and I've never been so surrounded by them, so immersed in their lives...at least not as a hyper-aware adult--I've been away from home for the past decade.
It's making me a better person to attempt this and I want to do it with everyone in my life. Every conversation should be new, every interaction a surprise. After all, people have a right to change with each passing day. One of my favorite Emerson moments from Self Reliance...(and one that I constantly quoted in high school to explain away my fickleness): "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think no in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you say today.--'Ah so you shall be sure to be misunderstood!'--Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? ...To be great is to be misunderstood." The beauty of approaching familiar people with fresh eyes is that the misunderstanding would never occur, because the projection of assumed behavior would be absent.
The most tangible results from this experiment have been seen in conversations with my father. It's been nice to get to know him as a man, as a person, outside of "dad"...there's more to him than just being my father, after all. I suppose if I can keep this up the possibilities are limitless for my relationships.
I strive to give people close to me the space to be whatever and whomever they feel like being from one day to the next. We can shed our thoughts, convictions, patterns of behavior, habits...we can let them fall like the leaves in October, new buds will always form. Ever the same tree... but how absurd to think that a 60 year old sycamore should have the leaves it started out with? Quite.
In addition to the weather being simply unreal (I’m sitting
on my deck wearing a scant amount of clothing as I’m writing this and my
weather widget says 81 degrees which honestly sounds like an underestimate
considering the amount I’m sweating), this day has been special above and
beyond the normal.
Do you ever get the sense that some days are the blissful convergence of many days, weeks, even
months prior, where these past moments have laid the foundation stones—many
times taking the form of confusing events, lessons learned, experiences that
you couldn’t quite make sense of at the time—for this one moment where everything suddenly becomes clear? Maybe it’s not an “ah-ha” moment that
allows you to fully process the whats
and the whys of your experience, a moment where you feel like the heavens are
shining beaming rays of light down upon your perfectly clear head… But at its
core it is a series of moments (in my case a whole day!) that are aligned in
such a way as to honor the past and give meaning to the journey that brought
this day to you.
It’s like suddenly all these things that happened over the
past however long suddenly take their rightful place on this timeline of events
that make up your life; events that you couldn’t plan for, journeys you didn’t
set out on, or paths you didn’t intend to follow…they become more lucid in the
light of these perfect days, these divine moments.
Today this spiritual alignment took many forms. I won’t give
you a complete retelling of the experiences that led me here, partly because I haven’t fully processed meaning,
weight, or implications, and partly because I want to own it first, bring that
energy in and internalize the feelings. I want to bathe in this as it washes
over me! But here is the highlight reel of the precipitates:
The day started with a peaceful, loving, supportive yoga
practice at a new studio that I found. Mingled with this chance to
deepen my practice and share in positive energy with others was a reconnection
with an old friend. I felt that sharing a yoga practice with her and creating
this positive energy together was a charming way to honor our past friendship
and to pave the way for new experiences. I arrived home to a peaceful house and
sat for my Shambavi on the deck. My practice was focused but mindless; it was
what I strive for every day with my practices. I was transported to India, to a
sadhana hall at the ashram, and I felt my guru all around me—a presence I
haven’t felt for a very long time…too long.
Sadhguru
He brought me thoughts of acceptance (a theme carried over
from Stephanie, this morning’s yoga instructor) and this is something that
challenges me in my daily life: giving myself permission to fully accept
everything that I am, the things that are happening to me, my physical pain, my
weaknesses, the thoughts that don’t seem to ever stop, the doubts and
fears. (As a side note: I do
believe that acceptance holds the key to my physical recovery…but I’ve yet to
figure out just how to harness this into something tangible that I can propel
into a full convalescence.)
As I sat in the space that I created for myself, in the stillness
of my practice, I was flooded with ...Patrick. Not necessarily thoughts of
Patrick, but the experience of him.
The beautiful part about this is that my experience of Patrick is
limited to a few mere hours. Granted these hours were highly charged and guided
by our master, but even while at the mercy of a powerful, unparalleled
magnetism pulling me toward someone who was a total stranger to me (at least on
the physical plane), I don’t think I ever fully absorbed the magnitude of our
connection and how Sadhguru, or the universe, or … elevated us to a place that
I imagine few people ever experience.
It’s hard for me to keep writing this now as I find my eyes
welling up and my throat getting tight with a lump of undefined emotions that are
trying to find expression. Right now it’s happiness, overwhelming
happiness…relief, peace, a sense of rightness, of timeliness, of alignment. I
called Patrick and he answered, and I was blessed with a small fraction of an
hour graced by his voice and his smile that I can always hear through the
receiver…a joy I haven’t experienced in far too long. But today, being special, neither the reasons for the
distance nor the fear of judgment for those reasons mattered. All that mattered was this connection,
this love, and for the first time in a very long time I felt compelled to wear
the necklace that I had long ago thrown off for disbelief of its inscription: omnia vincit amor. Maybe love really does conquer all.
Jarod left for school and before I had time to process the
solitude, my phone rang. It was my
friend and mentor, Venu, who has lovingly and patiently guided me through this
foreign spiritual journey over the past 10 months. It was a brief conversation,
but perfectly timed, as seems to be our practice. I reconnected to the path I’m
on and I felt that sense of relief wash over me again, this time underlined by
thoughts that I’m being looked out for…that someone has me in their sights.
Sadhguru blessing me - Los Angeles, February 2011
When I think about all the times I had to watch the sun set
and—comfortingly—rise again (and some days it was the setting that was the more
comforting of the two), all the waves of inexplicable emotion that came to me—sometimes
charging and pounding like the thundering hooves of galloping horses, other
times trickling in almost imperceptibly, like a slowly leaking faucet—a part of
me wishes this day would have come sooner. But really, it couldn’t have come a moment sooner than it
did. These things only happen to you when you’re ready. These past few months I've been making space...cleaning house.
It wasn’t that today’s perfect practice, or this new yoga
studio, or a phone call to end an estrangement, or some indirectly guiding
words from a close friend, or sharing a meal with my brother and tossing a
Frisbee carelessly around the sunny lawn on a Sunday afternoon—though all perfectly pleasing things!—were themselves the cause for this experience
today. The point, the important distinction, is that each thing that happened
today happened in such a way as to illuminate their importance as pieces in
this puzzle (my life) that I’ve been working on over the past 6-9 months. Suddenly, I was able to make out an ocean
in what was once a jumbled pile of blue-hued puzzle pieces, I saw a picture…I zoomed out,
so to speak, and the scene made sense.
Imagine you are watching the Director’s Cut version of the
DVD of your life…you get commentary, maybe some subtitles, maybe even some helpful
montages of past scenes spliced together in such a way that you now see
something you didn’t the first time around—details you missed become clear and
everything takes on a new meaning in the light of this replay. That was today
for me.
It’s only going to get better, too. Tonight I have my final
session with a woman named Patti, who is helping me open the doors I need to
open in order to heal myself. (She does Reconnective Healing.) This
week, working with Patti, has been the first time on this painful road that I
actually took responsibility for my suffering and stopped feeling victimized.
This is not to say that I blame myself for what’s happened to me, but simply to
acknowledge that I believe I am the
only one who can save me. I imagine this new outlook on my physical issues will
be a lot more emotionally challenging for me than blaming someone or something
else…but then again, as Sadhguru says, accepting responsibility doesn’t bind
you, it only frees you more.
So here’s to being free. Here’s to healing, here’s to
acceptance, to hunger. Here’s to love, to connecting to the life we’re living,
to diminishing our “selves” and rising up to our fullest potential. And here’s to doing it with perfect
fearlessness—the fearlessness that comes with knowing that everything we
experience is a part of something much bigger. Today proved that.
I suppose Philadelphia will always feel like home to me. Every time I pull back into the city--by plane, train or automobile--I feel my chest swell up and I know it's because all that Philly blood is rushing to my heart. I've been out of the city for 10 months now (almost to the day) and the passing of every one of those (300 or so) days has felt like a slow drizzle of confusion. Following this tangential course the universe has given me isn't always easy, especially when I can't see more than a few steps in front of me, but I know I need to stay on it as long as it takes and trust that it's taking me exactly where I need to be--just have to keep walking forward. This was the first trip back where I began to make peace with that fact and started to let go of my longing to be living the life I left behind.
On the walk home Monday the sun FINALLY came out for the first time all weekend!
My favorite Philly family (my favorite family anywhere, actually) was kind enough to put me up again, in exchange for nothing more than a batch of Hermit cookies (which were gone in a day) and 24-hours of nanny duty, both of which were my pleasure. I spoiled the daylight out of Talulah (don't read this Ed!) and the Lolo brought me to this joint in Northern Liberties where I had my first burger in almost a year. Yes, burger. As in meat burger.
Honestly, I don't feel bad having left them behind...but I'm glad I reminded myself about what I'm not missing. (Although if you're a meat lover you would definitely love this place...they even have a Krispy Kreme burger!) Next time I go, I'll stick with the homemade basil bean burger, and I'll have to try the jalapeno-and-bacon-wrapped tater tots... (yes! they are real!! ...also, is it weird that bacon is less horrifying for me to consume that any other kind of meat, even chicken? Perhaps because it so loosely resembles meat, more of a fat strip, really, than anything else...) Anyway, I'll stick with yummy vegan treats when I go out from now on.
Vegan chicken cheesesteak from Govinda's on Broad and South (Philadelphia)
Thanks to Lolo and Couzin Ed for being awesome. Thanks to lil T for all the excitement (and hugs). And thanks to Advil for making a PM version. Goodnight!
But the transition from summer to fall--that sense of change that happens (in New England) so suddenly--always makes my insides swell with possibility. Maybe it's the sense I get from looking at the leaves change that things around me are maturing, shifting into something that seems aged and full of a rich season of growth. As I watch them let go and drift off their branches, I think the leaves are telling a tale of surrender. Autumn never strikes me as a season of wilting or dying, but as the embodiment of this perfect surrender to the flow of life, symbolizing this peaceful release to the next phase. Changes are happening within me and without. I'm trying to be with autumn this year, physically...metaphysically... 
Being with my family isn't always easy for me. There's something about being in close quarters with people who know you so thoroughly; interactions have a tendency to get skewed with assumptions and things we take for granted about one another, sometimes it's tough to really see people clearly through what we think we know. I am both the culprit and the victim of this phenomenon. Every day I challenge myself to look at the members of my family with clean eyes, as if we are just getting to know each other. Because, really, what do I know about them? In fact our interactions are all new! They are at new chapters in their lives and I've never been so surrounded by them, so immersed in their lives...at least not as a hyper-aware adult--I've been away from home for the past decade.
