My Life | 1eclecticwriter

Posts Tagged ‘My Life’

Lifting a Veil of Ice

January 25, 2015

Driving toward Taos to see clients living high in the hills, in tiny villages tucked against mountain sides, I am mindful of the curious contrasts around me. I pass Sipapu Ski Resort, packed with families enjoying a weekend outing together, an influx of people to a sparsely populated valley that, if there is no snow, remains virtually deserted for weeks at a time. We had a substantial snow a few days ago, although nothing like the severe ones pummeling the East Coast. Immediately after the snow stopped our sunny days resumed, so that much of the moisture has turned from lovely white fluff to sticky, gooey mud.

Along the route I drive regularly to Taos, I pass through a valley with steep rocky walls crowding one side of the road, a grassy verge and a stream skirting the other. In a few places the grassy area widens out sufficiently to provide pasture for cows and horses. In others, it narrows to a cascade rushing along beside the road, daring drivers to race it to the next corner. In a few places, the remnants of a small spring trickle down the rock face if we have a moist winter season, or some summer rains. At most times, of late, there is no sign of wetness on the rocks – our long years of drought have virtually exterminated the spring.

Caught in Time

This trip, as I round a corner near the ski resort, I am greeted with a glorious white flow of ice rippling down the rocks. An earlier snow has obviously fed the spring, which put forth its lovely flow just in time to be captured and held by the deep cold of our latest storm. It got down to something like 12 degrees below zero (Farenheit) last night and now it is more than 60 degrees warm, and sunny. The ice curtain will not last long. I am most fortunate to have come along while it is still showing itself so beautifully. What a pleasant reward for my diligence in working on a Saturday!

The rocks, adorned

After fifteen months of working mostly 50-60 hour weeks, I am taking a week of vacation, to drive to California for a MasterPath seminar. As much as I’m looking forward to the change, and to showing my husband parts of the U.S. quite different from where we live, I have had to pass through a period of regretting arranging for the time off, because of how much additional work I must cram into the days before and the month after, if I am to meet expected deadlines. Ergo, I work on the weekend.

I vividly recall one of my teachers on the Path suggesting to us that work should not be allowed to overwhelm our lives to the detriment of other aspects, such as maintaining a daily spiritual practice. Given that the present demands of my work take as many hours as they do, I have been trying to integrate the spiritual into the practical, as a means of accomplishing what otherwise would require the impossible task of stretching my effective-functioning hours in a day to something more than fifteen.

What I’m finding is that, to the extent I can truly follow the dictum of living fully in the moment, time ceases to be a rigid restricter. It becomes elastic, and somehow everything gets done. Indeed, I can judge the extent to which I am fully present in each moment by my simultaneous experience of time as flexible and malleable.

Icefall and Snow

The frozen waterfall symbolizes, for me, a successful blending of opposites, such as I also achieve when I know time to be elastic. My Teacher encourages us to seek for what opposites have in common, for therein one will find Truth. Freed from the constraints of time, the Truth of the now becomes known. Captured within my photo of a frozen moment of time, waters flow from a renewed spring.

During Saturday busyness I found an image of beauty and peace. On vacation, what will I learn about busyness and work? Something of value, I’m certain. I’ll know when the time comes.

Now is not yet that time.

Now it is time to fix supper. Practical end to a reflective period.

All is in balance, and as it should be.

Tags:climate change, Happiness, MasterPath, My Life, New Mexico, spiritual development, Taos N.M.
Posted in environment, life wisdom, Living and Learning | 2 Comments »

Breadth or Depth?

January 17, 2015

Saturday mornings are the only day in the week that I can be a bit lazy, get up an hour or more later, and not have to rush into preparation for activities. I’ve begun to guard this quiet A.M. time carefully, assuring myself of a few hours with no “have to” obligations. I’m learning that without at least some part of each week available as unscheduled “down time” I get out of balance.

My week used to include two hour Interstate drives and that time served me well for mental rest, but now my 250 or so miles per week of driving is over mountain roads and between client visits, with a cell phone that often rings with work demands. It definitely does not support a meditative state.

I do see lovely scenery. Just Wednesday, coming back from Taos, I came around a bend and was presented with three small frozen waterfalls glimmering in the darkness of early evening. The moon was up and reflecting off the rippling ice curtains, reminding me vividly of stalactite formations I first saw in Lurray Caverns when I was eight years old. Trekking through Carlsbad Caverns many years later, knowing that what was on public display is only a tiny part of the glories existing there, I reflected on how much that is wondrous we live in ignorance of.

(Yes, I hear the editor in my head reminding me not to end a sentence with a preposition. That is a dictum up with which I will not put.)

“You’ve only scratched the surface” is a phrase one of my teachers used often, in a survey course of world literature. He meant us to be challenged to read more widely than even the syllabus demanded. Archeologists genuinely do get to dig ever deeper, quite literally, into their subject matter. My acres, when I lived in Galisteo NM, were littered with pot shards and arrow head flakes. Digging out a pit for a septic tank, I came across layers of ancient litter, several different styles of painting on pottery and even one hand coiled pot, still intact. What might I have found if I’d been able to go down twenty feet, instead of only ten?

Layers of History

I’ve been complimented on the breadth of my knowledge – “Is there anything you don’t know something about?” I feel like a dilettante, knowing a little about many subjects, but without much depth in most of them. I greatly admire people whose careers enable them to master much, if not most, of a field – for example, musicians who know the work of centuries of obscure as well as famous composers, or the full range of indigenous songs in multiple cultures.

A mystery series I’m reading now (the Dr. Ruth Galloway novels by Elly Griffiths) feature a forensic anthropologist who knows everything there is to know about the dating of bones. Ruth admits to being narrowly focused, and to finding it a drawback not to have depth of knowledge outside her field. She admires people who are at ease at parties, able to make small talk because they know, as I seemingly do, a little about many different topics.

So why, then, am I just like Ruth and not at all comfortable at parties? I’ve always preferred conversation in small groups, like over dinner with a few friends. When I get to a larger gathering, I become tongue-tied, stand on the side lines and mostly just watch, quickly becoming bored. I want to connect meaningfully with other attendees, but seem unable to find the way to do so.

Oh, you’re telling me the problem is that I want some meaning from connections at an event where people are focused on the superficial. They come to cocktail parties to see and be seen, not to talk philosophy. I should lighten up, learn to relax and just float along at these events. Maybe that’s what’s needed, but no can do.

I’ve had friends who readily find solitude living in crowded cities. “It’s easy to be anonymous” in the heart of Boston, they tell me. I, on the other hand, feel invaded, overwhelmed and lost in busy and noisy environments.

To find solitude, I need silence. That has translated to needing a great deal more income to sustain me, living in a city. I can be poorer living where I do now, in rural northern New Mexico. Money can buy thick walls and enough surrounding land to provide me some sense of peace in an urban space. In sparsely populated areas, I am at ease in a small space, even a thinly-walled one.

On a Recent Misty Morning

Looking up from my writing just now, I see nine deer crossing my pasture, evergreen trees waving in a strong breeze, the sun reflecting brightly off a few remaining patches of snow. A scene of energetic tranquility, perfectly suited to my cherished morning of contemplation and reflection. I suspect that, over a lifetime, I’ve given up hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, by living “in the boonies.” But as was said to me just this morning, life isn’t about money. It’s about what you learn, and what you are inside.

From My Window

I’ve learned many things. Perhaps the most important is that what I am inside is Soul. All the rest is just accreted layers obscuring my core. My most important skill is that of an archeologist, carefully scooping away mental and emotional grit, to reveal the core gifted to me by my Divine Master. If my breadth of experience and smattering of wide knowledge serves any purpose, it may be that I have thereby acquired a means to connect with diverse people and perhaps assist them with their own excavations. To the extent this is so, I am extremely blessed.

Tags:archeology, Carlsbad Caverns, communication, Elly Griffiths, Galisteo, Happiness, lessons, Lurray Caverns, MasterPath, My Life, New Mexico, Philosophy, Ruth Galloway, spiritual development, Taos, the Rockies
Posted in environment, life wisdom, Living and Learning | 1 Comment »

Accomplishments

December 21, 2014

In high school, I was required to complete English to French translations on a weekly basis. In college, minoring in French, the translation obligation continued. I became quite adept at it, even thought about a career as a translator but life took me in a different direction. Over the many long years I’ve lived in New Mexico with minimal occasion to use French, I gradually lost my fluency.

A year ago, I felt that if I did not do something – urgently – to begin using French again, I would cease to be able to express myself in the language. I sought out someone with whom to speak and not only regained fluency but totally transformed my life. Now, a year later, I was called upon last night to translate English into French once more. The task was only a short prayer for Advent, but I found myself able to complete the project easily and rapidly. Few recent accomplishments have given me as great a sense of satisfaction as that paragraph of translation, flowing readily from my pen.

Over the course of a day, I reflected on why I value the resurrection of bilingual skill so much more highly than I do the talents that let me do my daily work effectively. I have been complimented on what others perceive as my unique work skills which they value and appreciate. I don’t exactly take my talents for granted, but – like my ability to cook – they come so naturally as to be simply a part of me.

Is it the perceived effort involved, that affects what I feel to be an accomplishment?

Once upon a time, I suppose, cooking took effort. That was so very long ago that I truly don’t remember not being easy in the kitchen, as I was when recently called up to create a satisfying Asian/African meal for 3 hungry men with only an hour’s notice. It did please me that the meal satisfied my guests. I expected nothing less of myself.

My mother had a part-time job, when I was small, that took her out of the house just before I arrived home from school. She would leave me notes listing my chores for the day, often including the beginning preparations for that night’s supper. I apparently absorbed the basics of cooking and seasoning so completely that, years later, I “created” a chicken dish for company that was a big hit. I later served it to my parents when they came to visit. My mother took a bite, then said, “When did I give you this recipe?”
“You didn’t. I made up the meal when I wanted to do something different with chicken.”
“But I used to cook this same dish,” she insisted.
We compared notes on spices and preparation and she said I had copied her exactly. I was 24 then. The last time my mother could have cooked the meal for me, I was eight.

I cannot so easily point to the origins of my skill with people, and with words, that contribute to the appreciation I have lately experienced in my work. Living in different cultures certainly played a part. So did my parents’ emphasis on speaking correctly. I remember my father walking around the house practicing “around the rough and rugged rock the ragged rascal ran” in order to soften his Germanic r’s. In recent years, I’ve had to consciously undo some of that early language training. It comes across to some people as arrogance or snobbishness, qualities that interfere with establishing the rapport essential to my job in health care.

It still surprises me, that people perceive me as having a unique talent for connecting “with all sorts” in many different environments. People interest me. Understanding them is necessary to assisting them. I’m just “doing what comes naturally.” Which brings me back to the idea that there must be some effort involved in an activity, for me to feel that it is an accomplishment. I had to work, this past year, to restore my comfort with French, so completing the translation feels like an achievement.

There is a caution offered, that one should beware of what comes easily. “Easy come, easy go.” I wonder if it is meant to warn against not taking one’s own easy talents for granted? If one disregards the talents, will one lose them? Certainly, not practicing and using French almost led to that sort of loss. But I cannot conceive of not knowing how to cook, and am now daily making meals pleasing to someone other than myself, using recipes I have not prepared in more than ten years.

My people skills and cooking seem to fall into the realm of habit – like riding a bike, swimming, or driving a car. I no longer need to think about them, I just do them. Habitual skills do not fade (except maybe with dementia or other brain malfunctions) for lack of practice. In fact, it took close to forty years of non-use for my ability to speak French to fade from fluent to almost erased. I’ve been told that my French was not at risk of extinction, only dormant and waiting for the proper environment to cause it to rise once more to a serviceable level. Maybe. It didn’t feel that way last year at this time.

Am I alone in not taking much credit for habitual skills? Is it common to only value that which one has worked to achieve? If skills and talents already developed are sufficiently satisfying, does one then “rest on one’s laurels” and perhaps cease to learn and grow?

Aspiration Accomplished

I don’t have answers today, only questions… seulement des questions, pas de reponses.
Merci de me lire et de me repondre.

Tags:adages, communication, French language, lessons, My Life, parental conditioning, self-acceptance, writing challenges
Posted in life wisdom, Living and Learning | Leave a Comment »

What Is…

December 14, 2014

I just spent some time last night and this afternoon checking out and replying to various posts on Facebook – a place I have not visited in weeks. Finding out there’s still a world out there where people have time to watch clips, post pictures, and generally interact for something other than work. Wow.

I hit some sort of end point yesterday shortly after noon. In retrospect I recognize how much I had been counting on having the entire weekend to use on personal interests. Instead, I had to work for much of Saturday to meet demands imposed by an impending state government audit of my employer. It was after 3:00 P.M. before I was able to head into Las Vegas for a walk along Bridge Street and a bit of shopping for the few items I needed to complete my Christmas gift package to a good friend and her family. By that time I’d fallen into a snit – one of those unpleasant moods somewhere between anger and self-pity, feeling unappreciated and generally out of sorts.

Walking and window shopping and finding items for the gift box was not in itself important. Doing something I wanted to do, rather than something expected or required of me, was what mattered. Another friend called, we met for a coffee and talk, and my mood improved. Today I am “back to myself” and readying for another long and demanding week of work.

I wrote – I think in my last, rather distantly past blog post – that I’m so busy living I don’t have time to reflect on, nor write about, what I’m experiencing. I didn’t realize until now that I was actually identifying a problem that needs a solution. I’ve gone from an excess of “me” time to virtually none at all. Neither extreme is healthy.

My Teacher instructs that one cannot outflow effectively if one does not first fill one’s cup, to have something worth pouring out to others. I know this to be true of spiritual matters. My Teacher also reminds us “as above so below”, meaning what one contemplates and envisions manifests eventually in one’s outer life, though perhaps not in the ways the mind and ego imagine or expect. Filling my Soul above with Divine Love, Power and Wisdom through my daily contemplation exercises, I am equipped to pass along encouragement and support to those whom I meet in need.

In the spirit of…

Knowing and practicing this Truth, why is it still so hard for me to apply a similar practice below, in my daily allocation of time and energy? How ingrained is the habit of acceding always to the needs of others, rather than speaking up for “me” time!

My new husband is such a loving and generous soul – telling me often that if I want or need something from him, just ask. On those occasions when I’ve broken a lifelong pattern, and asked for what I want, he has responded promptly in the affirmative. But, nonetheless, yesterday happened. I apparently still cannot give myself permission to take what I need, when I need it!

I suspect that this is another manifestation of an uncertainty as to “worthiness”. Have I earned the right to self-care? Have I earned my way into grace?

Grace isn’t earned, it is gifted. Isn’t it about time I left myself open to accept the gift in every moment, so that I automatically provide self-care and don’t reach the stressed out point of needing to demand “me” time? Why is this such a hard lesson to learn?

Yes, I know that each time this lesson of self-acceptance has arisen, it has taken a more subtle form. Each time I get “bent out of shape”, I recognize it sooner and do less harm before calling myself out for my conduct. But that sounds like a mental justification for continuing the behavior, not like an indicator of progress toward eliminating it.

Open Acceptance of Beauty

In this season of annual review, of winding up things and making new beginnings, I wish for myself the humility and openness to finally release whatever underlying sense of unworthiness causes me still to push myself to prove… I know not what.

++++++

The last few paragraphs were written after what was in their place “erased” with an unintentional sweep of the mouse. Do I get upset at losing my words – or accept that something expressed more effectively was meant to be in their place? The latter, if I am to implement in my lower, outer life the same acceptance of grace that I claim in the higher, inner places of my spirit
What is, is meant to be.
What is, is enough.
What is, is.
Enough.

Tags:Happiness, Las Vegs NM, lessons, MasterPath, My Life, self-acceptance
Posted in life wisdom, Living and Learning, the writing experience | 2 Comments »

Forward, or Back?

November 9, 2014

A younger friend is in the planning stages of a surprise event for her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. She asked me, since I am of an age with those parents, to mention some of the significant events of “the sixties.” Her intention is to link her parents’ years of marriage to marker events they would have lived through.

I’ve met her parents, and know them to be of a different world view than mine, more conservative and less traveled, but teachers and caring, engaged individuals. I tried to name events that might have personal meaning to them, not just the by-now-made-trite-by-media images of hippies, Woodstock, anti-war protests, long hair and drugs. Together, my friend and I came up with a list of singers, TV shows, commercial logos and slogans, hair and clothing trends, popular movie stars, and also specific political events of the sixties that have shaped the succeeding years.

One of the personal experiences I shared was of being made to turn in my credit cards, acquired as a single woman, when I married a man who did not have a credit record. I was not considered, legally, enough of a person in my own right to have a credit rating separate from that of my husband of the time. To this day, I have never again shopped in the stores that so denigrated me, nor held a credit card from the company that made me turn mine in. Looking back to that event, I would say society has progressed somewhat as regards the status of women.

Looking forward, since the election, to probable legislation and legal decisions affecting woman, I regretfully believe that we are a very short step away from a return to the non-person-hood of women reflected in my credit experience.

Eric Francis, of PlanetWaves, has just posted an amusing and pointed essay about laws requiring men to have permission from two doctors, attesting to the man’s intent to create life because he has access to a fertile egg, before that man may ejaculate (see his essay through Facebook or at http://members.planetwaves.net/arizona-legislature-passes-anti-onanism-law-requiring-medical-approval-for-ejacluation-men-outraged).

I did not begin this essay with the intent to rant on how close we have come to full circle, from the constraints on women in the early sixties, to those being imposed again now. I intended to write about the differences between people who tend to look forward to what comes next in their lives, and those who tend to look back at what used to exist in those lives. The forward lookers generally seem happier, more open, more accepting people. The backward lookers strike me most often as sad, missing what has passed, finding little or no pleasure in their daily experience – and urgently trying to drag everyone else down into their own depression and regret.

I work with people who are in pain, who are sick, who have lost much of their independence and freedom to choose to walk down the driveway to the mailbox, or to dress themselves without help, or to cook a meal. One woman has been on dialysis for ten years, and recently spent nine months in a nursing home after she fell and broke a hip. She is a forward looker: an artist, a grandmother teaching her granddaughter to carry on the family tradition of pottery-making, while she herself explores new forms in clay.

A few days ago, I met with a couple who are split – the husband is totally focused backward on all that, due to severe pain, he can no longer do. He won’t have someone come to build an entrance ramp to his house because “people will see that he, who worked construction all his life, is no longer capable of this project.” His wife also speaks mostly of how she raised six children and ran a household while holding down a job, of how limited she is now, and dependent on her youngest son to cook meals and clean the house.

Until her husband leaves the room.

Then she shares how much she enjoyed a five day visit to a grown daughter’s home, even though she had the same mobility limitations on vacation as she does at home. She would be a forward looker, were she not being dragged inexorably down into negativity and backward-looking regret by her husband.

It would be easy, just now, for me to lament the direction our government seems to be taking, and to look backward to even ten years ago, when we were celebrating new accomplishments by women and expecting ever more equity in the workplace. But looking backward means, to me, having little hope, few aspirations, no sense of adventure and no courage. It may not be pleasant looking toward what I expect to emerge from Congress and the Supreme Court over the next few years. It is nonetheless necessary to do so, and to do so with determination not to be overwhelmed.

I recommend the use of inner resources, inner resolve, and a conviction that there is merit to the saying that “it is always darkest before the dawn.” Given how unexpectedly a new love relationship, a new purpose and a new energy arrived in my own life, I must attest to a certainty that “anything is possible” if one remains focused on looking forward, open to possibilities, and expecting the best.

Expecting the best is one of the attitudes listed on the Alternatives to Violence Project mandala – a circle with Transforming Power at its center; caring for self and others, respect for self and others, seeking a peaceful solution and expecting the best in a surrounding ring; and an assortment of techniques to be used in an outer ring – techniques like humor, patience, courtesy, surprise and caring. That ring of techniques keeps expanding, as workshops held in prisons across the country, and in tension-filled countries around the world, teach people how to find non-violent solutions to conflicts. The techniques are equally effective for maintaining a positive focus in one’s own life, and for bringing one back into awareness of the strength of spirit we all possess.

The backward-lookers may have won some recent political elections – they will NOT run my life. Please don’t let them run yours!

Tags:adages, Alternatives to Violence Project, Astrologer Eric Francis, generational differences, My Life, PlanetWaves
Posted in life wisdom, Living and Learning | 2 Comments »

Unmixed Blessings

October 11, 2014

We talk easily about mixed blessings – recognition that desired events are not necessarily without their down sides. But if you are one of those who believes that what happens, happens for a reason, then everything that happens is perfect, and an unmixed blessing.

Thistles bloom in my pasture – lovely purple flowers that turn to face the sun in the mornings. Cows eat the prickly leaves and stems with impunity. Two of my horses dined on these maligned plants with evident pleasure. Blessings clearly are a matter of perspective.

Some people who know me only slightly are now having to deal with their own reactions to my recent marriage to a man of a different race and religious background from my own, from a culture quite alien to theirs, and who is enough younger than I am that I’m told I can now call myself a cougar. I don’t choose to do so, as I suspect that – like almost all terms for women when compared to similarly situated men – there is a negative implication to the word. The mere fact that we do not have a term for older men with younger women tells me cougar is not offered with respect or admiration.

Others may label me as they wish. I choose not to identify with their terms. There is nothing of the negative in my present circumstances. They are, rather, an absolutely pure blessing, offering me new opportunities to learn tangible things like a different cooking style, the pleasure of manifesting what I’ve been taught regarding living in the moment, and the experience of the simple joys that come from doing so.

Intellectually I’ve known that Being in the here and now is a possibility not in conflict with making long term plans. Recently I’ve had the joy of experiencing this lack of conflict in an intimate way, as each day fills itself with a blend of work and relaxation within the framework of slowly forming long term goals.

As is evidenced by the scarcity of my posts in the past several months, I’m not as easily able to blend Being with mental reflection on the meaning or form of that Being. More simply stated, I’m too busy Being to think about it. I’m also realizing that I’ve been so busy Being that I’ve not made time to read. A lifetime of reading at least one, often two books a week and here I am not having completed one I started two months ago!

My work requires a sufficient mental acuity that I know my mind is still fully active (no senility here, yet), despite my not using it for accustomed habits. It is a profound change, however, to live so much more immediately and not – as of old – through my mind. Interestingly, the less my mind is “in control’ of my days, the more smoothly they flow. Which, blessedly, demonstrates what my spiritual teacher has been attempting to instill for the many years I’ve been his student – that mind/ego is the enemy of spiritual understanding and true happiness.

Mind is subtle. It diverted me for a time into the illusion that my present happiness was somehow a “reward” for my attention to acting as purely as possible (in the words of my dear grandfather, doing right solely because it is the right thing to do). Fortunately, my spiritual teacher recently reminded me (and others of his long-time students) that happy consequences are just as ensnaring as negative ones.

We are more ready to recognize and try to release ourselves from iron shackles (addictions, self-defeating thoughts and behaviors) than from golden chains (involvement with loved ones, social causes, “doing good”). Indeed, the golden chains are presented as so positive that it is very hard to recognize the way they entrap one. Hard, that is, until one sees that it is one’s mind and ego that take pride in behaving in positive ways, and one’s mind and ego that feel rewarded by positive outcomes.

My present happy situation is… my present happy situation. I did not earn it, I did not create it, any more than I earned or created hardships I lived through in earlier years. Both the negative and the positive are opportunities to detach, to choose not to identify (as I choose not to be a cougar), to simply Be. And to not over-think that being!

When it is time for me to resume reading, I will do so. If it is now time for me to post more often, I will do so. If, instead, both of these activities are to continue to be rare, so be it. The only imperative I recognize now is to be focused in the moment, so that my days unfold as the divine within (or flowing through) me directs.

Such is the new me. Or, more accurately, such is the me I’ve always been, but did not know how to manifest.

Tags:balance, Happiness, MasterPath, My Life, Philosophy, self-acceptance, spiritual development
Posted in life wisdom, Living and Learning | 3 Comments »

Unplanned

August 30, 2014

No promises as to resuming a regular posting. As today’s essay reflects, my life is unfolding in such an unplanned way that I know better than to commit yet to any regular writing schedule. I have missed the connection to my readers, however so let’s see…

+++++++

I walked two miles in about 40 minutes, before breakfast this morning. That activity is one of the several things I have been doing with my limited free time, instead of writing blog posts. My walking place is a dirt country lane, straight and well packed, through unfenced plains used for grazing by a herd of black Angus cattle, and occasionally also by a small group of antelope. Heading out – east – the sun is in my eyes so I keep them lowered and shaded by the brim of my hat. I see bugs scuttling across the road, and jeweled colors as the sun glints off shards and stones beaten into the hard clay by the passing of cars. Heading back – west – I can look around to appreciate how incredibly green my surroundings have been painted by our summer rains.

We’ve had as much rain these past three months as in the last 4-5 years of summers combined. Which means before I walk I douse myself in a home concocted mosquito repellant that works quite well. Oils of lemon grass, cedarwood, peppermint, citronella and a bit of lavender added to water and sprayed on. Sounds a bit wild but actually smells rather pleasant to me. I wonder why the mosquitoes don’t agree – but am glad they do not.

My walks – I try to do at least two a week – are about the only unscheduled, reflective time available to me these extremely busy days. Today I contemplated the saying that “life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” In my case, life is what has virtually overwhelmed me when I had no particular plans at all. So much has changed, so radically, from a year ago this time. I had, then, just been hired by Presbyterian, with a start date in October so I engaged with the projects I wanted to have completed before the new job took over my days. I also wrote quite a few blog posts, to have a supply stored up for weeks when it would be challenging to write. As you must realize, I ran out of that supply several months ago.

The job has turned out to be pretty much what I anticipated but far more demanding of my time than I imagined. We’ve had a good bit of turnover among the 70 some of us across the state, mostly people burning out from the constant demands and deadlines, the 60 + hour weeks, and the aggravations of a profoundly user unfriendly computer data system we are obliged to keep updated. There is, now, a bit of light at the end of the tunnel – or enough light to perceive that the tunnel does have an end. Rather like my sighting in on my car, parked at the head of the lane, waiting for me to make my way back the return mile of my walk. I know a cool beverage awaits me there, so I keep up my pace. There IS an end to this madness, really there is!

Meanwhile, I’m busy living each moment, day after day. It’s an interesting change for me – from a good deal of time for reflection to virtually none. I feel stripped down to an essential core, deciding and acting without conscious planning for what will be done when, or how. For someone raised to believe she must organize and plan in order to achieve, living so immediately in the present is a most curious experience. Surprisingly pleasant and freeing. Productive, though not in ways I have previously measured productivity. Most of all, I feel relieved of a weight of responsibility that I’ve carried most of my life.

And that’s perhaps the most novel aspect of this new way of being. Looking back at the past six months, I have behaved responsibly, honestly, as reliably as ever – but I feel as though I’ve been gloriously self-indulgent. I am certain of one thing – I’m not going to analyze that good feeling. I’m simply going to enjoy it, like I enjoy my two mile walks, the people I’ve met through my work, my new marriage and the process of living my life rather than making plans.

Join me? Try it, you might like it as much as I do!

Tags:communication, Happiness, lessons, My Life, New Mexico, Philosophy, self-acceptance, spiritual development, writing challenges
Posted in life wisdom, Living and Learning, the writing experience | 1 Comment »

As Above

July 6, 2014

I took a short vacation last week, only three days. Enough to slow down, relax in a comfortable motel, watch World Cup matches and go for walks. Not enough to get the rest I need, but at least a taste of what it will be like soon, when the greatest press of work eases and I can once again have weekends.

It’s almost harder to resume intense work now than it would have been to just keep going. My body is telling me it likes being lazy but physically active. My mind informs me there are other things it wants to consider than the myriad aspects of my demanding job. My spirit…? It seeks constantly for the Source, drawing energy to support what my other components find it necessary to do.

As above, so below is a phrase used by my spiritual teacher, to help us channel our attention in the most beneficial direction. With the proper attitude, and the correct placement of attention, we are able to let Divine energy flow in, showing us our undue attachments and the ways that we divert and misuse that energy.

Attachments are essentially misplaced attention. Have you noticed that when you dislike something, it seems to keep popping up before you until you let go of the dislike, becoming neutral on the subject? Only then, with attention directed somewhere else, can the object/experience/attitude fade from prominence in your life.

On the flip side, I can say that I am now enjoying in my daily outer life a delightful reflection of the companionship, caring, fun, accomplishment, ease and peace that twenty years of patient spiritual pursuit has achieved for me with my Inner Beloved. Not looking for anything more than the gifts already given, I am astounded to find my mundane world such a perfect reflection of the promises of my spiritual one. Not that there aren’t challenges, large and small. How could there not be, since I am far from a perfected spiritual being.

What I understand, though, is that when issues do arise I need give these outer manifestations only passing analysis. The majority of my attention needs to go within, to determine what subtle (sometimes not so subtle) concern or attachment I have neglected to clear from my being.

Today, my reliable, hardworking, much appreciated and well-traveled (220,000 miles) VW gave out as I was driving into town. Rolling along just fine, then a popping sort of bang, a huge puff of smoke, and clearly something was very wrong. Coasting to a stop, calling AAA for a tow, figuring out where to have the car taken so a mechanic can assess the problem – these steps followed in a fairly routine way. I called a friend to take me home, where I collected my second car to return to town and continue with the day’s projects.

Now I am considering what I will do if the repair bill approaches the down payment for a new vehicle. And I’m asking myself what inner, reliable and established habit is also due for a revamp or upgrade? Am I due for a change in my attitude toward spending and debt? Have I been taking the presence of some skill or energy too much for granted? Or is my reliance on the care and attention of my Divine Teacher being put to the test?

My Internet service also failed today – with a 24-48 hour restoration time frame the best that can be promised me by the repair people. And just now, our electric power went off. So three basics of outer daily function have all quit on me at once. For sure, I will be looking to see what I’ve been taking for granted on the inner, and attending to repairs and maintenance of any areas where I find my attentiveness has been lacking!

Thank Thee, Beloved, for serving me up this fine example of “as above so below” – or perhaps I should say “as within, so without”. I deeply appreciate that the lesson is being offered on a weekend day, when nothing is so pressing as to prevent me from taking this matter into contemplation.

Baraka Bashad. May these Blessings Be.

Eyes on the Sparrow

Postscript
The car blew out at 10:00 AM. The Internet quit by 1:30 PM, the electricity died at 3:00 PM.
As of 8:00 PM both electricity and Internet have resumed function.
I await the morning, to see what happens with the car.

Tags:adages, Happiness, internet connections, MasterPath, modeling, My Life, self-acceptance, spiritual development, technology
Posted in life wisdom, Living and Learning, technology | 2 Comments »

Koki

July 1, 2014

Back in the day, when I was attending Swarthmore College in the Philadelphia suburbs that “City of Brotherly Love” held an International Festival featuring informational displays from the 70 some countries of origin of the city’s population. On a lower level of the convention area, each of the countries also had a food booth. One could buy tickets at the entrance and then spend them purchasing a world’s worth of main dishes and “afters” treats, far more than any one person could sample in multiple sittings.

Together with two classmates, I visited the festival with an open mind and an empty stomach. Knowing we could not try everything, my friends and I settled on a category of food – “a filling with some sort of pastry wrapping” – and went from table to table dividing three ways our sampling of whatever each country offered that fit our definition. We found a food to fit the category at every table except the Russian one. There we had to accept a slice of an open-topped fish pie as the closest option to our category. The ladies serving us explained that they were unable to make perogi (if you’re Jewish you’d call them kreplach) properly in the limited cooking space, and so did not try to do it. We ate Mexican tamales, German meat dumplings, French beignets, Chinese eggrolls, Vietnamese vegetable rolls, Greek spanakopita and a host of other tasty treats, some sweet, many savory, all enhanced with a wide variety of spices.

I am certain, even many years later, that we did not encounter what my Cameroonians friends call koki (pronounced like the French coquilles but nothing whatsoever akin as a food). I’m certain, because I helped to prepare, and was taught how to make, koki yesterday. The French homophone is a seafood. The Cameroonian dish would fit within my Philadelphia definition.

Koki begins with an arduous process of rolling black eyed peas between the palms, to loosen and remove the skin holding together the two halves of the dry pea. The halves are then dropped into a basin of water, and allowed to soak overnight. Any flakes of remaining skin float to the top to be skimmed off. The soaked peas are blended together with a small amount of water, onion and habanero peppers making a thin paste. Meanwhile fresh taro leaves are cut into strips, and large plantain banana leaves are soaked to make them flexible. The taro strips are folded into the pea batter, and all of it is poured onto the banana leaves which have been shaped into a bowl. Red palm oil which has been heated, so it will pour easily, is stirred into the packet which is then tied up and placed into a tall pot to be boiled and steamed for at least an hour, long enough to assure that the taro leaves are cooked to softness.

The koki is usually served with boiled, ripe plantain so that the sweetness of the banana contrasts delightfully with the hot spicy taste of the koki. When I commented that koki has the texture of a tamale, I was told that it can be made, like tamales, with a corn-based meal instead of the pureed beans.

I shared with my co-cooks an account of my first experience making tamales – the group of 6 of us sitting around a table, picking up soaked corn husks, plastering them with masa (corn meal paste) on top of which we placed a scoop of pulled pork cooked down to softness in red chile, before rolling the husks and tying off both ends with a shred of corn husk. Over the course of a couple hours, the six of us made more than 10 dozen pork tamales and about half again as many that were filled with corn and squash which had been cooked with fresh green chile. All the tamales were then steamed, in batches, in a huge kettle.

Unlike koki, tamales tolerate being frozen for later use. Preparation of both foods by traditional methods is time-consuming, an opportunity for the cooks (almost always women) to socialize and catch up on family news or, in my case yesterday, to learn by doing in the time-honored way that traditions are passed down from generation to generation.

My experience yesterday was a sort of time reversal, since the woman teaching me – Flora – is much younger than I am. She commented that few of her friends still prepare the peas in the traditional way, and that she would not expect me to spend the necessary time doing so in future. She offered to provide me with peas ready to be ground for the koki. I deeply appreciate the offer, knowing just how much time is involved in peeling the peas. In a corner of my being, however, I feel that I’m betraying a tradition if I don’t complete the entire process, start to finish, as it has been taught over generations.

I have my own special recipes, passed down from grandparents, which I occasionally prepare for guests. None fit my Philadelphia definition – until now. Food often unites us. Think families around a supper table, neighbors gathering for a pot luck, or a community putting together a meal for thousands, as happens each year on Labor Day weekend, when the small village of Wagon Mound, NM celebrates Bean Day. With the addition of koki to my repertoire of traditionally prepared meals, I will be uniting western Africa with the Middle East, eastern Europe and the western United States, adding to and carrying on long-established culinary traditions.

What a delightful, tasty responsibility!

Tags:Cameroon, food traditions, generational differences, kreplach, multi-cultural foods, My Life, perogi, Philadelphia, tamales, women's work
Posted in Living and Learning | 2 Comments »

New Leaves

June 22, 2014

A friend recently suggested that feelings may be primarily transient, and not very useful as indicators of the progress of our lives. I responded with a short essay that I’m now turning into my post for this week.

Before I present that reflection, however, I want to review the insight which came to me during a morning meditation. I found myself considering what purpose is being served by my strict adherence to a weekly posting schedule. (Yes, I know, I missed last week. I was preoccupied with an important personal event which took precedence over everything else in my life.)

My contemplation this morning encompassed the vivid presence of Divine Spirit in the posts of a fellow student of MasterPath (Lesley King – The Inner Adventure) and my unanswered inquiry into the extent to which that presence shows in my own writing. What I received in lieu of an answer was another question – why do I continue to demand of myself a weekly post?

When I started this blog a year ago, my motivation was to demonstrate a commitment to writing that might be relevant to finding an agent and/or publisher for my then recently completed novel. Six months later I started a far-more-than-fulltime job which continues to occupy most of my days. And then a delightful but attention-demanding new relationship bloomed in my life, leaving even less time to focus on writing. Nonetheless, I’ve written something thoughtful – and I hope of general interest – weekly for a year. My circumstances have changed far more dramatically than I could possibly have envisioned a year ago. My relationship to this blog has, I now realize, also been transformed.

Meeting the demands of my ”day” job makes ample use of my mental and interpersonal, outer-directed skills. Building my new relationship stretches, embellishes, transforms, beautifies all aspects of me, but particularly my physical and emotional bodies. I know that I would not have been gifted with this delightful and rich blessing of commitment had I not already achieved a strong relationship to my Divine inner Teacher. I also recognize that I am now being nudged, once again, to preserve time and attention for the next step that Teacher will be asking me to take. Rather than pushing myself to put words down – I started to say on paper, but really it’s only on screen – I realize I need a break from words, a break from busy-ness, and instead, more mental silence.

So I will be continuing to post, when those silent periods allow Spirit to reveal to me material that seeks expression. I’m curious to see what schedule of posts results from freeing myself of the obligation to write weekly!

+++++

I do want to share the gist of my response to my friend about transient feelings, and their relevance, or lack thereof, to the meaning of our lives.

“Would you grant that the feeling tone of a life can change, can also be positive or negative, loving or constrained – or sad, or calm, or impatient – and that this tone has an expanse across time, and breadth across activities? Rather than saying I am feeling happy these days, should I have said that the tone of my life has altered from practicing containment and patience, to active flowering in a variety of ways?

“I planted an avocado pit about 8 months ago, that had cracked open and put forth a small shoot as it sat in water on my kitchen window. In its pot of earth in the living room, it slowly grew, putting out a single leaf, sometimes two, which would drop off before new ones emerged. This pattern went on month after month. The plant became taller, more mature, but never fuller until just last month when it began producing new leaves without losing the original ones. Now it is both taller again, and sporting a head of 15 leaves. It is still a young avocado tree but it is nonetheless quite a different plant than it was 4 weeks ago.

“Months of patient, repetitive experience (in my case years of it) have given way to a different look, a more fulfilled form, changed and more expressive energy, a happy presentation of what it is to be an avocado tree me… My energy level has escalated such that my daily being is much more productive. Next, unanswered, question – is happiness the result of that increased productivity, or the energizer which makes the productivity possible – or both?

“I’m pretty sure I won’t be puzzling over the answer any time soon. I prefer to focus on putting out more leaves.”

Leaves which I will share as they manifest.

Tags:communication, Happiness, MasterPath, My Life, plants, spiritual development, writing challenges
Posted in life wisdom, Living and Learning | 5 Comments »

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