This is supposed to be a big year. Yesterday I turned 50 which is supposed to be some pinnacle birthday. My birthday is always somewhat axiomatic because it falls right between Christmas and New Year's and the worry is that everyone will be partied out from Christmas, getting ready for New Year's Eve, so my birthday's bound to get passed over. That idea is a fiction. What generally happens is because of when it falls, friends and family remember the date and essentially overcompensate. My parents did forget my birthday once when I was a teenager, but that was the year my grandpa Pettito died on Christmas Eve, and even then, my dad felt so guilty about forgetting it he wrote me this huge check the day after. Teenagers are always happy with huge checks.
This year on my birthday the moon was super full; it was a special day of meditation for lots of folks, as was December 21, the official beginning of the Year of the Miracle. Lots of my students expected the world to end; they came to school in pajamas (the world's about to end anyway) or in suits and ties (the kid who started that one told he wanted to look good going out). I still made them turn in their homework. School still happened. We meditated on the kids and teachers who got shot in the recent gun violence, and talked about people on the globe struggling with war. I explained to them the meaning behind the words "fiscal cliff" and how there isn't actually a cliff - it's a metaphor of course.
December 21, Christmas, the full moon on my birthday - it's all happened. Lots of people went out of town. I wanted to go somewhere, but I wasn't sure where or with whom. Then everyone started phoning, e-mailing, looking out there for some sign, some big tumultuous conflict, or at least an obvious resolution. Everyone looking out there...
But of course we've got to make it happen - this Year of the Miracle, because what's out there is only a metaphor for who we are inside. We've got to agree to give up the dangerous, glamorous, ego- ridden inner struggle that leads to so much suffering on our planet. We've got to realize it's not about the agony and the ecstasy, but about what's left when we let go of all that. The clinging, the neediness, comes from a fear of what will be there when we aren't bolting away or scheduling a trip or a party or rushing to something big to fill in the gap. Meaning will come when we can sit alone in the quiet of what really is and recognize ourselves.
In short, only when we take out the metaphorical trash, can we realize the truth about what's left. What's left feels like love.
It seems like time to do that. Surrender, surrender, surrender. Release conflict and wake up now.
Why not?
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Changes, Vienna and Christmas...
A dear friend and mentor has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He is on hospice care in his home. A couple weeks ago, I sat by his side, talking about our usual stuff: his old jobs making jokes on the radio, the ins and outs of Hollywood, what a dirty old man Henry Miller was. After ten minutes our conversation halted; we both recognized it as pointless and he sent me away.
There was a feeling of rejection when I left him; I sobbed that day. Essentially I wanted things to be the way they've always been - the two of us talking writing, and he telling me stories and giving advice. Things can't be the way they've always been. My friend is shifting into a new state; his relationship with everything, including me, is in flux.
At the same time, I've been spending lots of time trying to convince my parents to get together for Christmas. Christmas is a sensitive time in my family; this year my mother flat out told me she wants a break from the holiday - that she would prefer to spend the time alone with my father. Again, I hung up the phone feeling somehow rejected - why, oh why, can't things be the way they always were? I would show up at their house, my nuclear family in tow, and we'd all cook wonderfully calorie laden Italian food, and exchange gifts before launching into a debriefing of uncomfortable, but repetitive family issues.
I longed for my mother, the same way I longed for Bill. I wanted her to relate to me the way it's always been. I felt the same clutching, clinging in my gut as I did with my writer friend.
In the meantime, my daughter Anne Monique, received early acceptance into Columbia College in New York. We are all so proud and happy this week for her, we can barely contain ourselves. She has worked harder at her schooling than I ever thought possible; Columbia has been her dream goal for years. Things are about to change, big time, when she moves.
To be able to release those we love without withholding and judgment, to exist in the world without fear, to remain open and expanisive, moved by spirit - these are the challenges of letting go.
Of course my daughter must leave on her own, just as this Christmas it may be appropriate not to rush anywhere and to let go of traditions, just as I must let go of my dear friend. I wish Anne Monique full and complete freedom. I let go of all clinging to her and my mentor and my mother and self. I'm floating in the moment where I must be now - into the place where I can trust.
There was a feeling of rejection when I left him; I sobbed that day. Essentially I wanted things to be the way they've always been - the two of us talking writing, and he telling me stories and giving advice. Things can't be the way they've always been. My friend is shifting into a new state; his relationship with everything, including me, is in flux.
At the same time, I've been spending lots of time trying to convince my parents to get together for Christmas. Christmas is a sensitive time in my family; this year my mother flat out told me she wants a break from the holiday - that she would prefer to spend the time alone with my father. Again, I hung up the phone feeling somehow rejected - why, oh why, can't things be the way they always were? I would show up at their house, my nuclear family in tow, and we'd all cook wonderfully calorie laden Italian food, and exchange gifts before launching into a debriefing of uncomfortable, but repetitive family issues.
I longed for my mother, the same way I longed for Bill. I wanted her to relate to me the way it's always been. I felt the same clutching, clinging in my gut as I did with my writer friend.
In the meantime, my daughter Anne Monique, received early acceptance into Columbia College in New York. We are all so proud and happy this week for her, we can barely contain ourselves. She has worked harder at her schooling than I ever thought possible; Columbia has been her dream goal for years. Things are about to change, big time, when she moves.
To be able to release those we love without withholding and judgment, to exist in the world without fear, to remain open and expanisive, moved by spirit - these are the challenges of letting go.
Of course my daughter must leave on her own, just as this Christmas it may be appropriate not to rush anywhere and to let go of traditions, just as I must let go of my dear friend. I wish Anne Monique full and complete freedom. I let go of all clinging to her and my mentor and my mother and self. I'm floating in the moment where I must be now - into the place where I can trust.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The Inspiration of Feathered Pipe Ranch
Melissa at Feathered Pipe Ranch asked me to write a blog about how the ranch led to the creation of Bear Speaks. I first came to the ranch for a "one time" yoga retreat with Erich Schiffmann back in 2002. I wasn't planning on sleeping in a tent, but when I saw the tipi's and tents - out there - I was instantly interested. Howard, who was the ranch manager at the time, set me up in a tent at the spur of the moment.
I had camped once or twice before with my brother, and liked it. There is a crispness to sleeping outside, something organic and life affirming about it. In that tent at Feathered Pipe those first hours, I felt a rush of inspiration; as though I were cradled and stimulated at the same time. I knew I was on to something amazing when I picked up my journal under a lantern and wrote "Good morning to my wakening soul." It came out like an exclamation I'd been holding inside for too long. It's a steal from the romantic poets I'd studied in school, but finally, I understood what they meant.
At the same time I'd fallen madly in love with Erich. I had never understood what yogis meant when they referred with reverence to their teachers. Erich's words rolled over me with a certain sweetness, and I was taken in the purest sense of the word.
Around mid-week out there, I heard a voice in my head, and I realized it wasn't Erich. It was as if the forest itself was speaking to me. I wrote what I "heard" in my journal, arguing with it, accepting it, all through the night, thinking that I was hearing a private message, meant only for me. The voice that is the ranch persisted the entire week that first year.
I returned to Feathered Pipe again the next summer, but now I shared my inspiration with Gary Lemons, Anne Jablonski, and other yogis at the workshop. Everyone was on fire that week; ideas were flying from all of us. The conversations we had over dinner, on the lawn, on hikes, were not just about yoga, but about our dreams, our love, our families. Ultimately we realized we had formed a new, larger family with each other.
I kept sleeping in a tent, and I kept writing everything down. One night when I was headed out there to sleep, I mentioned to Erich that I was afraid of bears. (Black bears get into the trash cans sometimes at the ranch looking for food.) Erich growled. That's when the idea for Bear Speaks really solidified. The idea of a bear as a teacher - a force of nature tutoring someone who thinks she's alone in the forest - became the glue that held my ideas together for a short novel.
Red Wheel Weiser/Conari Press picked the story up instantly and published it. Pat Olchefski-Winston, another ranch regular and a dear friend, painted the lovely watercolor of the bear for the cover.
Bear Speaks is only one testament to the discoveries and connections that happen every year during the precious weeks at Feathered Pipe Ranch. Poetry, art, stories, conversations flow freely from all of us lucky to spend time there. The ranch remains an integral setting for my work, a personal "Rivendale," or as Anne Jablonski put it last summer, "the place where Superman goes to get recharged." I cherish Feathered Pipe Ranch. Bear Speaks is in many respects a love story to it.
I had camped once or twice before with my brother, and liked it. There is a crispness to sleeping outside, something organic and life affirming about it. In that tent at Feathered Pipe those first hours, I felt a rush of inspiration; as though I were cradled and stimulated at the same time. I knew I was on to something amazing when I picked up my journal under a lantern and wrote "Good morning to my wakening soul." It came out like an exclamation I'd been holding inside for too long. It's a steal from the romantic poets I'd studied in school, but finally, I understood what they meant.
At the same time I'd fallen madly in love with Erich. I had never understood what yogis meant when they referred with reverence to their teachers. Erich's words rolled over me with a certain sweetness, and I was taken in the purest sense of the word.
Around mid-week out there, I heard a voice in my head, and I realized it wasn't Erich. It was as if the forest itself was speaking to me. I wrote what I "heard" in my journal, arguing with it, accepting it, all through the night, thinking that I was hearing a private message, meant only for me. The voice that is the ranch persisted the entire week that first year.
I returned to Feathered Pipe again the next summer, but now I shared my inspiration with Gary Lemons, Anne Jablonski, and other yogis at the workshop. Everyone was on fire that week; ideas were flying from all of us. The conversations we had over dinner, on the lawn, on hikes, were not just about yoga, but about our dreams, our love, our families. Ultimately we realized we had formed a new, larger family with each other.
I kept sleeping in a tent, and I kept writing everything down. One night when I was headed out there to sleep, I mentioned to Erich that I was afraid of bears. (Black bears get into the trash cans sometimes at the ranch looking for food.) Erich growled. That's when the idea for Bear Speaks really solidified. The idea of a bear as a teacher - a force of nature tutoring someone who thinks she's alone in the forest - became the glue that held my ideas together for a short novel.
Red Wheel Weiser/Conari Press picked the story up instantly and published it. Pat Olchefski-Winston, another ranch regular and a dear friend, painted the lovely watercolor of the bear for the cover.
Bear Speaks is only one testament to the discoveries and connections that happen every year during the precious weeks at Feathered Pipe Ranch. Poetry, art, stories, conversations flow freely from all of us lucky to spend time there. The ranch remains an integral setting for my work, a personal "Rivendale," or as Anne Jablonski put it last summer, "the place where Superman goes to get recharged." I cherish Feathered Pipe Ranch. Bear Speaks is in many respects a love story to it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)