Lately, as I'm preparing for bed, I hear the haunting call of the owl. In the darkness of predawn I hear the owl again, but this time I hear two owls, engaged in their song of call and response.
Something deep within me stirs, something sacred, mysterious, and slightly foreboding. I wonder if I'm dreaming--each time I fetch my roommate to come and listen, there is only silence. Doubt arises. The sound I hear is deep and guttural, a string of connected multi-syllable vibrations, legato, that float like notes on the wind. It's very much like a chant, a mantra, coming from the darkness of night when the earth has spun us away from the light of the sun.
It's hard to read of the devastation the Australian wildfires have brought to thousands of animals--burnt, scorched, seared, wounded, dehydrated, frantic, panicked, and dying; for most there is nowhere to go. These kinds of disasters make me wonder about the realities of life that are baffling, both in their beauty and in their incomprehensible horror. My two cats have been acting particularly needy of late, vying for a spot on my lap, curling up against me so close that I wonder if something has triggered feelings of insecurity. Both are rescued and adopted from shelters with "no-kill" policies, while thousands of others are euthanized. Is it any wonder that most of us, who strive for some kind of awareness, are often visited by the many faces of fear?
In the Spring 2009 issue of tricycle magazine, Ezra Bayda tells us that by truly getting to know our fears, we begin to break the spell they hold on us. He describes three basic fears: fear of losing safety, fear of aloneness and disconnection, and the fear of feeling unworthy. Within each of these categories he includes just about every fear known to mankind. Bayda tells us that these multitude of fears are not just mental, but are written into the cellular memory of the our bodies, particularly in a small part of the brain called the amygdala. Therefore, he writes, simply knowing our fears on an intellectual level will not free us from the dominion they hold over us. So how do we deal with these fears? We face them head on, we do not run away from them or deny them, we sit with them and see them for what they are. And what are they? Illusions? Most of our fears are not rooted in reality. They are imagined and created. They are stories that our minds spin out like long threads of cotton candy, with thousands of sticky strings that melt away once we touch them. There really is not much substance there, but there's little comfort in knowing that. The recent issue of the Shambhala Sun has a series of articles on fear: Anxiety Soup by Alice Walker, The Fearless Lineage by Carolyn Gimian, Beyond Fear and Hope by Margaret Wheatley. The cover of the magazine invites us to "Smile at Fear".
I'm struggling much more than I'd like with an injured shoulder. I'm learning that I don't know how to align my shoulder properly, and despite all the attention given to this matter, I still don't have it down right--it's all counter-intuitive. The needed muscles are undeveloped. I'm still learning. I've been doing it incorrectly for so long. The physical therapist fusses at me and I tell him to be nicer. Fear creeps in and want to find another therapist, I fear I won't be able to do yoga again, I fear the pain won't go away. I make up all sorts of stories. But I do show up and I do the exercises, and I know my imaginative fears are like a runaway horse on the wind that I try to rein in. It's particularly comforting when I realize I'm not alone. That's only one reason why community is such a potent antidote to fear. Fear is with all of us, and learning to rest in that, to smile at that, is a task we are called on to tackle regularly. I guess that as long as we strive to be steadfast warriors on our paths to find truth we are doing all that we can do. And so that is that.
This most resembles the sound I hear. Click on this only if you have an updated version of Quick Time, otherwise one's computer gets "stuck".
Something deep within me stirs, something sacred, mysterious, and slightly foreboding. I wonder if I'm dreaming--each time I fetch my roommate to come and listen, there is only silence. Doubt arises. The sound I hear is deep and guttural, a string of connected multi-syllable vibrations, legato, that float like notes on the wind. It's very much like a chant, a mantra, coming from the darkness of night when the earth has spun us away from the light of the sun.
It's hard to read of the devastation the Australian wildfires have brought to thousands of animals--burnt, scorched, seared, wounded, dehydrated, frantic, panicked, and dying; for most there is nowhere to go. These kinds of disasters make me wonder about the realities of life that are baffling, both in their beauty and in their incomprehensible horror. My two cats have been acting particularly needy of late, vying for a spot on my lap, curling up against me so close that I wonder if something has triggered feelings of insecurity. Both are rescued and adopted from shelters with "no-kill" policies, while thousands of others are euthanized. Is it any wonder that most of us, who strive for some kind of awareness, are often visited by the many faces of fear?
In the Spring 2009 issue of tricycle magazine, Ezra Bayda tells us that by truly getting to know our fears, we begin to break the spell they hold on us. He describes three basic fears: fear of losing safety, fear of aloneness and disconnection, and the fear of feeling unworthy. Within each of these categories he includes just about every fear known to mankind. Bayda tells us that these multitude of fears are not just mental, but are written into the cellular memory of the our bodies, particularly in a small part of the brain called the amygdala. Therefore, he writes, simply knowing our fears on an intellectual level will not free us from the dominion they hold over us. So how do we deal with these fears? We face them head on, we do not run away from them or deny them, we sit with them and see them for what they are. And what are they? Illusions? Most of our fears are not rooted in reality. They are imagined and created. They are stories that our minds spin out like long threads of cotton candy, with thousands of sticky strings that melt away once we touch them. There really is not much substance there, but there's little comfort in knowing that. The recent issue of the Shambhala Sun has a series of articles on fear: Anxiety Soup by Alice Walker, The Fearless Lineage by Carolyn Gimian, Beyond Fear and Hope by Margaret Wheatley. The cover of the magazine invites us to "Smile at Fear".
I'm struggling much more than I'd like with an injured shoulder. I'm learning that I don't know how to align my shoulder properly, and despite all the attention given to this matter, I still don't have it down right--it's all counter-intuitive. The needed muscles are undeveloped. I'm still learning. I've been doing it incorrectly for so long. The physical therapist fusses at me and I tell him to be nicer. Fear creeps in and want to find another therapist, I fear I won't be able to do yoga again, I fear the pain won't go away. I make up all sorts of stories. But I do show up and I do the exercises, and I know my imaginative fears are like a runaway horse on the wind that I try to rein in. It's particularly comforting when I realize I'm not alone. That's only one reason why community is such a potent antidote to fear. Fear is with all of us, and learning to rest in that, to smile at that, is a task we are called on to tackle regularly. I guess that as long as we strive to be steadfast warriors on our paths to find truth we are doing all that we can do. And so that is that.
This most resembles the sound I hear. Click on this only if you have an updated version of Quick Time, otherwise one's computer gets "stuck".
http://www.naturesongs.com/ghow1.wav
Great Horned Owl
Great Horned Owl
