Mish Mash

When a wounded, bleeding cat was presented to me in a dream I took him in with open arms and nursed him to health. Soon he was running around the house freely, in good health, just being a much loved happy cat. When he tried to follow me outdoors I blocked his exit and said No, you can't have THAT kind of freedom. So I began wondering how this related to my current life. Cats are fiercely independent creatures, with minds of their own, free spirits--yet they are very dependent upon the care of humans. Like any living thing, they can be hurt, wounded, abused, mistreated. They can lose their power. Their damaged bodies die and the spirit moves on.

Our sense of freedom can suddenly be shattered by life events that are unexpected, from small shatterings that are momentary to life-changing events. Adding on a new responsiblility can be both rewarding and feel like a restriction to one's freedom. But there is always choice. Choosing freedom when it's offered, choosing to heal when that's available to us, chosing carefully when to set up boundaries (as opposed to barriers), and choosing to love and care for oneself and others. Sometimes, with the very best of intentions, we give our power away by acquiescing to things when our gut says no, I really don't want to do that, or no, that doesn't work for me. We allow ourselves to do things when something inside keeps telling us it just doesn't fit. Clarity can be elusive, decision-making can require deep introspection, and then we just have to trust. Self-acceptance can be a powerful tool.

It rained this past week and the burn pile was really big, so I doused it with a modest amount of diesel and set it afire. Because it was damp, it burned slow and created swirls of dense white smoke and steam. The rain poured down in light to heavy pulsations, but fire is hard to contain. I love fires, but I don't like being out in the rain. But something primitive inside stirred and I stayed with it. I peeled my clothes off and felt the rain drops all around me. I stepped near to the fire with rake in hand and played with trying to get more leaves and wood to burn. The wind constantly shifted and I was forever finding myself engulfed in smoke. There was a meeting of the elements I rarely witness up close--the dance of fire interacting with a dousing of rain, then fed and renewed by a gush of wind, the organic, dying limbs and leaves and roots of plants transforming into ash. A dove landed on a nearby line and cooed and watched and had a hard time balancing on the wire.

Sometimes it's hard to balance our lives. We find we are doing too much and feel we have no freedom, that we have lost touch with the natural world. We take on more and feel strangled. We let go of some things and sometimes that works, sometimes we find we have too much free time and we don't know how to deal with it. We grow bored. We feel guilty that we are not being productive, or doing our part to save the world, to save the planet.

The smoke from the fire permeated my skin, my hair and I smelled like soot. My eyes watered. Stepping too close to the heat made me look like a blushing beet. I watched a confused cricket race towards the fire only to turn around to get away, circle around and come back into the fire from another angle. He was burned alive.

Sometimes when we get burned it's because we are running around in circles and not noticing that we are moving too close too danger, or we are moving too far from safety. We douse ourselves with water and feel cold and drenched. When we bleed like a wounded cat we feel we have lost our power, given away some freedom, and we want it back. We seek healing. We find freedom. But when we begin to rest comfortably into that sense of safety and permanence, it can quickly be taken away,
go up in smoke, bleed out onto the ground, we fall off the tightrope we've been walking on. We mourn like a dove. But we fly on.

I ran over a squirrel on the highway. It was a hard hit. I turned around and parked. He was partially crushed yet frantically hanging on for life, gasping for breath. I covered him with a rag and put him in a cloth grocery bag. I put him on the ground and he was bleeding and crushed beyond hope. I hated to see him suffering. I was at friend's house so I borrowed his father's shot gun and blasted the little squirrel into little fleshy, bloody bits and pieces. I felt horrible, not so much for putting him down, but for running him over in the first place, for being involved in his death. Stay with it.

When we get in too much of a hurry and we are not watching where we are going life can run us over and lickety-split we are smashed and broken and lay there bleeding. Maybe we survive, maybe not, sometimes a little part of us dies. All the things we have squirrelled away for the winters of our life we must some day leave behind, and that could be tomorrow. But always there is rebirth.

I can't seem to totally wash away the smell of soot. I stink in a way that has a slight appeal to my senses. Maybe it's in my lungs, or hangin on to hair in my nostrils. A squirrel ran out in front of my car today but I stopped just in time for him to make his escape. My cats grow fat and lazy and are afraid to go outside when I accidentally leave the door open behind me. It's a kind of freedom they've never known, so they don't want it.

The birdsong has been especially loud of late, or maybe I'm simply noticing it more. The doves gather around the birdfeeders and find it hard to balance, so mostly they eat seed that has fallen to the ground. They compete with the squirrels. Feral cats lurk in the bushes waiting for just the right moment to pounce on their prey. Buzzards were pecking out the eyes of a deer carcass on the side of the highway this morning. It truly gave me the creeps, but it is the law of the jungle, even the sometimes chaotic urban jungle in which most of us live. But always, there is harmony to be found, and always, we are challenged to learn, to try and find that often very small place of balance where we can rest.

Where is the Ground?

It's interesting how small events can converge, accumulate, or even culminate in causing one to suddenly feel groundless. It's just a lot of uncertainty that seems to blow in on the prevailing winds, the kind of uncertainty that makes you want to grab a hold of something so you don't spiral down too deep into the unknown. So it's all kind of juicy sweet and bitter all at once, this getting familiar with a new unknown, or a new uncertainty--or even an old one that revisits often. These days that groundless feeling manifest itself in my heart. I will suddenly awaken from a nap with a palpitating heart. This is good news because no longer do my fears cause my blood pressure to skyrocket, or cause irritation to the lining of my stomach, or cause me to withdraw into myself and close down. There is something about a heart that beats harder and faster that heightens my awareness to sit up and listen. Time to pay close attention.

This afternoon on the drive home through the backroads I saw a pair of beautiful cream colored horses--one was lying on the ground and the other was standing over her. I had a flashback to another time a couple of years ago when I saw the exact same thing only to learn the next morning that the horse lying on the ground had been shot dead in a drive by shooting. I never told my friends whom I was visiting what I had seen because at the time I had no idea whatsoever that the one horse was dead. It just never occurred to me. But still, I remember having a queasy feeling, and remember asking why the horses hadn't come up to the house, and yet it wasn't that unusual. How could I have known with certainty that the deep queasy feeling might have been because part of me may have sensed that she was dead. The next day when we learned she had been shot I was totally overcome with guilt for not telling my friends what I had seen the day before. Could I have saved her had I said something? I think not. And today's sight caused me to remember all these things, and to notice and realize that the beautiful blonde horse lying on the ground was totally alive and well and just doing what horses frequently do--they just lie down on their sides for a while, enjoying the feel of the dirt, the feel of earth against their body instead of just their hooves. Sometimes my feet cannot feel the ground. Maybe I should go lay down on the ground and see if I regain my sense of foundation, but I know that it is from these moments of uncertainty when we feel groundless that we learn and grow so long as we stay with it and not try to escape from the uncertainty. Sometimes I want to ask for clarification but when you already know that much of life is all about mystery, it's best to just be quiet, and be still. I also know that in the end I will fall down to the ground and never get up again. Of that I am certain. "One of these days, my friend, we all fall down forever." The ground is never that far way.

Who Quiets the Singing Tree?

Several years ago I cut, cleared, sawed, and mowed a path through the woods around the house. One day while walking this path I heard a strange singing sound, kind of eerie, unrecognizable. A sort of vibration. The wind was blowing that day and I thought maybe it was some distant sound traveling on the wings on the wind, but not so. Behind me was a tree whose branch had grown right up against the branch of another tree and as the wind caused the branches to rub against one another the friction made a distinct, musical sound. Over time this friction between the branches had formed a sort of tree wound, a place where the bark and more had worn away completely. I called it the singing tree and would go and sit under it and simply listen to the extraordinary sound. Recently I've tried to find it again and I can't. Today I realized that it is no longer there because the trees have grown and the unique contact between the branches is gone, the singing tree wound has healed and is no longer. I'm bummed about the pulled muscle in my back, and that I can't do asanas for a while, but it was suggested I take walks. Just as the lament of the wounded singing branches of the trees have healed and grown, so will my pulled muscle. I used to be afraid to walk in the woods but now I feel no fear, but rather at ease, and welcomed. Sometimes I see animal faces in the plants, in the dead decaying pieces of wood, in the unique rock formations. Gray writes that "spirit is not limited to human beings. Rocks, animals, the earth, and so on are seen as having spirits...in indigenous cultures, spirit can be directly engaged and used as a source for healing."

Kabat-Zinn writes: "The old fairy tales, we are told by their modern interpreters...are ancient maps offering their own guidance for the development of full human beings. The wisdom of these tales comes down to our day from a time before writing, having been told in twilight and darkness around fires for thousands of years...they are emblematic of the dramas we encounter as we seek wholeness, happiness, and peace. The kings, queens, princes and princesses, dwarfs and witches are not mere personages out there. We know them intuitively as aspects of our own psyches, strands of our own being, groping toward fulfillment. We house the ogre and the witch, and they have to be faced and honored or they will consume us. Fairy tales are ancient guidance, containing a wisdom, distilled through millennia of telling, for our instinctual survival, growth, and integration in the face of inner and outer demons and dragons, dark woods and wastelands...It is worth while to seek the altar where our own fragmented and isolated being-strands can find each other and marry, bringing new levels of harmony and understanding to our lives, to the point where we might actually live happily ever after, which really means in the timeless here and now."

The singing tree is gone, but the musical notes resonate with healing when I meditate upon them, allow the energy to pierce my outer bark. From a trash heap at one of the San Antonio missions I gathered some dying aloe vera plants, and have many times repotted them, throwing the tangle of roots in the woods where they continue to thrive and bloom despite the odds. There are little trails everywhere made by unseen animals scurrying about under the cover of darkness. Holes are dug everywhere to provide shelter and dens of refuge from predators or the elements. I observed a large branch growing vertically towards the sky from a seemingly dead tree stump, it's green leaves fresh and alive and fragrant. And I saw my first hummingbird of the season, and swear she looked just like a fairy.

The Prolonged Journey into Slumber

Most nights I gently remind my partner that once again he is prolonging my journey towards slumber by engaging me in little last minute nocturnal projects that will only take a second. He smiles. The landscape lights need adjusting. Let's bring in some tools. The fountains need to be turned off. The cats know the routine, and go in the opposite direction when we try in vain to herd them into the kitchen that comprises my so called side of the house. The heavy wooden doors I had shipped from New Mexico create a sound barrier and serve as reminders that such boundaries are doors of freedom for our individuality. Free spirits, they say. I advise troubled couples to let their partners be who they are. Caged, we do not sing. I gaze out the kitchen window wondering when or even if the Painted Buntings will make their colorful appearance this Spring. They are beacons in a world of growing extinctions. I drink my coffee and throw the toy mouse across the room. My stomach gets kneaded with little paws. I hear songbirds greeting the morning as the day dawns. The wind causes a cacophony of sounds among the wind chimes hanging from the oak trees, and dead leaves dance in their spring fall and begin to recycle their nutrients into the soil. I read about the good red road which is our sacred path, how all my relations is a mantra of universal connectedness, and when we notice synchronicity in our lives we are in balance and vitality is with us. When something changes in your dreams it will be reflected in your life vs. when something changes in your life it will be reflected in your dreams. There is always another way of seeing things, of doing things. Other realities. I long for another sweat lodge ceremony. I want to step outside and fly and see the ground below through eagle eyes. I dream of diving into the underworld and communing with animal spirits. I record upcoming workshops, retreats, and classes in my at-a-glance calendar and ponder which ones I'll actually make it to. Edward told me that if I bought a bunch of little chickens the hawks and owls would visit often but that seems too contrived and unnatural to me, but still sparks a bit of interest. My niece writes her annual email and tells me she will be visiting orphaned children in Guatemala and that she is intimidated by yoga. I paraphrase the appropriate sutra and urge her to go against the grain of fear and start where she is. My best friend tells me he wants to paint again this year, but isn't this the 7th year he has expressed such plans that have come to naught? We agree that he will attend a regular Sunday yoga class in his attempt to gain a sense of himself, begin walking a new path to find the elements of life that have become lost to him but he is a no show coming up on three Sundays now. I sigh and feel sad but remember I cannot save, only offer up some little bit of support and whisper a prayer when I remember. I forget so many things. I know I will be scattering the ashes of loved ones and wonder who will scatter mine and remember it doesn't matter one little whit. Still. Stillness. The creaking of a door like clockwork, the barriers of our souls are opened, it's time for breakfast. For errands. For another day.

Searching for Directions

My younger sister has taken on a boarder named Edward, almost 20 years old, whom I met a few days ago, and had the opportunity to hear his story, which goes something like this: he and my nephew and a third boy had been best friends since grade school except the third boy was hit by a garbage truck on Congress Ave while riding his bike and was killed; my nephew witnessed a murder up close and personal; Edward was walking on Lamar and was struck by a hit and run driver, suffering severe head trauma. The head trauma was followed by followed by migraines, hallucinations, then a diagnosis of schizophrenia, hospitalizations, all this while grappling with the fear of being gay and finding no peer or parental support. A rough time. He's now stabilized and is searching for work, so I hired him for the day to wash windows and do some yard work. I was definitely playing the role of the Big Brother Mentor sort of thing that I'm not particularly familiar with, so I just played it by ear and did my best and I think it went quite well. I listened, I answered questions and gave feedback when prompted, and worked alongside him for many hours. We got a lot accomplished. There has been a slight escalation in my interactions with younger folks of late, and I feel especially responsible to set as best an example as I can and dispense the best advice I can when asked to do so. In the end, we make our own decisions and choose our paths, but I do think that every little interaction along the way can have sway over us, positive and negative, significant or trivial. Life swirls and spins, cycles and recycles all around us, throughout our worlds and the planet as a whole. Pretty fascinating. I find that everyone, no matter their age or circumstance, no matter their journey or history, deep inside longs for love and acceptance. We want our experiences to be meaningful and nourishing and we want to feel loved. We want to be heard and acknowledged. We want confirmation of our innate goodness. Sometimes these deep longings are left impoverished and starving. We want answers to the profound questions of life. The answers may be right in front of us but we haven't yet learned to see them. We want a guiding hand to reach out to us in our moments of darkness and pull us back into some kind of light. Sometimes the guiding hand leads us deeper into darkness. I know that Edward will go and buy drugs with the money he earned, but he assures me he will only play with the natural ones, as if that offers up some sort of organic consolation. Many times I had to say no thank you, I do not want to have a mushroom or hemp experience, I don't want to heighten my awareness in that way. Yet I felt I didn't have the right to judge or criticize. Oh what a world. Just some morning musings.

The Never Ending Removal of Obstacles

I woke up at 4 this morning with remnants of a vivid dream swirling into the groggy transition of mind from dream state to consciousness, compelling me to reach for pen and paper, capturing with words those vivid and strange images that are the composition of a dream, all the while noticing the unfolding connections of the dream to the events of the day before. Yesterday was seemingly unique, perhaps because I was more awake and aware. In some ways the first half of the day turned out to be a parallel of the afternoon that was to come. On the way to Mark's 10 a.m. class at Castle, a light at Lamar turned red with my car first in the queue, which gave me the opportunity to have a conversation with a homeless guy and his dog. The story is vague, but went something like this: he jumped through a large pane of glass after being awakened by a dog, maybe the building was on fire, and after flying through the glass the dog followed him and landed in his arms. He spent 2 months in Brackenridge Hospital, near death, and kept the adopted dog with him the whole time, despite protests. The dog had saved his life by getting them both out of the building, and the doctors took over, suturing the deep, life threatening lacerations to his chest and face.

I arrived at class to learn that Gioconda was subbing for Mark. It was a good class and I'm always enriched by my beautiful "little sister's" presence, wisdom, and inspired teaching. The class was a challenge, my body temperature rising and sweat pouring off me. I needed to take several rests, nothing unusual in this. Sometimes these windowless studios that have just experienced a previous class seem stifling and devoid of fresh air to me. After doing a series of handstands and pinchas, followed by several urdhva dhanurasanas, my heart was beating furiously in my chest, yet my breath remained slow and calm. There was a sweet deliciousness in these moments of feeling my heart pounding so hard and fast, yet no feeling whatsoever of needing to breathe deeper, fuller, or faster. No sense of approaching panic. I remember thinking that because the asana is such a powerful heart opener, maybe a divine dose of prana had entered my body. I slowed my breath even more and it was even more delicious and unfamiliar.

I stopped at the car wash and the wait was long and they told me Jeff, my massage therapist, would be there in 45 minutes, long after I'd be gone. I left him the card Changing the World One Om at a Time with a note saying I hoped to see him there, got home around 1:30, just in time for lunch, a few household chores, a brief rest, then I headed out to another class. In this class I was aware of the breathing of others, which is always such a nice experience--the deep connected feeling of community in practice so often sensed and felt by the sharing of breath. I'm drawn to a new guy who struggles mightily with the asanas, and makes all sorts of moans and grunts with his voice and breath. He is a beginner and I relish watching his growth. The instructor announced "no grunting in class". I noticed that when he left class he appeared crestfallen. The theme of the earlier class was mudita, and I wanted to stay with that practice, so I emailed him and told him I admired how regularly he had been in showing up to practice, showing up on the mat, and how he was doing exactly what he needed to do, that he was exactly where he needed to be, and that with consistent practice he would notice shifts and transformations. In some ways I think beginners benefit the most from positive experience in class so as to keep them on the yogic path, if that's the journey for them.

As I was filling the car up with gas I was approached by a young man with his dog, reminding me of my experience earlier in the day with the other homeless guy and his dog. This guy was down on his luck, and yet this dog that he had rescued from an abusive life revealed to me, as earlier, that his owner was treating him well, feeding him well, and the bond between them was tight and bright. The calm and sweet nature of these faithful dogs reminded me of when animals come to our rescue and provide us with a much needed dose of empathy, a breath of freshness and companionship when we might otherwise feel alone in the world. This young man was living in a seedy hotel for which he was paying $190 a week. At such times I want to shake my fist at the unjust world, but must find refuge in knowing this is simply the way it is in the world, and far, far worse at any given moment with countless living creatures all over this mysterious planet. These encounters stir up a desire to save and rescue, which I cannot do. But listening, hearing their stories, caring, seeing their light, giving a few dollars here and there is good for me, and hopefully good for them. A few moments to stand and breathe with another may not be saving the world, but who's to know the outcome of sharing one breath, one om at a time with others?

When we sincerely rejoice and share in the joyous success of others, without expectation, we open ourselves up to receiving the same in return; likewise, when we are experiencing joy and success in our own lives, and when we listen and care and feel compassion for others, when we share our hopes for the betterment of the world, one moment at a time, perhaps we can make some positive difference.

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The dream centered around my younger biological sister. Although her journey through life is radically different from my *adopted sister/teacher/mentor*, they share similar characteristics unique to those from the "red hair" gene pool--intensely passionate, fiercely independent. In the dream I was travelling in a very crowded bus where everyone was sitting on the floor on yoga mats in rows of four, and one woman wouldn't allow me to get off at my destination. Other women intervened and prevailed. Indicative of the powerful ebb and flow of feminine energy I've experienced of late. My task was to deliver the name of the color of paint being used to paint her (my sister's) house and the nearby ceiling of an open aired lobby. It was an extraordinarily rich and beautiful red, earthy red, adobe red, vibrant and alive, again representing the power of raw energy, aggression, profoundly deep spiritual and emotional characteristics. But this red had a softness to it, toned down, calm, soothing. The painter was conveying the name of the paint to me in foreign coinage and bills, which were spilling out on to the ground when a homeless man grabbed a handful and ran away with the money. I chased him and got it back, then chose to give him some of my own will, clearly representative of our free will, our freedom of choice, and how the decisions we make in our life can have profound consequences. When I arrived, in the dream, at my sister's house, she wasn't there, but I was instead greeted by a pleasant woman who was supposed to be her mother-in-law. Resolution of conflicts with good outcomes. The mythical symbol of conflict and interference transformed into harmony. The guilt and alienated (foreign) feeling I often have when I witness others with so little currency, but learning to come to terms with that seemingly unfair state of affairs.

Cats, Candles/Agapanthus, Aloe Vera

The last two days have been devoted to yard work and I'm tired of it. I ache. Aging is for the birds. I lit candles tonight, put a favorite oil into a diffuser, drew a hot bubble bath, put on some beautiful, meditative music and soaked in Lavendar Chamomile with extracts of marigold, chamomile, soy, lemon grass, aloe vera, and vitamin E. Organic of course :-). Throughout the work day each time I came into the house I found my cats affectionately coiled up in my chair, on my towel. Sweet creatures. We hired a guy to help us, thinking maybe 5 hours today, 5 more tomorrow. He was young and did everything we wanted him to do in 1.5 hours! We forget that we move slowly. It was nice having a young strong worker to help us. We are simplifying our yard, moving more into a Zen direction with lots of gravel and far fewer plants, for the purpose of having less maintenance. Besides, I'm tired of everything we plant growing so fast and aggressively that in no time at all the landscape feels like a jungle. It's too much. I separated the agapantha clumps and replanted 6 small plants, tossing all the rest in the burn pile. The same with the planter of aloe vera plants, most went into the burn pile while 3 youngsters got replanted in the wooden flower box by the garage. It's a healing plant but the thorns can be nasty.

It's not easy going for 2 full days without doing yoga, I miss it. Dale is moving slower and slower with each passing day and yard work is becoming too much for him, even though he loves getting out and puttering around in the yard.

Time for bed. I've been leaving my roller shades fully open at night. It welcomes the night into the room, and allows the cats to peer out at all the nocturnal critters. Spring is here and the days are growing longer. I had lunch with Jeff and we both agreed this is one of our favorite times of the year. It's been fun catching up with friends for lunch and making it to more men's yoga classes.