Queerily Questioning

I woke up from my nap a while ago wondering why I wonder? Not to be confused with "I wonder as I wander...". I mean really, it is a pretty queer world in which we live, don't you think? Why yes I do, thank you very much. For example, "isn't it rich, isn't it queer, losing my timing this late, in my career?" Bring in the clowns. Very funny, eh? I never really had much of a career, wasn't born knowing by the age of 4 "oh yes, I want to become a concert pianist" or "I knew from a very early age I was born to do great things in this world." None of this ever happened to me. I'm still searching like a lost soul for answers wherever I can find them, and honestly, I don't spend much time even doing that.

We all have our priorities, I mean really, if I can't have my bowl of Fiber 1 in the morning then you might as well put me in front of a firing squad, and take away my coffee and I'll voluntarily put myself in front of that same firing squad. I've taken to walking the long sidewalk outside from my studio to the garage, probably a distance of about 150 feet, one way. At night when I wake up to piss. Barefoot. Actually, totally naked. (I cannot wrap my mind around how in the world people can sleep wearing clothes). I look up at the marvelous night sky and feel overwhelmed and yet joyful, somehow absurdly safe. Which is quite ironic, what? Those bright lights up there that are coming at me at the speed of light are hitting me after about a million years. Is that queer or what? Take your pick--the phenomenon of this whole incredible universe or me walking outside at 2 in the morning star struck and naked, and feeling pretty damn vulnerable. I wonder if wandering bands of armadillos ever attack humans?

If you take time, which is "a conscious dimension created by man", whatever that means, and put it on a clock, not a digital one, but an analog one, and say that this planet's age can be summed up in its' totality by assigning it a 24 hour life span, then we, as human beings, have been here for about the last second. Or is it 2 seconds? The point is, it's a minuscule piece of the circle. Pretty strange for an animal that has managed to nearly destroy the planet, huh? The dinosaurs were here for millions of years and the last theory I heard was that a huge meteor hit the earth like a thousand and one atom bombs and a heavy cloud dust encircled the globe, hence no sun, no grass, no something--saurases anymore. And here I am worried and denying it to all who might ask that I can't do half moon pose. One day in class a yoga teacher, in describing something like a difficult hip rotation said "it really is just ridiculous" and I thought, wow, you just said something pretty funny and pretty profound. It is ridiculous, it is strange, it is queer. Another something I find exceedingly odd is why do so many people like to fantasize about what it would be like to be rich. REALLY rich. Most people that I've met in my life that are pretty darn rich are also pretty darn unhappy. In fact, some are raving mad lunatics who bemoan the tragedy that they were born into wealthy families. They wonder how rich life might be if only they were like the rest of most of the world, NOT rich (monetarily, of course).

I read about a very poor Indian man who went daily to his local temple and prayed before the statue of a goddess to "please, please, let me win the lottery" (in the spirit that this would bring an end to all his suffering). This went on for days and days until finally the statue of the goddess came to life and said "hey you, would you please, please buy a lottery ticket?" You get the point, but in reality isn't winning the lottery close to impossible? I think I've read that you are more likely in your lifetime to get struck by lightening 54 times before winning the lottery. (not Cash 5 or Two Step and some other exceptions). I've also read that a study of big time lottery winners has shown that most find their lives shattered in a bad way, big time. It's just too much to handle for most. They learn that their money cannot buy happiness. Still, knowing all this, I bet most of us would still like to win. Weird.

My nocturnal walks on the sidewalk leading to the garage have me wondering what it would be like to sit my butt down on the sidewalk and try meditating, without moving, until sunrise? Could I possibly do that? Would I want to? I spent a small fraction of 2 afternoons this week picking up trash that someone threw out their window onto our property. Plastic bottles, empty packages of cigarettes, Taco Bell wrappings and drink cups, can after empty can of tree wound paint. That's right, people who would spend their days trimming and pruning trees, painting the cuts with a thick, gooey black dressing so as to prevent any sort of boring insects from infecting the tree would, without thought, toss the equivalent of 2 large plastic garbage bags of trash out onto some unsuspecting person's property. Don't they know it's been over 100 degrees out here in the afternoons and it ain't fun picking up someone else's trash? So as I picked up all this trash I kept wondering what it would be like if I could be out here in this sweltering heat picking up this trash and just be in the moment and enjoy myself? Stop thinking about the who, or what, or why of any of it but just slowly and mindfully pick up the cigarette butts, the rotting jalapeno wrapped in saran wrap, the cans of tree wound goo and just put in the my black garbage bag and say to myself, I can be totally contented doing this right now, in this moment? I tried it and it worked, sort of. Well, it did, sort of. Well, not totally, but I gave it a good effort. Then I found a piece of paper amongst all the garbage with some names and phones numbers listed and made a couple of calls. My messages were like this: do you know who might have thrown garbage on my property? Don't they know it's illegal? Don't they know someone has to pick it up? And so on like that. And yet calmly (well, kind of). The next day *they* sent someone out to the house to pick up all this trash! Excuse me, I said, but in my message I thought I had stated that I had already picked up all the trash? Whatever, it was all very strange.

I'm doing an Iyengar workshop every day this week and still making it to my focus on form class. It's not really an immersion, but still, we are a very small group and get lots of individual attention. I can never get it totally right. Who can? It's a process that has no end, no ultimate goal whereby you can say eureka! I've gone as far as possible with this and now I'm going to be out there amongst all those stars in another dimension totally enlightened.

I highly recommend Vanda Scaravelli's beautiful book Awakening the Spine published by Harper Collins. In her 80's or 90's there are photos of her doing viranchyasana, yoga nidrasana (sleeping pose), kapotasana (back-bend with knees bent on the floor, top of head touching the floor, elbows to the floor, tops of fingertips touching bottoms of toes). It really is just totally ridiculous. :-) But beautifully rich and queer.

Day Bangs and Night Knocks

Regularly, since we built this house eleven years ago, a wide range of birds have come crashing into our windows with a loud bang that sends me running to see what has happened every single time. Even the cats prick up their ears at the sound which can be more than a little disconcerting. One day I watched in amusement, which quickly turned to dismay, then horror, as a beautiful red cardinal, perched on the branch of a very old red bud tree, kept flying and crashing his body into the large, north facing window of my studio. At first I thought he might be trying to destroy or knock down this newly constructed obstacle in a quixotic show of bravado. Thinking that to be an unlikely explanation, I wondered if he was seeing his reflection in the window and, thinking it a rival, was laying claim to his territory in a battle of dominance. No, that's what lions do. Hmm. To the best of my recollection, male Cardinals have always lived in harmony with one another. But as I watched, this determined bird continued to hit the glass over and over until blood began to appear on the glass, and I decided I didn't care why he was doing what he was doing but I wasn't going to stand there any longer and just be an observer. This bird was seriously injuring himself. Why such aggression? I chased him away and hung a large piece of fabric from the rafter directly in front of the window. Mission accomplished until the next day when he was back fighting with his reflection again on the other window. Soon I had ordered colorful banners to hang in front of the suspect windows and watched them blow in the wind as bird after bird continued crashing into windows. Was this a bird flight path? Even today, all these years later, I don't know the answer. Mourning doves make the loudest bang of all and nearly always leave a large imprint as well as a few feathers either stuck to the glass or floating to the ground by the time I arrive to investigate. A beautiful red bellied woodpecker crashed into the window but a few days ago and I watched as he lay on the back porch stunned into near unconsciousness, only minutes later to fly to a nearby branch where he stayed put until he gained back enough equilibrium to take off in flight. (Just this very moment a cardinal flew up to the kitchen window and hit with a light bang of his beak).

Each year we have a pair of painted buntings that come to hatch their eggs and raise their young. Last year I found the mother painted bunting on the ground outside the large pane of glass that frames the view from my shower, dead. I've learned that many birds are knocked unconscious long enough to attract fire ants which begin eating them alive, starting with their eyes. I place the stunned the bird in a shoe box on the patio table until it recovers the strength to fly away. Of course the unlucky ones break their necks and never know what happened. It's a strange phenomenon. I once read that birds crash into trees with some degree of frequency in the wild. How many of us have wished we could sprout wings and take flight? Apparently, it isn't as easy as it looks.

During the year I spent raising my nephew he expressed fear, especially at night, at the sight of the many windows I insisted be part of the design of this house. It was never my intention to have curtains or window coverings but now we have accumulated a few, although most of the glass remains unobstructed so as to bring the outdoors inside. I love that feeling. I was awakened one night by a loud knocking sound. Pretty scary, until I decided that my friend Gary, who never rings the doorbell but always comes to the studio entry and knocks, must be having domestic problems and had come for a visit in the middle of the night. But Gary was nowhere to be seen, after all, it was 1:30 in the morning. This happened more than a few times and I've got to tell you, it scared me and had me wondering if there might be a lunatic on the loose who likes to peek in windows, knock loudly and then run off. While napping one afternoon I was awakened by the mysterious knocking, jumped up and ran outside as fast as I could to see the culprit flying away from the apex of the roof on the far east side of the house, right outside my bedroom. Yes, a woody wood pecker was flying away. He came again for awhile, the powerful pecking of his beak in search of bugs in the wood replicating the exact sound of a person knocking at the door. Strange things happen to those of us who live in the middle of the woods.

I went through a phase that lasted for many years whereby I'd hit my head pretty hard against all sorts of things. When mowing the lawn I'd hit my head on low hanging tree branches--big ones that would have me seeing stars. It happened over and over again on kitchen cabinets, pieces of furniture, I've even opened doors with too much force while moving forward only to get knocked on the head. Cuts, bruises, and bleeding. It was just absurd. By the time the wound would heal, I'd do it again. My therapist told me these were not accidents. I guess I was trying to knock some sense into myself, or trying to get myself to slow down and be present. Rarely am I fully present and I still have to work hard at slowing myself down, but I haven't had a bang on the head for quite a long time. Knock on wood.

Dark Shadow of Self

Yesterday, on the drive home from practice and a brief stop at Whole Foods, I must have listened to Gary Jules sing Mad World half a dozen times. I just love that song, the lyrics are simple yet beautifully encompass elements of the human condition. I'd venture to hypothesize that such songs as this elicit as many meanings and associations as there are people listening. Here's the refrain:



And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world

Many of us have seen the "crazy of the busies" in ourselves and others--running around blindly doing so many things for the purpose of avoidance of coming face to face with ourselves, our unique and beautiful qualities as well as our demons. Busy is wonderful when it's organized, efficient, productive, and examined. But running around keeping busy, busy, busy just for the sake of being busy can easily be labeled as a sort of madness.

I want to hone in on the lines "The dreams in which I'm dying Are the best I've ever had" as dreams have been a topic of much interest to me. For me, when one dies in a dream it can represent the death of an aspect of one's self which is usually a very good thing because after death there is rebirth. We die to the old and are born to the new. We rise as phoenixes. We shed our skins and re-emerge to face the world anew. We let go of those parts of ourselves that no longer serve us, or that are harmful and toxic to ourselves or others and in doing this

We enlarge our worlds ("Enlarge your world" Gary Jules sings).

There is a particular dream that many of us have had in which we come face to face with our darkest side, our most scary aspects, our Dark Shadow. This can be harrowing to say the least, and is usually the prelude to a significant transitional period. Here is how mine played out:

In the middle of the night he appeared at my bedroom door, a dark figure cloaked in black, faceless, not at all unlike Darth Vader. He never speaks, and I find it so very hard to look his way, and I'm very scared. It's a nightmare that's happening in the worse way. I am paralyzed with fear. I try screaming but nothing comes out. He walks over to me and I close my eyes. I can feel his presence right next to me. He plunges a knife deep into my chest and the pain is so excruciating that I awaken from the dream in a panic and feel the pain of the stab until it slowly subsides. Was that a dream? It was so real. He comes again week after week always moving next to me on the bed and stabbing me. These nights are agony when he comes.

I book an appointment with my most beloved therapist, my spiritual guide, teacher, a man I totally love, admire, and respect. I haven't seen him in months. He tells me that my visitation is that of my Dark Shadow. It's those dark parts of me whose very existence I have refused to acknowledge, deal with, accept...this part gets complex so I'm going to gloss over and move on. How do I make him go away and stop scaring the hee bee gee bees out of me? You embrace him, I'm told, you make yourself face him without fear and let him know you want to befriend him, get to know him, love him.

I cannot imagine actually doing this but once I understand this shadow is really me, and that I must go directly into and through the fear to understand it and for healing to begin, I make up my mind that this is exactly what I MUST do. And so I do it, nothing really dramatic, I just do it. When next he comes I somehow manage to sit up in my dream and face him and send out feelings of acceptance, of fearlessness, of a willingness to get to know him. He vanishes and never returns, but my work has just begun. Lots of work. Never ending. Learning to take "the road less traveled", the "path with heart". Fears fall away and I trust this spiritual/psychological process of healing, of recovery, of being real with myself, of being honest with a rawness I'd never known. I brought my dark shadow into the light, hence integration began. Transition.

Jung calls this the Shadow Self. St. John of the Cross writes of the Dark Night of the Soul. I needed to die unto myself in order to move into a new world of being awake, paying attention to me and my needs. (At first this may sound selfish but until we are in touch with ourselves, until we learn to heal and to love ourselves, we are of little use to others). I had to let go, forgive, seek guidance and understanding, and this has been very hard work. Over time we gather the tools we need to help us on our journey.

Last night I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and within seconds came upon the following passage:

"I explained to the medicine man that I've been having the same horrible nightmare since childhood, namely that there is a man with a knife standing next to my bed. This nightmare is so vivid, the man is so real, that it sometimes makes me scream out in fear. It leaves my heart pounding every time (and has never been fun for those who share my bed, either). I've been having this nightmare every few weeks for as long as I can remember."

The medicine man goes on to explan that this man is not her enemy...

Wow.

Momentary Lamentations

There is always so much yard work to be done around here, and at times I enjoy it immensely, it puts me outside and more in touch with the natural world. I refilled all the bird feeders, cleaned the bird bath, gave the hummers fresh sugar water, trimmed the Jerusalem sage, made a quick trip to The Natural Gardener and helped Dale select and plant a shrub--Elaeagnus x ebbingei--, watched the buzzards fly overhead in search of dead carcasses. So many slaughtered deer by the roadsides. As I scooped up a bunch of trimmed algarita branches destined for the burn pile I could feel their sharp thorny leaves piercing my skin and noticed little splotches of blood here and there. Suddenly I felt an eerie sense of heightened awareness, almost as if I'd traveled some distance away from all that is familiar. With a crispness of tone I hardly recognized, the nearby cooing of a mourning dove gives me pause to wonder at my surroundings and look at things from a totally different perspective. The ground is dry and powdery in spots, as I walk along I step into heat spots, like walking through a warm ghost cloud. I'm prone to peeling off my clothes, and feeling what little breeze is blowing, the warmth of sun. A few clouds have rolled in and I think I hear the distant clap of thunder. A brief shower of very light rain falls gently like a half-hearted baptismal rite, just a little tease from above. Mixed with sweat and perhaps a drop or two of rain, little trickles of blood flow down my scratched skin and I wonder how it would feel to lay down and roll in the dirt amongst the thorny leaves of the burn pile and let myself bleed into the earth and feel the sky pounding down on me as I listen to the sad lament of doves.

Once upon a time, after ascending the stairs from the smoky depths of the grotto with the 14 pointed silver star marking the birthplace of Christ, on which I planted a kiss, a friend whispered in my ear that she found nothing holy or sacred at all about that place, certainly not even closely comparable to the holy and sacred sight of a field of flowers. I agree.

A Measurement of Time

I have been totally confused as to the day/date the past few days. It all started with my watch which has a little window that shows the day of the week and the date, like this:

SUN 6

Of course I have to already know it's July and it's 2008, which I can usually manage. But when a month such as June comes along with its 30 days, my watch isn't programmed to know that--it assigns each month 31 days. Therefore, I have to remember to make the correction manually, in a timely manner or I'll get all confused. So all week I've thought July 4th was on Saturday, at least on and off. One moment I'll get it straight, but the next moment I'm in sync with my incorrect watch date, fluctuating back and forth in my mind as to the date and day of the week. My friends tell me I have way too much time on my hands. There's a pun or two in there somewhere.

Which brings me to one of my all time favorite yoga teachers David Moreno (Ahbi). I love him dearly and would take as many of his workshops and classes as possible, if I could. We've tried to work out a schedule whereby he returns to Austin and teaches a workshop for my gay yoga kula in conjunction with doing a workshop at Castle Hill, and/or Yoga Yoga but he is so busy that this idea we've discussed several times may or may not ever happen.

David does not like me to wear my watch in his classes. Period. He says it interferes with my internal clock. Even if I never look at my watch during his class, he says it still interferes with my internal clock through some process akin to osmosis. Ironically, David has issues with watches and clocks, and I say this endearingly, because he is always (BEFORE class) asking me what time it is, and he has brought an assortment of little clocks to class that invariably are either not working, have the wrong time and need adjusting, he can't read them because he forgot his glasses, and so he will hand me a little clock and ask me to read it or fix it or adjust it. It's really just hilarious.

Which brings me to my issues with watches: growing up, I didn't know my Dad well at all. He worked in the oil fields of south Texas and was often gone from home for weeks, depending on the rig location. I now know he had a difficult childhood and saw atrocities beyond my comprehension during his time as a WW II soldier. So when he had time off, he would go straight to the bottle and would usually be rip roaring drunk by the time he got home. He and my mother would have awful fights and I spent a great deal of my early childhood living in a state of fear and hyper vigilance (trying to protect Mom). He often presented gifts to my sister when it wasn't her birthday or Christmas, just something he enjoyed doing. But I got nothing, and that hurt a lot. My mother and grandmother would try to compensate for this, but that really didn't help. On Christmas during first grade I got an Elgin watch, presumably from Dad. I wore it with pride and had that watch until I was 16 and it was stolen. Now I feel nearly naked without a watch and have quite an assortment of them. I think they represent a subconscious connection with my longing for Dad and his love.

I must say how delighted I was to see that Kale, a superb yoga teacher from Australia who has been teaching for 30 years, now at Castle, wearing a watch while teaching his classes. He is truly a great teacher and yogi. And he wears a watch! Yes! I'm vindicated!

Feelings have just come up for me and here they are: my mother made many mistakes during her life (who hasn't?), beginning with her choice to get married young and drop out of high school and to stay stuck in a bad marriage for 18 years. But something did shift for her and she set about making many changes to her life, and even though I always loved her deeply, it wasn't until later in life that we became best friends and I admired her in many ways. But our early years were difficult. She died in 1996 after a long and difficult battle with COPD and bladder cancer. I was with her during her final hours, and held her and cried. The last words she ever spoke in this world were to me, and she whispered in my ear "I'm so sorry." So I say to Mom, it's all ok, all is forgiven, we all struggle with life and making decisions and screw up. I miss you. You did your very best. And Dad, I know you loved me but you were suffering with so many issues that you just couldn't cope with, and were so overwhelmed. It's okay, I have only forgiveness and love in my heart for you.

Often, along with our work, it takes time to heal, sometimes a long while. There is liberation and freedom in forgiveness of others and of yourself. For me, letting go of long held resentments, deep seated anger, self-pity, etc...is always the beginning of healing.

"Sacred Activism" (Rifts and Chasms)

I watched a documentary recently featured on P.O.V. (an excellent program that airs on public television stations, and yes, in liberal Austin, Texas, this program seems to usually be aired after 9 p.m., or after 10 p.m.) that profiled the pretty awful plight of elderly GLBT members of our society. I'd no idea how many GLBT elderly people struggle so hard to make ends meet, how rare it is to find GLBT friendly nursing homes, assisted living homes, and general health care. AND, we are talking about a majority of retired GLBT members of our society, NOT just a few. A majority. It must be remembered that these folks grew up in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's and the world as we know it now, in this country, was very different. It was not always easy to find and hold decent paying jobs unless you lived a closeted life. There was a lot of discrimination. Few of these domestic partners knew to go to an estate planning attorney. Who would suggest that to them, and how many could afford it, and how many available attorneys were there at that time that dealt with such matters? Many have lost partners with whom they were in long term relationships, and find themselves being evicted from their homes because the title of the house was in the partner's name. There are no social security benefits to be had from one's partner, hence the exclusion of Medicare. Even today if you are in a long term relationship and do not have Durable Power of Attorney/Medical Power of Attorney you are not allowed to visit your partner in the hospital if anyone objects, and yes, families do object. You may be not be invited to speak at your partner's funeral, or have any part of that whole process. Horror stories abound, even today. So many of these folks are invisible, they are marginalized, they are disenfranchised. No rights or benefits in regards to their partners. Some companies are making exceptions these days, but these people have little to no governmental representation. We don't know who they are, or where they are. An interview with one young gay man said he feared older gay men would only want sex from him, but if he could be guaranteed that wouldn't happen, he'd welcome having coffee every morning with an elderly gay man. Unfortunately that paints a very sad picture in my mind, the fear of our elderly based on such assumptions and in my opinion, very unsupportive reasoning. Another young gay man said he didn't know anything at all about elderly GLBT people, they were indeed invisible. There is a great rift, a real chasm between younger GLBT folks and older GLBT people, and I find this very sad indeed. I can easily imagine a mentoring program between young and old. It has been an incredible blessing for me personally to have a gay yoga kula that is accepting, loving, and embracing, and to find myself accepted into the yoga community at large--in general they are a group of uniquely special people with great big loving hearts. This makes me cry with tears of gratitude. I'm also blessed to have a wonderful life-mate, and we are going on 34 years together soon!

I only recently became aware of Andrew Harvey, a gay writer, yogi, mystic, scholar, etc....he advocates "Sacred Activism"...not dissimilar in my mind to prayer in action. Getting out there in the world and doing something to help others. Really putting your beliefs into action. Reaching out to touch someone. Sometimes a smile given to a stranger on the street can work miracles. We are all connected.

http://www.andrewharvey.net/sacred_activism.html

Faces and Facets of Fear

I started watching Eckhart Tolle's DVD The Flowering of Consciousness I (based on his book(s) which I haven't read) last evening with my partner and wasn't surprised at how the *pointing of his words* resonates with much truth for me. There is no end to self-improvement, no end to seeking, no end to the path, the quest, the search for meaning in all things. Do we ever really discover exactly or totally who were are? Of course not. Answers are enriching when they come, but they are often accompanied by even more questions. I think this is all very good and is the nature of things. Ebb and flow, wax and wane, stumble and fall, stand steadfast, try to be a good warrior, stay fit and healthy in body, mind, spirit, and then stumble again and fall. And cry.

I am reminded of a woman I met and befriended who had a sad look in her eyes that was visible beneath the defensive arrogance and cocky self confidence she exuded. She told me her husband had committed suicide and her high school age son was experiencing similar signs of depression. "Sometimes you just have to put one foot in front of the other and not think beyond that." I thought to myself at the time what little understanding this woman has regarding the complex issues of depression, suicidal ideation and succumbing to the suicidal impulse, the deep scars that many of us bear that pull us down hard. But now I look back on those words of hers and in them I see wisdom, in the sense that if you are focused on just moving one step at a time you are focused on being in the present, and in this there is much relief from suffering. It really isn't that different from focusing on just taking your next breath. I grew to love this woman and to admire her for all her suffering and her constant seeking of solace in the solemnity of an isolated monastery in NM where I too sought answers. Her worldly wealth made issues such as food, shelter, health care, etc., all of which are extremely important to every single human being on this planet, non-issues for her, but in lieu of having to focus on survival issues she had to cope with issues such as deep despair, loneliness, isolation, abandonment, and not feeling loved in this world. (That last one has been a recurring one for me that comes from my core and can have a profound effect on me and my sufferings). Again I quote Bayda:

"Suffering is guaranteed as long as we demand that life be free from discomfort."

"You believe you can't be happy because your life is difficult. This is backwards. You can't be truly happy until your life is difficult."

"Suffering is the result of insisting that something be other than it is."

And so one day while traveling my own deep rooted fears caught up with me, deep depression and despair set in, and I didn't feel I could possibly go on any longer. This same woman saw the fear in my face and when the armed soldiers came to take me away she intervened and spent many hours of her time helping to get me into a hospital that could take care of me. For this my dear E I am forever grateful.

So for now I'm going to simply put one foot in front of the other and not give a whit about knowing anything about anything.