Birthday Reflection

"Those who find gratitude in the little things, find humility in the big things."  Lidia Logorio

 In preparation for the big day ahead, time and care were taken in braiding tiny braids tied with string all over my head. When unraveled my hair fell in tight waves just beyond my shoulders. Anticipation of friends from school and my current neighborhood, as well as a few that have kept in touch from my old home in Marysville, grows heavy.  When everyone has finally arrived, we head out on the back patio armed with the ghettoblaster prepared to play a mix of pop and 80s top hits.  The dance moves emerged as they do from a not-yet self-conscious teen, as my ten-year-old self extrapolates her best moves from square dancing learned in school, the new hitchhiker dance which ends up being a lot of thumb wagging and not much else and mostly endless hopping and jumping reminiscent of the Irish Rovers watched religiously on Sunday nights.  The dancing flare or uninhibited movement I am trying on is captured in a still frame in my mind that and when  I see it now, I am transported to my tenth birthday party like it was yesterday and at the same time, a lifetime ago.  

In a few days from writing this, I will celebrate my fifty-third birthday.  Fifty-three times around the sun, 27,856.800 minutes of living, adding another 365 days.   There may indeed be some dancing again, without any more advanced moves you can be assured but it remains a truth that I still feel the same exuberance for being alive and finding my way here to celebrate again.  The big party celebrations for birthdays were not the majority of the year's experience for me so maybe this is why this one stands out.   Birthdays have held no less important as the years pass but they have become something more sacred to share and reflect on.  I am sure, regardless of how much someone enjoys a party,  they can never be as invested in someone else's mortality so I like to sink into this solo. 

Ross Gay gave himself an invitation on his birthday to write, by hand, a daily delight. This collection spanning one year became a compilation of his favorite, titled, The Book of Delights.  Thank you Heidi Robbins for sharing this.    I have yet to read the book but was inspired by the idea, to go back to my own gratitude journal from the past year and select only one of the five items I list each night to create a year's life list.  It became a much more daunting task than I had anticipated. Some days there were only one or two-word descriptions; hot baths, podcasts, full moon, thrift finds, yoga Nidra, silence, tea advent, doing nothing, love, rest, replenish, snowy walk, cinnamon buns, foot rubs, my people. Other times, there was such detail that the words and memory came to land softly somewhere close like; getting lost in a book on a hammock, a sublime cup of tea with a heart-to-heart chat, sunshine with warmth still invested on a fall day, an amazing sunrise on a cool morning run, candles and conversation starters over supper, a laugh with my daughter about a pumpkin carving episode, a dear friends kind words and invested presence, a dragonfly lingering on the edge of my kayak.   I started to notice themes evolving in my list, places my attention continued to hug, and the people and things I wanted to savor.

The walks that scattered the pages to Odell, the Woodlot, the park by my house, walks with family, and friends, good talk walks, windy walks and walks sorting out thoughts, feelings, and next steps.  Oh, and the food that came off the pages with fall soups, market samosas and street pad thai, greek meals, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, homemade pies with seasonal berries, Milda's pizza, vegan poutine from Dee's Quiet Cafe Food Truck, homemade cauliflower alfredo sauce,  and banana ice cream made by Grace are only a few of the edible delights enjoyed. Then there were the people; the students, the colleagues, the family, friends, strangers, and fur babies.  Their acts of kindness, their time, help, love, commitment, and presence.   

The word yoga was probably mentioned most days with the teaching of a class, a notable instructor, practice, mentor, meditation, thought or clarity that came with making space in my body. Besides walking I was grateful for all the ways I moved my body, especially after a previous year's injury, like biking, dancing, and swimming. Activities infused with passions like painting, writing, cooking, knitting, gardening, reading, and resting all waited to grace the list too.  Big events were few when I looked back and personal milestones were noteworthy but sparse as well. 

After this exercise of extracting one item from each day for the visual of my year,  I was struck by the fact that none of my worries, fears, concerns, or constraints were noted here. Neither was the heavy life news, the complaints, or supposed problems to solve.  I was not naive enough to think that there would ever be a year without them but recorded this way, my life looked more like a string of "tiny beautiful things", taken from the title of Cheryl Strayed book by the same name, that lived alongside and within all the other realities.   These were the things that may have been harder to find but so much more sound in creating a memorable year, a peaceful life.   The year I wanted to remember and take with me was marked by things I cared for and about. The many ways that grace found its way into my life and all the ordinary things that cut through illusion to bring light and understanding that life could be happening in this place and in these things, experiences, and people.  There is also such humility when light shines here.  We let so many things cloud our perception and perspective of how a life can be lived and loved even in the dimmer-shaded times that are part of our full experience. 

Feeling ever nostalgic for the past versions of me that have continued to witness and celebrate all of the tiny beautiful things, I am drawn to the lyrics of the Joni Mitchell song, she recently sang again at 73 years old after a brain tumor.  "Well something's lost but something's gained in living every day. I've looked at life from both sides now. From win and lose and still somehow. It's life's illusions I recall. I really don't know life at all". What I hear in this beautiful lyric is that the journey we are all on as we gather the years of life each time we pass the sun will always be full of the tiny beautiful things for us to bear witness to and experience in this human body we have through our senses and awareness. We will look at them through many lenses before we see the truth of them and over and over again we will be humbled by this life and the gift that it is.

I can't leave a birthday reflection without a wish for both you and me.  My wish is this, may our gratitude for all of the tiny beautiful things hold us, and may equanimity be our practice for all of the ways life unfolds.     

Shared Space

 "Pull up a chair, take a taste, come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious." Ruth Reichl

We found ourselves sharing space in the treehouse setting of our Airbnb.  My eyes startled open to the sound of a hooting owl during a moment of stillness on the deck.  Birds swooped into the hanging feeder full of dried corn, numerous chipmunks and squirrels scurried around the outdoor eating space, and butterflies settled on the wildflowers that reached the upper deck.   It was clear that we were not only in a  shared space with each other but it was as if the trees were whispering a welcome, the squirrels inviting us to adopt their playful nature, and the birds let us know they too belonged right here. This presence allowed us to witness how gently we can all exist on the earth together.  

Every year, my husband Mark and I trepidatiously embark on a two-night three-day getaway to a place where we can reconnect, be in the outdoors and share time and space together without interruption. This year we found ourselves at a beautiful hideaway just outside Fundy National Park in Alma.  Set high on a hill was a sacred oasis of comfort, luxury, and shared space with the natural world.  Even though we go with some hesitation, as only lifetime caregivers may relate, we ease into this time with no expectations and full appreciation for what a gift this is.   Time to share meals, conversation, laughter, bike rides, hikes, swims, and ease into the comfort of being able to be real and present with our hopes and intentions, a shared space that can't be taken for granted.  

If you live in this area you are sure to have visited the local pub/ coffee shop in Alma, situated near the end of the main street in a building that used to be a local church.  I am guessing that this is why the name  The Holy Whale was birthed.   This place became our touchstone over the few days we were there, swooping in for a quick Buddha Bear coffee for my husband, Mark, and then back later after full days of play, for Kombucha on the patio bar stools.  Coming back later in the day, we spotted a couple who had been there since our coffee heist and were still enjoying their time lingering on the patio and chatting. We shared a laugh about when I had left earlier and tried to get into a vehicle that was not my own but the same color as mine.   This happens to me regularly and I like to think I am not alone.   We settled on the bar stools in the corner close to the door and while Mark was getting our drink, I noticed a woman alone next to me having a glass of wine.  Being out of touch with sharing space with strangers in the last few years, I suppose I was closed to really seeing her and kept averting my eyes in the other direction to give her the space I assumed she wanted.   When Mark returned, she was finishing up her drink and was attempting to get down off of her very high stool, graciously.  Both the person sitting on the other side of her and my husband reached out to help steady her and the stool.  Just as she was about to embark, the waiter arrived with another drink for her which he proceeded to tell her was from the couple that I identified as the ones I shared a laugh with.   Both parties automatically began to help her get situated back on her stool while she thanked them and chuckled about what happens when you get older.  The opening was there now for conversation and it was clear she was happy to engage.  A moment later, a young man approached her calling her "Nana" and she proudly introduced him as her grandson who was visiting from Spain.  She had a good laugh about him coming to retrieve her from the bar and how her family was always worrying and looking out for her now at "her age".   He was seemingly unconvinced about the drink being a gift from a stranger so everyone on our side of the stools, corroborated her story.  He easefully joined the conversation and we learned of how he had been supposed to visit a week earlier but had been ill with possible appendicitis.  He shared that he had lived his whole life to this point in Spain and his mom had been from the area but had met his father in Newfoundland and his work took him to Spain so she followed as well and has been a teacher there ever since.   A short time-lapse and his father arrived at the establishment to retrieve now his son and his mother-in-law.   We also learned that his wife was with her sister in Moncton for the day and the father/son duo was enlisted to keep a close eye on Nana.   Still jovial and taking it all in stride, Nana said she used to roam this area as a young girl searching for cute boys but had been living in Ottawa for the past twenty-five years and her daughter, a teacher like her sister, had just retired from teaching in Ottawa and asked her mother if she wanted to move back with her.  She was from a much smaller area called Beaverbrook and was hopeful about seeing her old family home now that she was here to live.   The person who had graciously assisted Nana, as we will call her, was enjoying a homemade pretzel and complimenting the waiter/chef with his partner while sharing a few smiles as he shared space with us and the stories he could hear being offered.  Opening to the entire shared space, there was a group at a table who had been hiking together all day and sharing uncontrollable laughs about the foibles of their day, another read a book and took in their surroundings.   We lingered much longer than we had intended watching those coming in and out of the doors as well as those who decided to sit and join us on the patio.   It occurred to us how much we missed this type of interaction with strangers and how easy it is with people that are vacationing and have left their agendas at home.   

It had me contemplating how important shared space is and how deprived we have been for some time.  Even within our families, we are often looking for ways to give each other more space within our homes, in our experiences and endeavors but not as much time is given to how we will connect and share within the space we have in the present.  Even though this can be part of healthy boundaries that can often be necessary to create separate spaces,   I can't help thinking about people who lived in tribes, colonies, family farms, and small tight-knit communities and not wonder if they had something that we may be drifting away from altogether. When we think of shared space, there are airports, planes, busses, classrooms, hospitals, libraries, restaurants, concerts, parks, playgrounds, hiking trails, and beaches to name a few. Places we gather for leisure or with agenda. These spaces can be where we recognize our belonging to something greater than ourselves or where we feel more separate and isolated.  The energy that is exchanged in these spaces, no one is impervious to.   I think the analogy of this local pub as a mini civilization just makes sense.   All of the travelers or strangers drifted into one place.  We were intergenerational, varying genders and relationship identities, from different places in the world, with little to no shared experience, and yet, here we were, sharing a moment, a drink, a laugh, a space without any judgments, staying open to receive each other with respect, understanding, and grace as though we all equally belong right here, right now, as we did.  The now that brings a presence to all things and with that presence empathy, compassion, and a universal sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves.  

My husband and I were definitely in need of some time to share space with each other but it also became clear that we needed to share space with others as well.   We needed to interweave our stories and lives with others, to be with those who are also traveling the larger shared space of the world we are traveling and experiencing and to which we are all deserving to belong.   

What if we could go through more of our days like a traveler on vacation who leaves that agenda at home? And what if we could remain open to people in all of the shared spaces we find ourselves in knowing that we all belong here and to each other?  That we don't just belong but need each other to exist. And as the expressions go, let's keep extending those tables, opening those doors, and sharing those spaces with all of life's weary travelers.  

Free

 

“Where ever you go, there you are."  Jon Kabat-Zinn

What makes you feel free? When I think of the word free, descriptions like vast, spacious, boundless, untethered, and open come to mind.  The opposite of free conjures words like constricted, constrained, stuck, not aligned, imbalanced, landlocked and controlled.  When we experience a longing to feel free when we are young, we are often looking to feel free to be, do or act in a particular way.   As we grow older we often feel free differently and are looking to be free from something, whether it is a responsibility or circumstance.

Spending a week in a seaside town a short distance from home, I relished seeing and feeling the many aspects of the ocean. The sea breeze at night while I slept, the salt on my skin after a swim, and the icy cold of the Atlantic that invigorates every aspect of my being from a plunge or a lingering swim. When I sit and stare out at the vastness, I truly feel a sense of being free. The ocean seems to whisper about possibilities and opportunities of the unknown from its shores. It would be meaningless for me to argue with justifications of restraints and reasons this may not be true. As the waves lap the shore and invite in the grains of sand, I can witness the emptiness of those unspoken words. I too know I am as free as my next, thought, action, or wish.  As I stay a little longer, I witness with compassion the parts of me that have tightened against the unknown and I release a little. I am free to look to the horizon without knowing what is just in front of me and this feels like freedom.

This same little seaside town is also becoming known for the large population of deer that roam freely about. Every morning we see them waking in the yard of our cottage and every evening grazing on grass and plants nearby.  The spotted fawns are plentiful right now and are still close to their moms while branching out periodically to test their freedom with more space and distance around them.  These gentle creatures are everywhere. The beauty of these majestic beings and the freedom and grace with which they move throughout their days, cannot be debated regardless of how the town may be feeling about their presence. 

I have been off from my job since the beginning of summer but going on vacation where you leave behind your home,  your environment, your circumstance, and the triggers that go along with these things, have me thinking about being free and what it really means. Free by definition means to not be under the control or in the power of another or able to act or be done as one wishes. It is times like vacation when we have free moments, days, or weeks, that being free becomes so meaningful. The difficulty in noticing this kind of freedom may be in understanding how often we do not feel truly free in our lives. If we ask ourselves when was the last time we actually were able to act or do as we wished, I wonder what would come up for most?   I think many of us would have to be honest with ourselves about how much we have interfered with our own opportunities to feel free in any of life's circumstances. Even when given the wide open space of the ocean, the release of other's expectations, or the duty of care and responsibilities in jobs and family for many of us, we would still have the constraints, boundaries, and blocks we create in our minds that inhibit our ability to feel free.

Looking back at the various phases of our lives, we may tell ourselves stories that right now is not the time because of x,y,z or that being free will come with more financial security, time, vacations, and when our children grow up, or when we are retired. These times often arrive all too swiftly and then we have other reasons we are constricted. Now we believe we are too old for that, too tired, or convince ourselves that there is something else always in the way of what we are wishing to do in whatever way we choose to rationalize or defend.   What if all of these stories are just ways of protecting ourselves from a different longing?  A way not to be disappointed by the reality of the experience. What if we have forgotten the real allure of being free?   We seem to take our constraints, real or imagined into every new situation without realizing we are even free to challenge while also being gentle with ourselves.  Being free gives us room to slow down, let go, forgive, and serve. When we experience freedom from our limiting beliefs, freedom from our inner critic,  from the stories told to us, and by ourselves, there is more aliveness there. 

I recently finished reading the book, Midnight Library by  Matt Haig,   where the woman was able to visit an endless variety of lives that she may have lived as they all existed based on one different choice she had made.   The current life she had been living was one she was feeling choiceless in and not free   She had attempted to take her life and was now given this opportunity to choose one of the lives she visited to stay in.   This common narrative of many books where they show you other options and then you end up choosing the one where you began, is very familiar but the one difference with this one, is that by choosing the one she was in, she was also choosing the unknown over the known.  She was choosing to be free to experience whatever should arrive in the life she chose and being reminded that it was indeed the life of her choosing, she felt free. 

Maybe this is how we can experience freedom in our lives regardless of vacations or vastness or spaciousness of time. Perhaps it is in witnessing the ways we become our own prisoners of our thoughts, how we disempower ourselves by being locked into the barriers that are self-created, and how we withhold compassion from ourselves for our missteps and misguided inner dialogues.   If we can realize that what we want for ourselves is really what is best for everyone else as well and resolve to make the choices that are ours to make. I will leave you with the words of a wellness coach I listened to recently, " Find what it is you want to do and do a version of it even on your busiest day because you are allowed to close the door on non-negotiables for yourself."  And this sounds like being free to me.     

Frames That Divide Us

 

"Do not frame the moments  our lives intertwined. There are a billion instances before that have brought us here to now.  We will need a lifetime more to share the whole of the story if you are so brave and inclined." CMH

She is ninety-five years old now, living alone.  Her husband has passed and her truest companion now is a small dog named  Precious.  He waits eagerly this day for his new, young dog walkers to take him for his Tuesday morning walk. The young women enter the house for the first time and take in their surroundings.  There are a few nameless faces framed on the walls throughout the room.  The smiling face of their client and her dog on a family room pillow. It will become a regular thing to enter after each walk when invited to share a moment, a bit of light conversation while each week daring to ask a few more questions to fill in the missing life story that cannot be found in the current frame before them.

This week after accidentally breaking the glass on a framed sea glass picture, I decided I would use the wooden frame to take pictures of various things outside. I did several of my plants in the garden and took one to add to an Instagram story.  I decided against sharing the rest, realizing that the context would be missing or the creative point and the back story would be lost.  The story of how proud I was of the growth of these plants under my care, how some of those we were sure would not make it had developed beautiful foliage and blooms despite the odds.   The framed versions were best as mine to be appreciated.  This reminded me of how much of the story is missing from a single frame which in this story,  becomes my metaphor for the instances  our lives connect with one another. 

Every morning I have gone for a run this summer, I have encountered a squirrel  on  a tree in the same spot. There are several more racing up and down the tree but this particular one is missing its big bushy tail. Assuming it is the same one I see each time, I start to wonder what her story was before this little frame of time we met.  Was life different as a squirrel without a tail and was it born with out one or what  happened to cause the loss? There must be so many adaptations she has come to make as a result and I think of how she manages to stay warm or if it makes protection from the elements or predators more challenging.

Maybe you sometimes wonder about the various frames of other people's lives you witness or interact with and willingly and unwillingly become a part of. We often think we know the whole person before us but we are only being welcomed into this current frame of the now.

One of the same young women in the frame my words created, sitting on the couch, walking the sweet dog, is also the young woman that some may have framed at the local thrift store, struggling with autism overwhelm, and a meltdown. Seeing either of these frames may have defined a very different person without the integration of the whole story beyond the frames. 

If we continue to frame our moments that cross with another, we are only using our judgment to make sense of the story we see, bringing to it our own bias, experience, or lack of.  In this story, we are missing the elements that create understanding which leads to compassion and awareness.  We are forgetting to integrate the whole person before our encounter or the one that we may never meet again. 

However these unpredictable experiences have shaped our reality and family, we all  have similiar experiences and the  opportunity to see beyond the framed picture that others see and our experiences  can nudge us to look for the real stories of others.  As it happened this week, my husband was driving back from outside the city limits and his path crossed with a young woman and two bags filled with all of her belongings on the side of the road. It was 30 degrees celsius and she dropped the bags and herself in a disheveled pile of resignation. He drove past before turning back to ask the woman how she was and she said she was hot, lost, and hungry. As she muttered to herself, he went against his initial feeling about the frame in front of him and asked how he could help. He sought  her story beyond what he saw. She asked if he could drive her to a center in the uptown. A center he knew to be for shelter and treatment.   He agreed and she settled herself in the back of our vehicle, clutching the two bags of all of her belongings.  She did not agree to share her name and they drove in silence.   When the car stopped she was on her way. Frames of lives intertwined with such a small part of the story.   

I assume that one of the many reasons people write is to tell stories beyond the initial frame, to contemplate the bigger picture and the minutiae of details.   Many of us share our lives like picture frames worthy of being showcased on walls and social media posts. We do this so frequently and habitually that we may begin to craft a pseudo-reality of the one we are living.  Those that courageously offer a view outside of the frame, we may believe to be oversharing and we encourage them to discern what stories are meant to be private or sacred . Many indeed  are sacred and I loved  how a favorite podcaster explained this. She said to make sacred is to make holy and her opinion was that maybe we honor our stories when we share them and we are saying they are sacred enough for others to know.  The same may be said for those that are private.  The raw universal moments we all experience don't need to always be kept private. When we share  we are normalizing the experiences  for others and creating an inclusive connection but if we don't offer the stories that are ours to tell, if we are influenced by the should and should nots, we may be left with too many empty frames and feelings of shame, isolation or disconnect.   

As you stand in a group of ten individuals whose paths converge with your own, they may all have us in very different, unique frames. Some because of the timing in our lives and our own growth and circumstance and some because they were comfortable with the image they created while filling in the missing details.  As we wrestle with our stories and wonder if it is too private to share, ask yourself if someone else may benefit from hearing your honesty, realness, and the ways that we are all the same, and then in your own way, with your chosen people, begin to share it one frame at a time. 

Becoming Soft - Lessons from a Standard Poodle

 

"I tell you this to break your heart by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world." Mary Oliver

Can you bring a moment into view, an instance where you physically tightened? Your jaw clenched, your shoulders went up or you held your breath? Maybe you resisted the words spoken by someone close or prepared your defensive response.  In all of these ways, we are hardening into an experience or as a result of  the current circumstance. We may see these cumulative experiences as the right of passage out of our youth toward becoming an adult.  Somehow believing that the softness that came before represents our naivety or lack of experience. Over time we begin to assemble our armor piece by piece after each hardship, heartbreak, regret, or moment of remorse. We connect or join the pieces one by one so we may present the illusion of strength perhaps to ourselves and others. 

There were probably very overt ways the message of building strength and hardening as a survival mechanism was communicated through hardships and imposed realizations brought through difficult times but there were also less obvious ways as well with subtle references from loved ones and strangers where we got the message we needed to present a strong front. The subtle glances of disapproval of tears, displays of affection received with awkwardness or uncomfortable vibes in the rooms where the message of oversharing was received through body language, and the dichotomy of responses to the same inquiries.

Maybe your vivid memories of softening into life are more sparse and significant. Being reminded recently by a dear friend's social media post about the power of softening, my thoughts went to one of these few early memories of softness.  I was instructed to soak in the bath drawn for me by the nurse after giving birth to my first daughter.  The bath was drawn with a dose of Epsom salts with the intent to soak away the physical discomfort.  Instead I lay in the tepid water, gazing down at my soft body that had been stretched to house another human and now the soft folds of skin submerged in the water not yet ready to rejoin my body. This, I had thought was truly what it meant to soften. I would be softening into motherhood over the many years ahead, most of which had nothing to do with my physical body but in this moment it was showing me what it meant to soften, a foreshadowing in a sense. 

Last week, I was reminded again of the challenges of remaining soft and coming back to softening. My companion and man's best friend, Shanti the dog had an unfortunate encounter with two dogs while walking with my youngest daughter, Maya, and my husband.  Shanti remained rooted in his stance as he was pinned down by the large dog. While the small dog found the soft underbelly to attach to. This was a quick, senseless and unfortunate event and I am so grateful to say that he will heal and be better with a bit of time. I do mention this to marvel at how instinctual it was for these animals to look for the softness. I was left wondering why Shanti didn't retaliate, bark, bare his teeth, run away or any other typical dog reaction. It did settle in quickly that Shanti was remaining soft yet strong for Maya who was holding the end of the leash at the time.  He did not move or waiver in his own attempt to protect her from the dogs. Maybe he even realized that her seeing him act savagely would have been even more traumatizing in the moment.  

The days after I grappled with my own instinct to harden here. To get angry about what happened, to tell the story of how hard this was and inconvenient, to ruminate over how life is unfair and non-sensical, and to retreat into my fears around the ways that the world continues to be unsafe.  But I still came back to Shanti and his soft underbelly and the quote we have heard about  the importance of having a strong back and soft front, by Joan Halifax.  So I continued to ask myself to soften through my difficult thoughts and reactions.  Mostly to soften into allowing them to be there and to not retreat into those old narratives and patterns of behavior that may accompany the discomfort of the feelings.

Spending a lot of time in nature as always, I was searching for examples of how to stay soft here even though I was offering myself the grace for not being able to do it right now. What I arrived at was the flowers surrounding me in the yard. I can't think of anything in nature quite so soft. The center of  each bloom remains open with the soft petals forming all around. Their softness is the spectacle of their innate beauty and strength.  As they blossom in their fullness, they become even more heavy in the weight of their softness. All the while being supported by their spine like stems. Reaching and opening towards the light and bowing with grace, as they bend but don't break. 

I wondered too if the flowers bow with the weight so they can remain open, soft , and full of grace, if we too, could learn to emulate this process?

We spend so much of our early life acquiring our armour, our strength and our presumed resilience, only to realize that as our physical beings begin to soften with that our minds will yearn to do the same. We can then spend our time softening as Mary Oliver says, "To let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. 

As I go about my day today and continue to whisper my intention to soften away from or into this experience, I will also curl my soft front into my t-shirt clad, cone wearing , peace dog. Maybe too, I will ask myself what love would do in this moment and let Shanti be my guide.

Consistency or Discipline? - Let's sit

 "Small discipline repeated with consistency every day leads to great achievements gained slowly over time."  John Maxwell 

This morning I planted myself on the cold slate rock in the infancy of my flower garden.  The early morning had drawn me, as it often does, into many unfocused places. Getting past the headspace that is saying this deserves your attention to its big picture or small details, I move with discipline to my consistent practice or I bring consistency to the discipline of honing my attention. As I sat there, I was witness to the sound of the garbage truck braking in front of my house, the waste removal person lifting and dumping garbage, the arrival of the hired mower, driving his ride-on mower off the back of his truck, and on to my neighbor's lawn and the cacophony of sounds and songs of the birds around in my yard.  As I drew my attention closer to the sounds of both familiar and unfamiliar harmonies of each bird,  I could move further away from the other noises around while still bearing witness. Along with my thoughts, feelings, and the physical sensations of sitting on something hard, the breeze touching my skin in one moment and the sun warming my back in the next.  Contemplations for writing, plans for the day, anticipated future disturbances,  past excitement, and anxiety trade places in my heart and mind space like the sands in an hourglass. Becoming also the one watching and witnessing my physical self as I notice all that is around me and in me at this particular moment. Taking a breath creates a little room and when the attention drifts again, as it always does,  I begin to witness the symphony of the bird sounds once again.   This is a typical meditation for me. Witnessing, drifting, bringing attention back, then wanting to check out, to unfeel the feeling, and then observing the thoughts that are leading me away and trying to find the touchstone of the experience to come back to. For today it is the songs.  

Meditation has always been something that is difficult to describe as it takes so many forms for the individual and depends on a person's cultural experience. It is defined as the action or practice of using a technique of focusing the mind on an object, thought, or activity as a way to train attention and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm, stable state.  Others have referred to it as the yoga of the mind.  The consistent discipline of silencing thinking to get to the source of thought.  What resonates with me has always been a mental check-in with myself while witnessing all the places my attention flows and it can allow me to be with the source of myself and the universe.   Now it is also evolving into a written expression of my contemplation or thought process that allows me to remain the witness of the moment. 

 For today, I come back to the birds and then my mind begins to wonder if they too are witnessing me, witnessing them.  They seem unphased but not oblivious to my presence and stay consistent in their song. Is it self-discipline, in the sense that we experience it, that keeps them present to their song and undeterred by my being in their space or the other sounds around that continue to drown them out at times? 

Birds use their songs and sounds for a multitude of reasons, to attract a mate, as indicators of safety, to impress, and defend.   They can often be heard singing in the early morning when there is less observable wind and noise pollution.  Songbirds make up half of the world's ten thousand bird species. No one really knows all of the reasons for the singing and sounds of birds. Maybe it is also their meditation practice to come back to their joyful song, just as singing for us, helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system which promotes health and emotional release, maybe this is also part of why they continue to sing. Maybe they are singing for the joy in it.  This consistent practice may be how they stand to bear witness to all that is happening in the world around them. Perhaps they too know the importance of continuing to witness as this is where the next right move can come from. This may keep them alert to predators or dangers in their changing environment.  

Meditation is not just for the monk on the mountain, tucked away from both the atrocities and beauties of connecting and witnessing in the physical world,  as one of my beloved mentors was always pointing out.  But it allows us to stay right here, to witness, experience, and act.

It is alright if at this moment, we have no advice, wise words of comfort, or inspirational thoughts to offer. The non-sensical patterns of behavior and circumstance, that seem to be on repeat and draw our attention back and away in a pendulum swing, are not leaving any time soon.  We can be assured that our ability to build the capacity to sit on the hard cold rock, to filter the noise, to hear the song and the messages we find in this place is the consistency of discipline we need when we can see no end in sight.   It is the fuel of this right here that allows us space to discern, to not turn away, or at least not for too long, Like the wisdom of those who plant the tree and know they may never pick its' fruit or sit in its shade, we are also able to understand that our witnessing and space for consistent discipline and action may be what the birds already know. 

We may be here to continue to make our beautiful melody in amongst the distractions, the unknown, the unfamiliar, and the heartbreak. We are here to be a part of the choir for change, to not look away, to witness and allow our voice to be consistent, and disciplined so our joyful singing can be heard amongst the noise. 

Change that Empowers.

"In order to design a future of positive change, we must first become expert at changing our minds" Jacque Fresco

On this day, as was the case for most Saturdays I remember of living at my childhood home, I woke to the sound of whistling and followed the smell of bacon and eggs to the kitchen.  My father was there cooking breakfast with the television on in the family room to keep him company.   It was generally tuned to a nature show on the weekend and helped him shift gears from a long week of travel with his work.   What I remembered most was the show "The Nature of Things with David Suzuki.  There were animals in their natural habitat empowered to do what came innately to them for their survival and the protection of their young and their species. I think my father gravitated towards these shows, beyond the obvious reason of how captivating the natural world is because they offered a comfort that could only be found in the flow of the animal world. They were living an empowered life, making their own choices and decisions, surviving unbelievable circumstances, and always innately following their instinct and intuitive nature provided by the energy of the universe.  Being a sensitive soul, I did not always have an appetite for this complete honesty about predators and prey, the perils involved in survival, and the continuous changing circumstances, elements, and balance of power that they had to navigate every moment of their lives and I was young enough to have not yet made the connection to myself as part of this world order.   My Dad was always reassuring me that indeed, however constant change was in nature, this continuous shift in balance, and power, could and should be trusted as the earth and its living things have been surviving and thriving long before humans' attempts at control or power over.  This may have been a simplistic explanation to soothe his young daughter's concerns at the time but I believe it was that explanation and his faith in nature, that has played an intricate part in empowering how I have evolved, who I have become and how I understand the world around me even when it is making the least sense to me. It has been a compass to come back to and comforting to know that nature allows this flow to occur and as a result, it provides for the need of all of its creatures to be and do what their nature requires and this aids their interconnectedness.  From the matchstick moss and other forms of fungi that support trees' longevity to the black bear's protection of its young, there is an interplay happening that we don't need to interfere with and if we are looking for answers, we don't have to look far to see how nature has and is and always has flowed with grace.

If we have not been hiding under a rock recently, and it is alright if we have as it is necessary sometimes,  we are aware of many man-made changes in our world right now that are disempowering to all people.   When we talk about change, we are usually talking about making someone or something different by altering, modifying, or replacing.  It is the act or instance of making or becoming different.  There are abundant examples of change in nature.  Birds molt winter plumage to gain breeding feathers, deer coats transform from ash gray to rich brown and rabbits have a similar experience.   Rivers, lakes, and oceans continuously change color hues, water levels, waves, ripples, tides, and currents.   You can glance at the lake in the early morning and see a glass-like surface and moments later it has evolved to white caps. These are the kinds of changes that have the element of comfort. We allow nature the power to make those decisions for itself.  What will work best at the moment and we assume that change is moving things, cycling, and improving.  We adapt to the obvious change and tend not to question it.  Patterns, transformations, and cycles are witnessed and allowed in nature.  This exemplifies the element of trust my father had referred to.  I think because of nature's examples, we always believed that humans would also follow this laid-out trajectory and trust.  The result of this would be that we would be continually learning, changing, and growing in our capacity for openness,  humanity and ultimately love.   Somehow knowing there would be slip-ups and setbacks.  Mistakes would be made and things would not always be digestible for the faint of heart but we would extend this trust to each other as we too are part of the natural world and the rhythm it creates.

I have continued to marvel at the work of  David Suzuki over the years.  Recently he shared information about bias in the scientific classification of 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and other animals.  With the ever bias and missing pieces of history of indigenous, black, queer, and disabled populations,  we can't be surprised to learn that bias had found its way into the reporting of facts about numerous species and as a result, we are missing any knowledge of queer ecology.  The scientific research he presented was so interesting and important to our understanding of ourselves and all of nature.  David shared that Giraffes, bottlenose dolphins, and grey whales mate in all-male groups.  Bighorn sheep are homosexual until six or seven years of age.  Female foxes form lesbian communities and over ninety percent don't reproduce. Male foxes are indeed bisexual.   Bonobo Chimpanzees mate with multiple partners regardless of gender.  Clownfish change from male to female depending on the needs of a colony. Male and female spotted hyenas have the same genitalia. Snakes, lizards, frogs, insects and birds all have intersexuality, gender diversity, gender-ambiguous organs, or other gender organs. They also can physically change genders.  Female lions grow manes and exhibit male-like behaviors.  If this was not your area of study or expertise, you may never have learned these facts about other species so similar to us.  The difference being that they have not been disempowered or mistrusted in the ways in which they adapt, live, connect and cycle through life. 

We can trust in the many species who do what is best for their survival, their young, and who molt, adapt, and evolve as necessary to stay in the current of life.   Recently there has been reporting of Orcas who are aborting sixty percent of their pregnancies. It is believed that they are doing so because of the shortage of salmon as a result of humans.  Without the salmon, they won't have food for their young. They are such wise, majestic creatures who have survived and thrived for centuries.    Caribou survive on lichens. This is their primary food source. Because this food source has been threatened, their bodies will naturally reject their fetus. What a wonderful natural phenomenon in nature so they will be able to have young when they can both live a bountiful and full life. There are many other examples in nature where animals will pause a pregnancy. What a gift nature has provided for all species.  We can continue to trust in these natural decisions made.  Otherwise, we would be disempowering these creatures with our resistance to their being able to have agency over themselves. This is disempowering change when we don't believe in the species, or individuals' abilities to do what is best for them and as a result, is best for all of the natural world. 

My father has seen many changes throughout his life. Many of those related to the raising of three daughters.  He came with his own beliefs, biases, prejudices, and ignorance as we all do. But he came with a willingness to learn, a will to do what was best for us. Many times all of these things he came with conflicted but he can be proud of the instances that he chose to do or allow what would give us agency over ourselves and to have the opportunity to have the lives we chose and not those thrust upon us by circumstance or choices of others. My father was able to extend the trust he had in nature to me and my sisters and in trusting us, he helped to bring empowering change into our lives so we could continue to trust nature's wisdom and our true nature as well.