Not Knowing, and other disasters

Tags

compassion, death, dogs, growth, inspiration, mindfulness, photography, zen

She’s 180 lbs of soft, furry, brindle mastiff love – and she’s very ill. She may die, and she may pull though. I don’t know. About the only thing that I do know, is that I don’t know. That’s a hard place to be, but it offers some stunning and sometimes very painful opportunities to practice living in this moment.

Not quite a week ago, she seemed lethargic. If you know English Mastiffs, you already know that they sleep about 20 hours a day as it is. But, this was different. The light had gone out of her eyes. She was avoiding food. On Sunday (it’s always at night, on the weekend, or a holiday, right?!) she didn’t want to get up. That was frightening. We loaded a terrified and resistant gigantic dog into the car and drove an hour to the nearest emergency vet. Four hours and $750 dollars worth of tests later, we didn’t have a clue what was wrong with her.

On Monday, I took her to her regular vet, and after more testing there was a diagnosis: Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia. Essentially, her body is targeting her red blood cells for destruction. It’s a dreadful disease, requiring massive doses of prednisone, transfusions, and other extravagantly expensive therapies that ultimately can be quite destructive.  And, despite the best care in the world, they can crash at any moment and be a memory by the time you get them to the vet.  She’s very sick.

I’ve already made my peace with what I can afford, and what I’m willing to try, and what I’m not.  I feel very confident about my vet and about the network of specialists, holistic and otherwise.  The knowledgeable people who have been down this road already are supporting and informing me.  I’m learning as fast as I possibly can.

Not being able to fix something this serious is horrific, and at every turn I find myself struggling against a tsunami of PTSD.  The fear, the panic, and the physical strain are utterly incapacitating sometimes.  My nervous system seems hell-bent on the idea that I am responsible.  Mercifully, my rational side knows better.  When the stress becomes overwhelming though, rational doesn’t seem to weigh much.  And if all of this isn’t enough, we’ve had torrential rains and tornado threats all week.  The barn is full of mud.  Having horses in a tornado zone is a nightmare.

But, here we are.   Life goes like this sometimes.  And death goes like this.  Somewhere in the middle of the cyclone of worry, activity, suffering, and being overwhelmed, there is a still place.  Maybe it’s like the point exactly in the center of the washing machine on the spin cycle.

In that still, quiet space, there’s only the softness of her fur, the look in her eyes, and the peace that I feel from her.

Even in the midst of the chaos of caring for her while having a full-time job an hour away from home, there are still moments of just driving, just chopping pills in half, just feeding the horses.  Most important (for her), there are the moments of just being with her.  Late at night, on the air mattress that is now a fixture in the living room, she lies next to me, and I simply listen to the sound of her breath.

I don’t know what will happen, or how, or when.  It is my hope that I can be fully present for her, but I don’t know even that.  So, there are moments of simply not knowing.  That’s ok.  In an amazing way, not knowing is the doorway out of our frantic thinking minds, and into moments of grace and peace.

“Crocus”

All photographs copyright ZenDoe

What are you afraid of?

Tags

Creative Nonfiction, growth, healing, horses, memoir, trauma

Trying to learn to ride a horse at fifty-something is daunting at best.  I’m quite sure that I break more easily than I did when I was ten, and the idea of ending up in a body cast isn’t appealing in the slightest.  That said, I don’t seem to have any particular fear of falling.  So, why do I seize up with anxiety at the very thought of climbing up on Captain’s back?

I never took riding lessons as a child, but I vividly remember the percherons.  Molly and Bob were the two working draft horses that belonged to Gordon Shifflett.  When they weren’t hitched to a plow, they lived on the steep, rocky side of a mountain that was Gordon’s back yard.  His farm and his mountain were tucked away in a little corner of Appalachia called Mutton Hollow (pronounced “holler”), where nobody had indoor plumbing and a dollar was hard to come by.

Gordon had a daughter about my age.  Cheryl and I took every possible opportunity to heave ourselves up onto the backs of these tall and massive horses.  We’d be barefoot and covered in summer dirt, riding without so much as a halter and rope, let alone a saddle.  Long stretches of dirt road wound next to the creek, and we’d meander along on those gentle titans without a care in the world, drinking in the green and giggling over something foolish.

One of those summer days, we somehow ended up at a farm where they trained race horses.  There’s a picture in a family album of a horse race that everybody went to.  It took place on a wide, dusty back road; just these local guys, racing their horses like their urban counterparts drag racing down Main Street.  Well, we ended up at that farm, and the next thing I remember is being perched on the back of a sleek thoroughbred and walking around on the training racetrack.  It was glorious!

I was ten – maybe 12 years old, feeling fancy and graceful up there, until one of the boys popped the horse on the rear and whooped.  The horse took off like he was running from the devil himself.  Faster and faster that horse ran, and I hung on for all I was worth, tears streaming into my ears from the force of the wind.  Crouched over that horse’s neck, all I could see was the white whir of the inside rail as the red clay exploded under pounding hooves.  Funny thing is, I had no experience of fear at all.

I don’t have any idea how I got that horse slowed down to a walk, but I do remember the cheers from the boys that had gathered around!

Forty years later, I’ve been a horse owner for nearly a decade.  I’ve taken in rescues, tended to abscessed hooves, bandaged wounds, fed, cared for, and loved my horses.  But none of them have been broke or sound to ride until I found the Captain.  Here’s his story if you need to catch up.

Captain is so gentle, so well-trained, so docile and intelligent, that if I’m ever going to learn to ride, he is the horse to do it on.  The vet adores him.  Sue, the woman who comes out to the farm to coach me says that he’s worth 10 times what I paid for him.  I’d have to agree.  So, what am I afraid of?

I crawl up onto the mounting block, and insist that he stand still while I mount.  So far, so good.  I’m relaxed, happy, and comfortable.  Sue says it’s about time we leave the round pen and take a walk around the pasture.  The anxiety starts rising, and by the time she’s opened the gate, I can feel my legs shaking with fear.

My pasture is very hilly, almost terraced in places.  I stay up near the barn where it’s flat, and practice turning in large circles and stopping.  Stopping is good.  My familiar pasture is suddenly looking like a vast and terrifying down-hill slalom course where I shall surely die.  Captain stops and sighs.  I think he may have fallen asleep.

Sue marches half way down the hill and shouts, “Ride down here, Hun!”  – her long-ago British roots evident in the “Hun”.  I breathe.  I “relax”.  Here we go!  Captain inches down the hill, mindful of the shaking sack of human terror on his back.  “DON’T LOOK DOWN!” shouts Sue.

We arrive at Sue’s position, then finish the circle and go back up to the barn.  “AGAIN!”  Round and round we go, and little by little, I’m feeling less anxious.  Sue is encouraging, but she keeps saying that I should stop looking down.
Am I?

Finally, after about five round-trips in each direction, I’ve had enough.  I feel like I’ve run a mile while having a massive anxiety attack.  I dismount and lead Captain over to the hitching rail on the premise that I need some water.  Mostly I just want my legs to stop shaking.

Sue walks up and says, “You really have to stop looking down, Hun.  It’s terrifying you!”  I stop and think about that for a moment, and I tell her that the strange thing is that I have no fear at all of being that high up or of falling.  Hmmm…  Then it comes to me that what I’m so afraid of is that I will ask Captain to step somewhere that will cause him to stumble.  I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about him!

“It’s a horse,” she says.  “He knows how to walk around and not fall down.  You let him do his job, and it will make yours a lot easier.”

Horses are great teachers if you take time to listen.  My childhood with horses was wondrous.  My childhood with parents who demanded that I parent them taught me to be responsible in the extreme for everyone and everything around me.  If something goes wrong, it’s ultimately a failing of mine, right?  Oh, dear.

I could feel my shoulders dropping slowly down to a more normal position.  I’d been wearing them as earrings just moments before.  Captain snoozed while I sipped water and contemplated this.

After a while, I loosened the girth, pulled off the saddle and hoisted it onto the rail.  When I’d taken off the bridle and eased the bit from his mouth, Captain shook, and instead of wandering off, he raised his head and rested his chin on my shoulder for a moment.  It felt like a hug.

All photographs copyright ZenDoe

On Meditation

Tags

buddhism, compassion, growth, inspiration, meditation, mindfulness, zen

As I stepped into the barn on this cool morning, all three horses were still and silent.  I was among them, welcomed.  They neither turned to greet me nor turned away.  They simply accepted my presence as part of their own.

For most of us, the barriers that we erect to keep our ‘self’ safe preclude this kind of openness. We brace for impact at every turn, living in our endless stream of thought, preempting rather than being. Yet, despite our best efforts, the world has a way of grinding against our sense of safety and seldom operates on our terms. What would happen if we were to open to life exactly as it is? What would happen if we were to open to one another in this way?

Here is a wonderful story about one of the most well-know Zen masters of all time, Hakuin Ekaku, (1686-1768). Hakuin had a reputation for being brash, harsh, and flamboyant. He was a brilliant man, whose energy and excellence has inspired countless students of Zen.

A beautiful girl and her parents who owned a food store, lived near the monk, Hakuin. One day, to their horror, this girl’s parents discovered that she was pregnant. They were furious, and demanded to know who the father was.  For weeks, she steadfastly refused to confess his name. But, after much harassment, at last she pointed the finger at Hakuin. In a rage, the parents went to the master and confronted him, telling him about their daughter’s condition. “Is that so?” was all he would say.

After the child was born, it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation as a monk. Still, he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and begged for money for everything else that the child needed. A year later, the girl could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fish market. The mother and father of the girl went at once to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back. Hakuin willingly yielded the child, saying only: “Is that so?”

Few of us would be able to manage this level of welcoming whatever comes! Even in meditation, we want things to be just so.  We want.  We want peace. We want bliss. We want something nice, something extra, something that will be a beautiful add-on to how we already envision ourselves. This wanting removes us completely from how things are.

The art of meditation is to be a welcoming host to whatever lands on our doorstep – to get our judgemental self completely out of the way, so that how things really are at this moment, can appear fully. Rather than bracing for impact, or struggling to achieve something, the art is to simply welcome.

This isn’t a new experience for any of us. It’s not something alien or a special skill that we have to learn. If you’ve ever had a butterfly land on you, you know the moment of total stillness, of wonder, of incredible gentleness, as you simply let it be a butterfly, just where and as it is.

But life isn’t all butterflies and wonder, and neither is meditation; and meditation isn’t about mentally escaping from difficulties or turning them into butterflies and bliss.  What about when we’re in pain – physical, mental or emotional?  What about anger?  What about that mind that refuses to settle, and races randomly like a freight train?

Welcome this too, with compassion.

These are the experiences of meditation that teach us more than any kind of bliss.  Welcoming our sadness, our discomfort, without buying into a story line and fanning its flames, is a lesson in living.  To simply remain present, with deep compassion for the human-ness of things not being as we would wish, teaches us.

Sit quietly, with dignity and an open heart.  Listen to the sound of the rain outside, or to the hum of the fan. Feel the temperature of the air. Experience the sensation of your own breathing. Welcome each sensation, each thought, each breath, each moment, on its terms. Notice the insubstantial nature of the assessment that the air is too warm or cold, and return to welcoming, gently, moment after moment.

In bliss, boredom, or broken-heartedness, there is no escapism here. Rather, it is the experience of being fully awake and alive, just as you are. It’s not exotic or un-reachable. It’s your birthright.

Photo copyright ZenDoe

It’s the Little Things

Tags

compassion, healing, macro photography, mindfulness, photography, trauma

At some point in my life, I became a champion of little things.  I don’t remember when this happened, which isn’t unusual because I have such a quirky memory.  What I do know is that I’ve always been fascinated by the tiny.

Miniscule beads, insects, seeds, just about anything mini is interesting in some way to me.  This has been quite a challenge, I might add, because my eyesight is and always has been dreadful.

When I finally decided to buy a really good camera, the first extra I had to have was a macro lens.  I’ve photographed countless insects, hummingbird feathers, droplets of water and the like.  It’s always a bit of a shock when I look at these pictures on a large computer screen.  More than once, I’ve actually squealed with delight to see into their complex and usually invisible worlds.

But, it’s more, much more, than scientific or aesthetic appreciation to me.  There’s something about tiny creatures that moves me to want to protect them, to honor them, to defend them.  Yeah, I know, they’re just bugs.

I have a bit of a reputation as a defender of creepy-crawlies.  My colleagues don’t hesitate to voice their disgust when I pick up wilted earthworms that have had the misfortune to find themselves drowning in a puddle or tediously creeping across a scorching black top.  I have to smile though, when these same women pop into my office and ask me sweetly to remove the spider from the bathroom.

There’s something deeply healing for me in each of these gestures of kindness, each rescue of a small creature that otherwise has no advocate.  Insects aren’t nearly as galvanizing as whales or elephants.

When I was small, I’m sure that my parents kept me from dangers.  It’s what all parents do.  But what of the times when it was the parents themselves who presented the danger?  To whom could I turn?  I don’t ever remember feeling safe.  Each time I carry a spider outside, a little something in the world is healed.  That’s important.  And it isn’t a contrived activity, it’s simply how I like to live.  It feels right.  The balm for the soul is just a bonus.

It happens that I live in the center of the universe for “Brood II Magicicadas”.  Cicadas, if you’re not familiar with them, are very large and very loud flying insects with vivid green eyes.  A summer night isn’t complete without their raucous, deafening trilling in the trees.  They live underground until it’s time for them to shed their old skins, grow wings and fly off into the night to mate.  It happens every summer.  Children love finding their abandoned brown skin husks attached to tree trunks.

But, the “Magicicadas” are special.  The entire brood lives underground for a remarkable seventeen years of root-eating creepy-crawling until the seventeen year cycle is up, then they boil up out of the ground by the tens of thousands, climb trees, molt, and fly away after their wings have hardened.  These periodical cicadas are smaller than their perennial cousins and are orange-red as opposed to green.

Their emergence this week has been something to see unless you’re squeamish about bugs.  They cover fence posts, drip from your flowers and dangle from the leaves of trees, all in various stages of crawling, molting, emerging, and drying.

After supper last night, just before sunset, I went outside to wish the horses a good evening.  They often line up at the fence when they see me coming. Might have something to do with the carrots.  I stayed with them a little while, stroking their soft coats and talking with them.  It was a quiet, beautiful time of day. The last rays of the sun were breaking through the clouds that had brought heavy rain earlier.

The grass was cool and wet, and the 21 ancient oak trees in my yard stood silently, enjoying the golden warmth of the sun.  For a few moments, I remembered to appreciate these old souls and the whisperings of their leaves.  I walked gently to one of them, to place a hand on the lichen-covered bark.

There, on the tree trunk, were hundreds of newly emerged cicadas. But, every one of them was deformed.  Their wings were missing, or shriveled.  They clung to the tree, or marched slowly up the trunk, as is their nature.  But, not one of them would ever be able to fly away.

The horizontal rays of orange sun illuminated something on the ground, and I squatted down to be able to see what it was.  Hundreds of glistening inch-long wings, delicate and as transparent as spun glass lay in a pile on the moss between the tree’s roots, sparking in the light.  As I looked, several more wings fluttered to the ground from high in the branches.  It was incredibly beautiful, and I found myself squatting there like a child, feeling simultaneously enchanted and very sad that so many of the cicadas were damaged.

I gathered the wings, picking each one up as carefully as I could so that they wouldn’t tear, and after a last look at the broken cicadas, I slipped quietly into the house and up to my room.

I spread the wings in an arc on the old sewing machine table that is my makeshift altar, and lit a small tea candle.  They sparkled like gold leaf.

Whispered to the cicadas:  I saw you.  I couldn’t save you, but I know that you existed, if only for the briefest moment.  I won’t forget.  This is the best I can do.  Sometimes we’re helpless.

~

All photographs copyright ZenDoe, 2013

*Note:  Just as I finished writing this, the news of the tornado and its devastation in Moore, Oklahoma began to pour in.  I thought for a moment of pulling this post, but somehow it seemed right to go ahead and publish it.  Sometimes we’re helpless…

This is a stunning time-lapse video of the life cycle of the cicadas.

Being Human Doings

Tags

growth, healing, horses, inspiration, mindfulness, photography, zen

As I was mucking stalls last night, sweating and heaving soggy, stinking wads of bedding into the wheelbarrow, I caught myself feeling guilty, almost panicked, that I wasn’t getting enough work done.  The anxiety swelled, and somewhere between shovel-fulls I actually heard myself say, ”I don’t have time for this!  I have work to do!”  Oh, dear.

I haven’t written in weeks, there are four massive projects on my desk at home and ten times that on my desk at the office.  The house is filthy.  I need groceries.  I’d like to ride.  I need to find a moment to meditate…  I could get up earlier!  Maybe I could adjust to getting up at 5:00 instead of 5:30?  No.

That panic, as foolish as it was, was a serious wake-up call.  Once again, I had become little more than a work machine – a “human doing”.   Even the things that I love to do, photography, riding, meditating, writing, even these things had become tightly scheduled and monitored, lest they take too much time from the work that needed doing.

One of my favorite lines from Sogyal Rinpoche is this:

Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time at all to confront the real issues.

How true.  And how sad.  In my own case, I know precisely the cause of my obsession with doing, and I was delighted to find a very clear article about the nature of this phenomenon.  You can read it here if you like.

I googled human being vs human doing, and found dozens of articles and blog posts which provided readers with any number of trite aphorisms and affirmations.  I didn’t find any of them potentially life-changing.

This morning, it’s raining.  Now, in my book, there’s not much that’s better than a rainy weekend.  It’s as though the powers that be have declared a moratorium on yard work and major projects.  So, I left a few emails unanswered, picked up my camera, and made my way slowly to the barn to simply sit with the horses for a while.

Although they’re at liberty to go where they like, all three horses were there, just standing.  If you haven’t been around horses much, you may not know that they can stand together, simply being, for hours at a time.  I turned over a bucket and sat down in the main aisle where they’d gathered.

Gradually, the racing of my thoughts quieted until they were little more than a whisper in the background, like the sound of the slow drizzle on the tin barn roof.  The lazy swish of a tail, brushing away a fly, stirred the fragrances of rain, hay, manure, and damp horse.  The sound of chewing.  Captain turned slowly and walked the few steps to where I sat. He frisked me for cookies with his soft nose.  Sitting still, simply breathing with him, I inhaled and exhaled every nuance of his movements.

I sat while the horses stood.  Nothing to do, no deadlines, no pressure.  Horses have no need whatsoever for distraction.  Just being is enough.  What wonderful teachers they are.

It has been a long time since I’ve had a community of people to practice meditation with.  That’s alright.  For the now, I know where to go when I need to remind myself that just to be is enough.

Walking back to the house, the rain was cool on my face. It decorated every leaf and flower with diamond droplets.

Photograph copyright ZenDoe, 2013

Morning’s Quiet Green

Tags

horses, inspiration, macro photography, mindfulness, photography, poetry, prose, spring, zen

Alarm shatters sleep long before dawn
helter skelter fumbling for shower and what to wear
pulling on a sock and email between sips of coffee
cat food dog food fish food horse food me food
almost done check the dog water, refill
oh, forgot dog pills get cheese
need milk, need cat food…

Grab keys, turn off lights
pat dogs, pat cat, say good-bye
out the back door down steps to walkway

STOP

Spring’s silent voice whispers in hues of green.  The sun hasn’t risen above last night’s clouds yet, quiet green, still green, lush and damp.  Every blade of grass, every pine needle, each new leaf holds droplets of rain in perfect poise between heaven and earth.  Even the birds are silent in the softness of the slow-motion cool.

At the fence, three horses, breathing the subtle music of morning, unhurried.  The languid swoosh of a tail, a brush-stroke calligraphy of movement.

Stay one more moment, disappearing into the fragrance of earth heaving forth life.  Let it go.  Car keys jingle.

Raindrop on Pine Needle ~ Photo ©ZenDoe

Wordless Wednesday ~ tiny wings

Tags

haiku, healing, inspiration, photography, poetry, spring, zen

smaller than a thumb
size does not define the heart
tiny hummingbird

~

Photograph by ZenDoe, ©ZenDoe 2013

The Most Important Thing

Tags

compassion, healing, inspiration, Life, Love, narcissism, the holocaust

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to speak to a very wonderful group of women.  I had no inkling that it was I who would be spoken to.

It was a work thing.  I was to go and give a lunch-time talk about our organization to a group of elderly ladies at the Jewish Community Center in the city where I work.  I had stressed about what I was going to wear.  I’d been nervous in the car on the way there.  The director of the program had said that there would be about 60 ladies present, ranging in age from 60 to 93.

When I arrived, the women were finishing their ice cream, and chatting amongst themselves at tables.  I said hello to this one and that one, all with my professional face on, glowing and smiling.  I’m pretty good at putting up the polite societal barriers, draping myself in the persona of my profession.  I was oh-so-charming.

The director of the program was wearing a blood-red blouse, fierce glasses, and had jet-black hair.  She led me to the lectern, which was designed for a man twice my height.  I felt conspicuous.  I had worn black sneakers.

One of the ladies came forward to introduce me.  The others slowly finished their desserts and then drifted forward to their chairs by the lectern, on canes and walkers, slender hands steadying themselves on the backs of metal seats.  As all of this was very slowly happening, the woman who would introduce me silently read my bio, a little nothing that I had self-consciously cobbled together earlier this morning.  She looked up at me and said, nodding, ”You, are a very special lady.” I smiled, looked down, and then we exchanged a glance.

That glance…  Her eyes pierced though the polished persona in an instant, leaving me vulnerable and clumsy.  She, she was indescribably beautiful.  A tiny little thing, not more than five feet tall, with lovely coiffed hair and translucent porcelain skin.  Her eyes…

Now, I have to tell you something here.  When you are raised by a pathologically narcissistic mother, you have never, ever, heard the words “I love you” without suspicion.  They are always followed by a demand, a slap (or worse), or a painfully manipulative cruelty.  I’ve spent my entire lifetime hiding behind a wall, unable to hear love, unable to trust it.  But, I’ll tell you this, I’ve peeped out from my fortress for each of my 52 years whenever I’ve heard a kind voice, hoping…  hoping…

This lovely woman slowly walked the three steps to where I was standing, and carefully, gently, reached up to touch my face.  “You are a very, very special lady” she said again.  She patted my cheek.  She patted my arm.  She took my hand in hers.  I confess, I pretended for a moment that she was my mother, drinking in the feminine kindness that radiated from her, devouring it like a cool draught of water, stolen in the desert.

Then, this graceful, beautiful woman said softly, “I survived the holocaust.”

My tears came hot and insistent behind my eyes.  Fighting the urge to kiss her hands though the tears, I said to her, “I will tell my son about you, about having met you.  Many of his father’s family did not survive.”

“Do you know what the most important thing is?” she asked, patting my hand, her grey-blue eyes dancing,  “I have learned one thing in my life.  You tell this to your son.  The most important thing, the most important thing, is love.”

~

My son and his girlfriend came by the office this afternoon.  He wanted to borrow a few dollars for some medicine.  His allergies are acting up.  I told him the story, and passed on the old woman’s words.  He stood in my office and wept.

The most important thing, the most important thing, is love.

Acceptance

Tags

buddhism, compassion, growth, healing, inspiration, trauma, yoga, zen

How deeply poignant, our struggle to “accept”.  How painfully overwhelming to wrestle with surges of agonizing grief, the black ocean of shame, the fear of what may come, or the steadfast desire to make things right.

We know beyond any doubt, and from our own experience, that some kind of acceptance would resolve, at least to a degree, the ferocity of the conflict within us.  And yet, the imperative to hang on to our idea of how things should be is so strong that it feels as though our very identity will die if we even imagine moving into harmony with our pain.

And, there is a measure of truth in that.

There is courage in the struggle for what is right.  There is an uplifting quality to our fervor when we plant the flag of outrage and refuse to move from it.  It makes us feel as though the ground beneath our feet has substance, if only temporarily.  And, we find it preferable to settle for this illusion of being right, because it gives us a little strength in the face of the thing that we can’t accept.  But, the pain is still there.

It is natural, it is our nature, to rise up against that which is wrong, or hurtful, dangerous or frightening.  We are compelled to act, and to act courageously.  The result is that we can, and do, improve our lives, our world, or even just a tiny portion of it.  Though the way is fraught with loss and heartache, we are willing, both alone and collectively, to do what is necessary.

And yet, although it is our nature to take a stand against what is wrong, there are times when we recognize that the battle or the event has come and gone.  The damage is done.  The world has moved on, but we have not.  We continue to fight – to fight the pain, the scars, the woundedness.  There are times when we realize that acceptance is called for, but even the idea of acceptance is abhorrent.  It seems an affront to our very nature to back down.  On what ground would we stand if we were to “accept” the source of our suffering?  What would that mean?  Who would we be?

The battle or event has come and gone.  The damage is done.  I can’t go backwards in time and change the myriad conditions that made my mother the person she was.  It is not possible to un-do the trauma.

We beg to know why.  If there were a reason, it might make sense.  In our desperation, we generate reasons – I was bad.  I was ugly.  I am broken.  We know in the depths of our hearts that this is not so.  It is our nature, it is the human way, to be able to put something to rest if there is a reason.  Human mind loves order, even at the expense of a lie that cripples us.

So, here we are, chasing our tails.  We can’t get in, we can’t get out.  Around and around we go, in denial, in anger, in pain.  We see no way out and no way through.  We cry out silently for someone to hear us, to help us.  We await the rescue that never comes, and out of the corner of our eye, we see acceptance as the only doorway.

What might that acceptance look like?  What if it weren’t as much like “giving up” or capitulating as we imagine it to be?  What if acceptance opened our hearts, gave us peace, made us stronger, and gave us back our dignity in such a way that we not only felt whole, but lighter, more spacious and loving?  And perhaps most important, what if we could do this in such a way that we get to keep the truth about what happened to us?

Peace does not appear when we push our pain away.  It appears when we stand hand in hand with it, in compassion.  Peace, real peace, arises when we stop struggling.

And there’s only one trick to it.  You must hold your own situation with as much tenderness as you would that of someone you love.

Hold it gently, in hands so kind that you begin to see the courage that you have had all along.  Recognize that your fight, your struggle, has been the human experience of rising up to right a wrong.  Have respect and compassion for that.  Recognize that your inability to make it right, or to find a reason for what happened is also the human experience.  It is not your failing.  This very brokenness, this uncertainty, is the ground upon which we all stand.

Envision this struggle, this pain that you carry, as the most precious thing in the world - not as something to cling to and identify with, but as the radiant core of our very human-ness.  Carry it with a child-like wonder that continuously expands and includes everything with heart-breaking tenderness.

It takes a little bit of practice.  Our habit of struggle is very strong.  But it erodes remarkably easily.  Don’t be deceived by the comfortable familiarity of your pain.  It would tell you that you are doomed to be plagued by your anguish for all eternity.  We like what is comfortable and familiar, even when it’s killing us.

Peace, real peace, arises when we stop struggling.  Peace begins with the love that you already have, and the courage to shine that light on your own heart.  Please be gentle.

Photo credit: © studiofascino – http://www.redbubble.com/people/studiofascino

First Evening of Spring

Tags

Creative Nonfiction, farm, healing, horses, inspiration, Life, mindfulness, nature, prose, spring, zen

Two apples from Panera, chopped into tiny pieces, tucked into a ziplock bag.  Step out through the mudroom with me into the dusk, on this, the first night of spring.

Mind the cat, he’s deaf.  Sixteen years old, and he still catches mice.  I find the tails and gut-bits on the mudroom floor where he spends his retirement stretched out in the sun.  Appreciate the skreeeee-BANG of the screen door behind us.  That’s a sound from our collective childhoods, even if our grandparents lived in an apartment.  We somehow remember that sound.

The work week and all its craziness follows us only as far as the red tube-steel gate, set into the wood fence that separates the back yard from the pasture.  But, before you raise the latch, stop.  Feel the breeze.  Let it carry the stress and tired and all the thoughts right out of your head.  Feel all of that flowing out through your hair, and away.  Breathe deeply.  Close your eyes for a moment.  The week is over.  There’s no rush.  No hurry.  Down shift, so that you can meet the horses humbly, where they are, not as an adjunct to your own story, your own identity.

Breathe.  Deep.  Taste the extreme green of the sugary new spring grass reaching up toward the sky.  Feel the baby-leaf-green of the vines and trees as the spring energy pours through them and into you.  Let the sweet smell of horse shit fill you without rejecting or approving.  The pulse of the tiny frog songs becomes the beat of your own heart.  Be still.  Smile…  Ahhh, that breeze…

Now, raise the latch on the gate.  Do remember to close it behind you.

Don’t worry about the mud from this morning’s downpour.  Like all the other things you’d like to push out of your life, all the things you have opinions about, it’s just there, doing its thing, being mud.  Enjoy it as though you were five years old.  Squish through the mud with me to the barn.  The horses are there in the shadow of this evening, quietly chewing hay.

Look!  Look how the clouds rest silver and gray against the pinkblue sky, hovering over the neighbor’s greening field.  Magnificent!  After such a long, cold winter, this – here and now – this is the first moment of spring.  Drink it in.  The breeze on your face is neither warm nor cool, but perfection itself in its sweetness.  Little frogs call out, rhythmically looking for love.

Step into the dim cool of the barn, over the hay-strewn dirt floor.  It’s a small, old barn with oak boards rough-hewn decades ago, fading red like the strong cedar poles from right here on the property.   Kit, Captain, and Lil’Bits quietly look up as we come into their space.  They’re not in stalls, but free to roam the aisle.  Kit lumbers over to see if you’ve brought something tasty.  We’re tempted to speak, but their silent presence is so strong, so complex and deep, that we know we’d cheapen the moment with the sound of our voices.

Get that baggie of apple pieces out of your pocket.  Hold a cool nugget of apple in the flat of your palm and offer it to Kit.  She’s alpha here, and it’s appropriate to give her the first bite.  Feel her enormous and exquisitely gentle and fuzzy lips grope your palm for the apple.  Listen to the crunch and enjoy the sweetness of her breath.  Captain nickers loud and low, but doesn’t move from where he’s standing.  Careful!  He dives hard for treats.  Watch your fingers!  Lil’ Bits is dainty and gentle, her strong lips whisking back and forth to make sure she’s taken everything you have to offer.

Breathe them in.  Breathe in their scent, the damp hay smell.  Stand perfectly still while Kit bumps your lips with her massive soft nose, giving you a kiss in exchange for another apple slice.  Smell the sweetness of her breath in the tender quiet of this place.

We’re out of apple pieces.  Stand quietly here for a moment and just be.  Just listen.  Let them fill you.  Let the darkening evening wash over you.  The summer lies before us as though we were ten years old again.  And, this, right now, is the first moment of it.

Turn gently, and walk with me back out into the evening.  Horses go back to munching hay.  You and I watch barn swallow silhouettes dancing over the fields.

The sound of foot-falls heading home.