I have just completed one of my silent meditation retreats. I used to take four days, two times a year, for these retreats. I am not sure how it happened but in recent years they've been more sporadic and often shorter. This time I took three days.
For many years I would choose a book around a theme I intended to explore in my meditations and read it in the few days before I began my retreat. Occasionally, I would finish it on the first day of the retreat. About 10 days before I started this withdrawal for reflection, I got a message about Choice Point, a book that I first drafted in 1997 and which I continued to revise until about 2000. I hadn't read it since about 2009, so revisiting it seemed in order. While I didn't have time to read the book prior to my retreat, I did bring it with me and I read about half of it in bits and pieces over the three days.
When I last read the book in 2009, I recognized that it was badly dated, and that was even more apparent this time. However, the thing that I noticed most was what I can only describe as my arrogance in tone. I can assure you that was not my intention. In the mid- to late-1990s, my life worked extraordinarily well spiritually, and I just assumed that was "normal." The years in between have demonstrated to me that my experience was not in any way "normal," but instead was extraordinary grace. My failure to recognize that was arrogant.
Choice Point is a guide to listening for our inner voice or divine voice or whatever it is that guides us on a spiritual path. For 8-9 years in the 1990s, my inner guidance system worked extremely well. All I had to do was ask a question, and the answer was there. I moved across the country, worked globally, designed a new home, and wrote several books on that guidance. So, it should not be surprising that the book I wrote about that intention process carried a "just do it!" attitude, implying that if we express the intention, the communication will just flow.
Sometime, and I can't really say precisely when it was, I stopped being able to get that guidance. I struggled to get anything. I would like to say that as the regularity of my meditation time waned that my guidance did as well because, if that were the case, fixing the problem would be easy. I'd just have to start meditating regularly again. I actually think just the opposite was the case. I think my failure to get guidance precipitated my willingness to meditate less frequently.
Several saints from the Roman Catholic tradition have written about their inability to receive guidance after rich periods of regular communication with the divine.* A book released after her death revealed that Mother Teresa had struggled for decades with the inability to communicate directly, as she had done quite regularly in her younger years. The most common term for that absence of communication is "the dark night of the soul," and the period of non-communication--often for the rest of life--usually follows a rich period of dialogue with the divine. While I haven't experienced the depression that many described, I have keenly felt the lack of communication which characterizes the "dark night of the soul."
My just-completed three days of sitting continued the lack of communication. Even exercises that I've used to jump-start the flow failed me repeatedly. So, I mostly sat. Occasionally, I picked up Choice Point to read a chapter. Taking time from the fast-paced life I find myself living for personal reflection is reward in and of itself, but I am definitely not stepping out with the feeling of personal enlightenment that I used to experience.
I have learned that the 8-9 years of constant dialogue with the divine that I used to experience as "normal" was instead extraordinary grace. The communication vacuum, which has dominated my life for 15 years, has taught me what a gift I received for the preceding years. If I revisit Choice Point again for rewrite, it will be from true humility as I will bring the understanding of what a gift it was.
*I believe this is true of other traditions as well, but I am less well read on them.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Getting in the Way of Better Things
Sometime in the last month, I heard an interview with comedian and now dramatic actor Bill Murray. In it he related that he had lost his smart phone recently and described how liberating it had been. He said, "The things you usually do get in the way of better things you could be or should be doing."
I am not sure I could live with out my smartphone, and yet, I really understand what he was saying. I love reading The Washington Post on my phone on the way to and from work. It is great to catch up on my email on the train so when I get home, I can devote my attention to other endeavors. The reminders of birthdays and special events have prevented me from missing landmarks. My calendar gets me where I am "supposed to be" more often than not. The My Fitness Pal app has helped me lose 15 pounds this year. I've even been learning Spanish as I walk and ride about.
Yet while there is immeasurable value in my smartphone, so much is lost along the way, and I think that is what Murray was relating. Pre-device days, I used to actually have conversations with strangers on the train. Some would share funny stories or new pieces of music they had discovered. When I was looking for a job, a man once told me about one in his agency that might be a good fit. Now, everyone is hunkered over their device with ear buds in place. With the exception of an occasional pair that get on the train together, I almost never see anyone talking these days. So among those better things we could or should be doing, connecting with our fellow humans might be one.
The concept of my book Choice Point was to be totally present in the moment and choose second to second what we should be doing in that moment. While there are days, like this one, when I unplug most of the time, when I find myself doing what Murray described, I stop letting the things I usually do get in the way of what I could/should be doing. I just listen...to my body, to my heart, and to my inspirations.
As I went to bed last night, I had several things that I wanted to do today, beginning with going to church. Generally, on the weekend, I don't set my alarm, and most of the time I wake up after about eight or nine hours of sleep. I find it delicious to wake up on my own though, even if I am not sleeping a lot more. Last night I slept 10-1/2 hours, which meant that I missed church. It also meant that my body must need more rest. I allowed this day to be one of those days in which I did what I could/should be doing--what I knew in my heart, instead of what I usually did--what was programmed into my schedule.
I did enjoyed time in the kitchen, something that I usually do, but also something I love. Then I turned my schedule upside down and meditated for a couple of hours, gaining clear insight on something with which I've been wrestling. I dug out my hard copy of Choice Point because I haven't read it in a while, and in my meditation, I got that it was time to revisit the book. While I know there is rewriting needed, my sense is that this visit is for my personal spiritual learning I need. So the day is some, but not earth-shatteringly different. Yet, I feel so much freer by having listened to my internal compass as opposed to responding to reminders and habits driven by my smart phone.
I am not sure I could live with out my smartphone, and yet, I really understand what he was saying. I love reading The Washington Post on my phone on the way to and from work. It is great to catch up on my email on the train so when I get home, I can devote my attention to other endeavors. The reminders of birthdays and special events have prevented me from missing landmarks. My calendar gets me where I am "supposed to be" more often than not. The My Fitness Pal app has helped me lose 15 pounds this year. I've even been learning Spanish as I walk and ride about.
Yet while there is immeasurable value in my smartphone, so much is lost along the way, and I think that is what Murray was relating. Pre-device days, I used to actually have conversations with strangers on the train. Some would share funny stories or new pieces of music they had discovered. When I was looking for a job, a man once told me about one in his agency that might be a good fit. Now, everyone is hunkered over their device with ear buds in place. With the exception of an occasional pair that get on the train together, I almost never see anyone talking these days. So among those better things we could or should be doing, connecting with our fellow humans might be one.
The concept of my book Choice Point was to be totally present in the moment and choose second to second what we should be doing in that moment. While there are days, like this one, when I unplug most of the time, when I find myself doing what Murray described, I stop letting the things I usually do get in the way of what I could/should be doing. I just listen...to my body, to my heart, and to my inspirations.
As I went to bed last night, I had several things that I wanted to do today, beginning with going to church. Generally, on the weekend, I don't set my alarm, and most of the time I wake up after about eight or nine hours of sleep. I find it delicious to wake up on my own though, even if I am not sleeping a lot more. Last night I slept 10-1/2 hours, which meant that I missed church. It also meant that my body must need more rest. I allowed this day to be one of those days in which I did what I could/should be doing--what I knew in my heart, instead of what I usually did--what was programmed into my schedule.
I did enjoyed time in the kitchen, something that I usually do, but also something I love. Then I turned my schedule upside down and meditated for a couple of hours, gaining clear insight on something with which I've been wrestling. I dug out my hard copy of Choice Point because I haven't read it in a while, and in my meditation, I got that it was time to revisit the book. While I know there is rewriting needed, my sense is that this visit is for my personal spiritual learning I need. So the day is some, but not earth-shatteringly different. Yet, I feel so much freer by having listened to my internal compass as opposed to responding to reminders and habits driven by my smart phone.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Spreading Love
On Sunday of a weekend, which began with reports of the simultaneous and horrendous attacks in Paris, I am still digesting and attempting to make sense of the world in which we live. My friend and frequent contributor to this blog, Amy Frost, texted me on Saturday, "I pray this will evoke people to stand up and do what they can to create a loving world."
In a similar vein, a survivor of the concert attacks, interviewed on the BBC, said that he heard many evoking revenge, but continued, "When I thought I was about to die, what I thought about was those I love. It is love we should be spreading," he said.
For almost 30 years, I've been writing about the love that connects us all and how it its the duty of all of us to keep that connection alive, vital, healthy, and flowing. I still believe that to be true. And, increasingly, I've struggled with what that means exactly.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to see the newly released movie, "Suffragette." Unfolding on the screen in front of me were extremely difficult scenes of ordinary women, attempting to listen to a speaker who was advocating for giving women the vote. They were brutally beaten and jailed, just for association, assembly, and listening. One woman is kicked out of her home by her husband and loses her son.
"Suffragette" was set in Britain, but similar scenes played out in the US as women attempted to get basic rights. In the US it was common to send women to mental institutions because, of course if they wanted the vote, they must be mentally ill. Here, too, women lost their children. Could that evil have been confronted by love? I'd like to think so, but given the brutality, I am doubtful.
Last Wednesday much of the world marked "Veterans Day" or "Armistice Day," observed on the date of the end of World War I, but generally recognizing all those who had served in foreign wars. Most often, speakers use language about those who made "the ultimate sacrifice" while fighting for the freedom we hold dear. I can't imagine anyone advocating that we should have taken on Hitler with love instead of bombs. Even I, a devout pacifist since I was 19, cannot conceive that would have worked.
In 2001, I was an advocate that instead of dropping bombs, we should spend the same money dropping packages of food, books, and other gifts into an impoverished Afghanistan. We will never know if that would have produced more favorable outcomes, but that surely would have been a closer to a love response to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Yet the warfare response has certainly not produced the results for which we had hoped either. I am no longer ready to suggest that I think dropping groceries on Afghanistan would have brought either the Taliban or bin Laden down.
Muddying the waters still further are the consequences of our wars. We see our Wounded Warriors come home absent limbs and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) but this is nothing new. How many Civil War veterans came home without an arm or leg? What we call PTSD now was called "Shell Shock" in World War I. My grandfather spent 20 years in a mental institution in a catatonic state as a result of his service. I would love to have had a present grandfather instead.
Can the world really be dominated by love if we don't weed out evil? Having come from the Christian tradition, I can't forget that even Jesus, often described as the Prince of Love, violently turned over the tables in the temple to weed out evil. A friend, who knew him, told of how she once saw the Maharishi Maresh Yogi exploding angrily--once. Clearly these men of peace and love understood that there was a time and place for anger, rather than love. But, just when is that time and place? So, I struggle.
I started this blog with the hope that by wrestling with the difficult issues that, if we faced them on a heart and love level, the answers would be clear. However, as I write more about both personal and universal dichotomies, I become more aware that those crystal clear, right-as-rain love answers just aren't always there. As I seek the Truth, the answer I often find is to listen deeply to our hearts to what the appropriate response is in each situation, rather than having a go-to automatic response.
With somewhat regret I say that while I hate violence was required, I am glad the suffragettes responded to brutality with violence, and I am glad that our world is without Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden. In the end, the Truth seems to be in the wrestling.
In a similar vein, a survivor of the concert attacks, interviewed on the BBC, said that he heard many evoking revenge, but continued, "When I thought I was about to die, what I thought about was those I love. It is love we should be spreading," he said.
For almost 30 years, I've been writing about the love that connects us all and how it its the duty of all of us to keep that connection alive, vital, healthy, and flowing. I still believe that to be true. And, increasingly, I've struggled with what that means exactly.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to see the newly released movie, "Suffragette." Unfolding on the screen in front of me were extremely difficult scenes of ordinary women, attempting to listen to a speaker who was advocating for giving women the vote. They were brutally beaten and jailed, just for association, assembly, and listening. One woman is kicked out of her home by her husband and loses her son.
"Suffragette" was set in Britain, but similar scenes played out in the US as women attempted to get basic rights. In the US it was common to send women to mental institutions because, of course if they wanted the vote, they must be mentally ill. Here, too, women lost their children. Could that evil have been confronted by love? I'd like to think so, but given the brutality, I am doubtful.
Last Wednesday much of the world marked "Veterans Day" or "Armistice Day," observed on the date of the end of World War I, but generally recognizing all those who had served in foreign wars. Most often, speakers use language about those who made "the ultimate sacrifice" while fighting for the freedom we hold dear. I can't imagine anyone advocating that we should have taken on Hitler with love instead of bombs. Even I, a devout pacifist since I was 19, cannot conceive that would have worked.
In 2001, I was an advocate that instead of dropping bombs, we should spend the same money dropping packages of food, books, and other gifts into an impoverished Afghanistan. We will never know if that would have produced more favorable outcomes, but that surely would have been a closer to a love response to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Yet the warfare response has certainly not produced the results for which we had hoped either. I am no longer ready to suggest that I think dropping groceries on Afghanistan would have brought either the Taliban or bin Laden down.
Muddying the waters still further are the consequences of our wars. We see our Wounded Warriors come home absent limbs and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) but this is nothing new. How many Civil War veterans came home without an arm or leg? What we call PTSD now was called "Shell Shock" in World War I. My grandfather spent 20 years in a mental institution in a catatonic state as a result of his service. I would love to have had a present grandfather instead.
Can the world really be dominated by love if we don't weed out evil? Having come from the Christian tradition, I can't forget that even Jesus, often described as the Prince of Love, violently turned over the tables in the temple to weed out evil. A friend, who knew him, told of how she once saw the Maharishi Maresh Yogi exploding angrily--once. Clearly these men of peace and love understood that there was a time and place for anger, rather than love. But, just when is that time and place? So, I struggle.
I started this blog with the hope that by wrestling with the difficult issues that, if we faced them on a heart and love level, the answers would be clear. However, as I write more about both personal and universal dichotomies, I become more aware that those crystal clear, right-as-rain love answers just aren't always there. As I seek the Truth, the answer I often find is to listen deeply to our hearts to what the appropriate response is in each situation, rather than having a go-to automatic response.
With somewhat regret I say that while I hate violence was required, I am glad the suffragettes responded to brutality with violence, and I am glad that our world is without Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden. In the end, the Truth seems to be in the wrestling.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Woman's Work
What is "woman's work"? While the very question may suggest to male readers that this is not a post that relates to them, that would be inaccurate. What I am writing about here is the spiritual growth of the feminine in each of us, both male and female. The Father of Modern Psychology Carl Jung and his followers believe that mythology offers archetypes of aspects of the human psychology, which describe spiritual lessons that we must learn in order to become more whole.
Jungians generally point to the myth of Psyche and Eros as the myth that describes the spiritual journey of the psychological feminine in all of us. For those who like all the details, I apologize for what will be the 50,000-foot view of this myth.* Conveying the details of the myth are not my purpose here. Suffice it to say, the name "Psyche" means soul and also means butterfly. The myth is about the transition that our soul's make in transforming from chrysalis, the soul as promise, to beautiful and mature butterfly.
The myth symbolizes Psyche's work with a lamp and a knife, and her work is to take a good look at the person she is in relationship to other people, things, and situations. At the start of the myth, she is pretty much unconscious, simply doing what she is told or expected to do.
As her transition progresses, she is forced to look at things differently, creatively, and intuitively because a set of tasks that she must complete would be impossible, given the context from which she starts. Along the way, Psyche learns to listen to her own rhythms and to not get emotionally attached. For the feminine in many of us, her lesson about learning to say "no" and protect her boundaries will resonate.
The lesson of Psyche is often described as "sorting," and it is in that context that I've been revisiting this myth that I first read at least 30 years ago. Both literally and metaphorically, I am in a transition period wherein I have the opportunity to work away from the toxic environment of my normal job for four and a half months. What a perfect opportunity to be able to play around with options in my life without making any permanent commitments.
A former colleague and I lunched on Friday about how transforming it had been to be out of that work environment, freed of the pain-generating physical tension both of us had experienced. With literally a full day of extra time each week, we actually have "a life" again. I have found my humor and creativity return as I work in a respectful and supportive situation.
I confess that the Adrenalin withdrawal has been a struggle, but like any addict who has gone through withdrawal, I have come through the other side happier, healthier, and with more than a little trepidation about slipping back into the addiction when/if I go back to my real job. That brings me to my first sorting. Symbolically, using Psyche's lamp and knife, I am examining my relationship to my job, and maybe to work in general.
Because of a later in life business failure, I have felt driven to rebuild financial assets to support me through retirement. Confronted by age discrimination all around me, I've forced myself to do more and better in whatever I do to counter the occasional ageist jibe. I've also taken jobs that didn't use my strengths, abilities, or creativity to have a regular paycheck. While I do seriously need a regular paycheck for several years, I am no longer willing to work to my weaknesses. That is the lamp shining on my relationship to work. I haven't yet mustered the courage to use the knife to sever ties, but it is much more difficult to keep doing what I've been doing with the light of exploration shining on it.
There is other sorting I choose to do. The house of a friend was flooded about a month ago. He texted me about all the things he was having to throw away. I was more than a little jealous. For some time, I've been bumping into an accumulation of things that are no longer useful or desirable, and, when I do, I wonder, why don't I get rid of that? There is also a growing accumulation of things that I've received for gifts that I don't and won't use, but I have felt that I need to hang onto for fear of offending the giver. For several years, I've asked friends to not give me material gifts but instead plan to do something together, but largely my pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
I am also recognizing the need to sort activities more judiciously, so step away from habitual activities or things that I "should" do and to plan to devote time to things that are important to me. During the six weeks I've been in my temporary job, I have started to exercise regularly again, and tomorrow I will meet a colleague after work to practice a dance routine for a talent show which will raise money for charity. Still on the list of things to choose, strengthening exercise in addiction to aerobic. Live theater is working its way back into my schedule.
Using the knife to cut away other activities that I have missed and enjoyed to make time for writing has been more difficult. While I say it is a priority, choosing to write regularly is something that regular readers of this blog will attest is not something I've made time for as I did even two years ago. Cooking is a delight, and I know that I spend a disproportionate amount of time doing so. Is it wrong to spend too much time in something which brings me pleasure? Is that even the correct question? Perhaps I need to weigh writing against cooking before I decide where to use the knife of sorting. I enjoy volunteering and I believe service is how we make a life, but knowing where to say "no" among things I enjoy is challenging.
I have my lamp out and my knife in hand to do the "woman's work" to which the myth of Psyche points. I am eager to take the chrysalis of awareness and transform it into the butterfly of conscious living. Doing so, though, is, well, work...the work of my soul.
*For an extended discussion of the Myth of Psyche and Eros, see: http://www.peace.ca/mythofpsyche.htm
Jungians generally point to the myth of Psyche and Eros as the myth that describes the spiritual journey of the psychological feminine in all of us. For those who like all the details, I apologize for what will be the 50,000-foot view of this myth.* Conveying the details of the myth are not my purpose here. Suffice it to say, the name "Psyche" means soul and also means butterfly. The myth is about the transition that our soul's make in transforming from chrysalis, the soul as promise, to beautiful and mature butterfly.
The myth symbolizes Psyche's work with a lamp and a knife, and her work is to take a good look at the person she is in relationship to other people, things, and situations. At the start of the myth, she is pretty much unconscious, simply doing what she is told or expected to do.
As her transition progresses, she is forced to look at things differently, creatively, and intuitively because a set of tasks that she must complete would be impossible, given the context from which she starts. Along the way, Psyche learns to listen to her own rhythms and to not get emotionally attached. For the feminine in many of us, her lesson about learning to say "no" and protect her boundaries will resonate.
The lesson of Psyche is often described as "sorting," and it is in that context that I've been revisiting this myth that I first read at least 30 years ago. Both literally and metaphorically, I am in a transition period wherein I have the opportunity to work away from the toxic environment of my normal job for four and a half months. What a perfect opportunity to be able to play around with options in my life without making any permanent commitments.
A former colleague and I lunched on Friday about how transforming it had been to be out of that work environment, freed of the pain-generating physical tension both of us had experienced. With literally a full day of extra time each week, we actually have "a life" again. I have found my humor and creativity return as I work in a respectful and supportive situation.
I confess that the Adrenalin withdrawal has been a struggle, but like any addict who has gone through withdrawal, I have come through the other side happier, healthier, and with more than a little trepidation about slipping back into the addiction when/if I go back to my real job. That brings me to my first sorting. Symbolically, using Psyche's lamp and knife, I am examining my relationship to my job, and maybe to work in general.
Because of a later in life business failure, I have felt driven to rebuild financial assets to support me through retirement. Confronted by age discrimination all around me, I've forced myself to do more and better in whatever I do to counter the occasional ageist jibe. I've also taken jobs that didn't use my strengths, abilities, or creativity to have a regular paycheck. While I do seriously need a regular paycheck for several years, I am no longer willing to work to my weaknesses. That is the lamp shining on my relationship to work. I haven't yet mustered the courage to use the knife to sever ties, but it is much more difficult to keep doing what I've been doing with the light of exploration shining on it.
There is other sorting I choose to do. The house of a friend was flooded about a month ago. He texted me about all the things he was having to throw away. I was more than a little jealous. For some time, I've been bumping into an accumulation of things that are no longer useful or desirable, and, when I do, I wonder, why don't I get rid of that? There is also a growing accumulation of things that I've received for gifts that I don't and won't use, but I have felt that I need to hang onto for fear of offending the giver. For several years, I've asked friends to not give me material gifts but instead plan to do something together, but largely my pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
I am also recognizing the need to sort activities more judiciously, so step away from habitual activities or things that I "should" do and to plan to devote time to things that are important to me. During the six weeks I've been in my temporary job, I have started to exercise regularly again, and tomorrow I will meet a colleague after work to practice a dance routine for a talent show which will raise money for charity. Still on the list of things to choose, strengthening exercise in addiction to aerobic. Live theater is working its way back into my schedule.
Using the knife to cut away other activities that I have missed and enjoyed to make time for writing has been more difficult. While I say it is a priority, choosing to write regularly is something that regular readers of this blog will attest is not something I've made time for as I did even two years ago. Cooking is a delight, and I know that I spend a disproportionate amount of time doing so. Is it wrong to spend too much time in something which brings me pleasure? Is that even the correct question? Perhaps I need to weigh writing against cooking before I decide where to use the knife of sorting. I enjoy volunteering and I believe service is how we make a life, but knowing where to say "no" among things I enjoy is challenging.
I have my lamp out and my knife in hand to do the "woman's work" to which the myth of Psyche points. I am eager to take the chrysalis of awareness and transform it into the butterfly of conscious living. Doing so, though, is, well, work...the work of my soul.
*For an extended discussion of the Myth of Psyche and Eros, see: http://www.peace.ca/mythofpsyche.htm
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