Step Inside a Memory

Last evening I was watching Neil deGrasse Tyson's mini-series "Cosmos." My head always spins at warp speed during that program: my brain reaching to understand what he just said before he jumps Universes to another thought. (Thank goodness for commercials.  I am not sure my brain could handle 60 minutes straight with Tyson.) 

Somewhere in last night's dizzying episode, Tyson said something that so pierced me with possibilities that my brain didn't even try to figure out the point he was making.

"Step inside a memory." 

I truly don't know where the rock-star astrophysicist went with that, but I just moved into my own Universe.  What a really cool concept!  Stepping inside a memory.  If I could step inside a memory, I could go back to all the special moments and all the important people of my life, again and again.  And if I could step inside a memory, I might even get a do-over on the times that didn't end up the way I wished they had.  I'm liking this idea a lot.

Yet even as I revelled in the possibilities of stepping inside a memory, I realized that miracle already exists.  As human beings we have the incredible ability to travel through time at any moment through our memories and imagination. 

A friend sent me a link to picture on the web of something we did together almost 30 years ago, and it was just like yesterday.  When I stepped inside that memory, I could see the sites and smell the smells as if I were there today.

My kitchen walls are covered with photographs of travel to Italy, and I can...and do...gaze on one occasionally...and just drift back in time.  I can taste that wild boar with chocolate in the rich, rich sauce with toasted pinenuts as if it were yesterday.  (Finest meal ever, I think.) I can remember the tenderness of a gaze and the gentleness of a touch as if it were yesterday. 

I can remember vigorous political conversations after dinner with my father who has been gone almost 30 years now, and it's funny to think about it, but as I step into that memory, I recall his smell. A mixture of tobacco that had gotten into his skin from years of smoking and grease from the machinery he worked on, muscling up through the bouquet of Irish Spring soap.  I am not sure I've ever consciously thought about that before, yet the smell is in my memory.

"Step inside a memory."

Step inside a memory, indeed.  What an awe-inspiring...and ever present...possibility!

My Amazing Machine

This weekend I've been reading a book about my body.* I read a book about how my body works and what it needs at least once a year. I watch TV programs and read articles about health, nutrition, and exercise. I am always struck by what an amazing machine my body is. Of course, it's not just my body: we all have one, and they are truly remarkable.

When I was 10, my father almost died. He was 39. He almost died because of body neglect and abuse. He rarely exercised, and he consumed all matter of unhealthy fats and sugar.  He was significantly overweight at that point in his life. He had a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. A team of surgeons, experimenting with what was a new technique back then, put him together. His task was to keep himself healthy.

My maternal grandmother, who had always been interested in how we create health, took his health on as a mission. She read everything she could get her hands on, and she did a lot of research. My grandfather had been an organic gardener long before it had a name, primarily because he had limited financial resources, and his compost pile was less expensive than buying fertilizers. As Grandma read about creating health, his gardening took on new purpose. For almost as long as I can remember, I have understood that what goes into our bodies determines how healthy we are.

After almost a lifetime reading about my body, I have learned almost nothing new from this book. It is comprehensive, but so is my knowledge bank. Why, then, did I buy the book and spend most of my weekend reading it? And, why do I do so at least once a year with one new body book or another? Reinforcement and discipline.  Each author packages the information I know differently, so every time I read, there is a slightly different twist to what I know.  But there is more.

A friend once said to someone joining us for a meal for the first time, "Eating with Kay is an exercise in consciousness."  I don't think she meant it in a bad way. I don't have expectations that others will eat the way I choose, and I rarely talk about it unless I know someone shares an interest.  Most, who have eaten at my home, find what I serve delicious and satisfying, and many, if not most, would have no clue that I am serving "healthy" fare.  I think what she meant is that I really give thought to what I prepare, what I eat, and how I treat my amazing machine.  (She did ask if I'd leave her my recipes when I die.)

I read because, as conscious as I am, I slip into unconscious patterns.  I find something new I like, which is healthy, and I begin preparing that dish a lot.  I forget certain nutrients that were in dishes that dropped off my radar when I replaced them with the new recipe. Reading helps me remember.

For example, for much of the last dozen years, dinner has been some kind of spinach salad several times each week. I know that the dark green vegetables have remarkable healing powers, but about 18 months ago, I discovered a different, healthy salad with which I've been obsessed. I didn't even realize it until I read this book, spinach has taken a back burner in my eating.  That will change this afternoon.

This time I am also reminded of water.  I used to take a gallon jug to my desk with me each morning when I had a home office. I would drink the whole jug every day. My office away from home provides me access to filtered water, but I have to walk for it. I am sure I don't drink as much now as I should.  Besides having to walk to my water, I discovered a great new decaf coffee roasted locally, and I've been making and drinking more coffee instead of water.  If nothing more, this reading will bring me back to water.

I hope this reading will also get me back to regular exercise.  Since I don't have a car, I walk a lot, so I am not without exercise.  However, I exercised an hour a day, seven days a week, for much of my adult life.  As regular readers of this blog have heard before, the demands of my current and recent jobs have that number down to two or three times a week, and sometimes less, in addition to my necessity walking.  I make excuses, but the truth is that they are just excuses.  In my heart, I know they are just excuses.  I will make time for exercise.

My intention is to live a healthy life, and I know that is fully within my control.  My father, who almost died at 39, lived to be 65. I got an extra 26 years with him because of what went into his body--and more importantly, what didn't go in his body. I am sure if he had been able to break the cigarette habit, we would have had him much longer.  I have a deeply personal lesson in front of me.

Whether it is creating physical health or maintaining my spiritual practice, living with intention is a matter of constantly assessing how I am doing and what adjustments I need to make to bring me back to my target. (The example of this being at least the third time since I began writing this blog that I have refocused on regular exercise.)  So, at least once a year, I read a book about my amazing body, figure out what adjustments I need to make and make them. I am living with intention. The annual (or more frequent) aiming over process is one way that I respect the amazing machine that enables me to do all the things I love doing.



*The Body Book by Cameron Diaz (Harper Wave 2014.)


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Life's Little Miracles

Today I visited my balcony again, and, quite to my surprise, bulbs are shooting up everywhere. Where there were none yesterday, one was five inches high. I should have been able to see it growing if I'd been watching carefully. Many other shoots had burst through the soil as well, boldly forcing winter to yield to spring.

Intellectually, I knew this would happen; something similar occurs every year about this time. Yet every time it is a miracle unfolding before my eyes. My mind--my memory--cannot capture and recall the true wonder of it all. The best I can do is some kind of single-dimensional, black and white version of a 3D bursting with color miracle--a true miracle--that I experienced today.

Life is full of miracles--everyday miracles. Most of them are eclipsed by activities that distract us from the wonders around us.

Our bodies totally replace themselves every 13 months. Yet even as they do, we retain our uniqueness. Our bodies have the same peculiarities, aches, and pains, and I have the same mop of curls I've had since I was a toddler, yet every one of them is new each year.

Having coffee with a new friend consumes five hours like they were an instant. There is a magical familiarity though you never met before. A play date with an old friend unwinds perfectly and totally without conscious intention. Conversations with my college roommate always pick just as though we'd talked yesterday when it may have been a year...and they've been doing that for decades. When I think about them, all of these are miracles.

As a dancer, I've had dances with people that were other worldly. In one case a Viennese waltz unfolded so effortlessly and flawlessly that I am sure we must have been dancing that dance together for lifetimes. Although my partner and I danced together for seven years, that one dance stands out in my memory a dozen years later. In another case an Argentine Tango was pure magic with a partner I only ever danced with one time. A theater arts performance left me sure that I actually could fly.

Of course, the most perfect miracles are those of love: the pride of a parent at a child's accomplishment or the care of an aging parent who has become dependent on the child, who once depended on him or her. And, of course, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the equally miraculous gaze in the eyes of new love or the mellowed, appreciative look of matured love.

Everyone of these is a miracle. Too often the miraculous moments slip through a crevice in time, not unlike my memory of spring bulbs coming up anew each year. In tensions of other moments, the miraculous ones may totally disappear from memory. I regret that I have learned too late to savor those moments before they slipped away, many lost forever.

Yet there is a miracle greater than all if these, and that is being able to start anew each day with the wisdom gained in all the days before. Tomorrow I can start again with new appreciation for every miracle with which I am blessed and truly savor each.

All of these are truly miracles.








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Writing

In yesterday's post I wrote about coming to understand my practice of observing the Sabbath. ("What is work?" 3/28/14) The acting of writing helped me to determine what the observation of the Sabbath meant to me and to commit to an intention for how I want to live.

After finishing that post, I continued to ponder the gift my writing has been to me. (Pondering the big questions is a legitimate use of the Sabbath.) I've known for a long time that I used my writing to figure things out, but I am not sure that I fully understood until this morning that my writing is how I discover my intention for life.

In the instant that I had the thought that by writing I discover my intentions in life I understood for the first time the books I had written--I mean fully understood them.  Over 20 years ago, when I was well into writing the first draft of Leading from the Heart, I remember sinking into my chair as dusk had darkened my office and having the thought: "This is my Truth!" In the split-second that followed, however, two contradictory thoughts came almost simultaneously: "I've always known this," and "Somehow this is all new."

I think the act of writing had helped me know how to put my Truth into action--how I would attempt to live the rest if my life. I had somehow known my Truth before writing it, but I hadn't really figured out what that meant for a real world, day-to-day life.  Now, I want to be clear: I haven't gotten there yet. But like the practice of Sabbath, having a blueprint for how I wanted to live established a bar that I want to clear: it has become my intention for how to live.

As I reflect on it, The Alchemy of Fear and The Game Called Life were refinements to that intention.

When I began writing this blog last fall, I felt that I had lost my way. Intuitively, I knew that writing was the answer, and having an almost-daily blog would bring spiritual rigor and discipline that I desperately needed.

In describing how I write the blog to a friend, I said that I often didn't know what I would write until I sat, and words were coming. Then, the words just made sense as they spilled onto the screen. Given my intention in naming the blog "You Know In Your Heart," I should not be surprised that my writing has brought forward for shared examination what is written on the back side of my heart. ("Intention," 3/13/14)

Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile will know that I've been working in a memoir. Humbly, I think the writing has been some if my best, but it just hasn't hung together. With this new insight, I think I will be able to add structure that will help it to coalesce.

In The Game Called Life I wrote that we have three intentions for life: to perform special service to which we feel uniquely called, to learn lessons, and to fully develop and use our gifts and talents. As I have enhanced my understanding of my writing and probably my memoir today, I think I've done all three.

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What is work?

As promised when I wrote "Sabbath" (3/22/14) last weekend, since I chose to work on my Sabbath I am taking today off for that practice. I struggled as I wrote the word "practice" because for me Sabbath requires practice. Perhaps it is because this odd weekday Sabbath doesn't have any routines like getting up and going to church that I am much more aware of the state of mind required for Sabbath practice.

After working out of town most of the week and getting home when it was almost dark, one of the first things I wanted to do this morning was to check for signs of spring on my balcony. Although I left town in Washington's latest snow storm, two days of warmer temperatures had sent new flower shoots bursting through the soil, some already three inches high. I raced to my kitchen sink for water to encourage their growth.

Just as I was doing so, I was struck with the question: "Isn't watering my plants work?" Hmmm. Caring for these living things that I love brings me such joy, can that really be considered work? I have often experienced joy in my work for which I get paid, and I was pretty certain that didn't make doing my job appropriate Sabbath activity. I continued to water, but I was really present to the living things upon which I was showering not only water but love.

I came in and made myself my normal breakfast fruit starter of fresh fruit, and I realized that the preparation might be work, certainly the way I was mindlessly going about it I stopped, took a deep breath, and began mindfully slicing and creatively arranging the fruit in my plate. I felt that was the way I should do food preparation on the Sabbath. (I know the rabbis in the temple would probably say that we aren't supposed to do food prep at all on the Sabbath.)

Next I filled my teakettle with water to make tea. Once again I wondered: "Was this activity work?" About that time, I knew that I wanted to share my thoughts in this blog, but once again I was struck with the question: "Is that work?" How could soul-searching be considered inappropriate activity for the Sabbath?

As I often do as I've written, the act of writing has brought me clarity. That is how I ended up using the word "practice" at the beginning of this post. Although the rabbis in the temple may disagree, I have come to understand two things about my Sabbath practice that I didn't know when I awakened this morning:

1) I think that the Sabbath is less about what we do and more about how we do it. By slowing the pace, we can bring more consciousness to whatever we do, and I think the consciousness we are to bring is a state of godliness. For me, personally, that means holding myself in love, joy, and peace--states that make me feel at one with all that is.

2) I arrived at the word "practice" because I realized this really is the state of consciousness that I want all the time: Sabbath gives me time and a pace to practice this way of being so that maybe I will be able to live and work this way more
of the time in the other six days of the week. I even think that my realization will make me more aware of how I will live all the time.

Unless it rains, I will go for a walk this afternoon, but instead if just going for a walk during which my mind continues to work, my Sabbath walk will be practice in consciousness for the week ahead and a time to delight in being present to spring budding around me.




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Living Consciously

I was working with a group today, and since it had been over a year since they'd had a retreat during which they'd developed values and norms, we started with reflection on how they'd done at living them.

At one point a participant said, "We may not get it every time, but most of the time we stop and think."

Over the years, I've heard many people say something similar. I believe that stopping to think is the first step and most major hurdle cleared to living consciously. The moment we can break free from automatic thinking, or what I call putting our lives on autopilot, we are 3/4 of the way to making the right decision. If we know our intentions and are conscious, then most of the time we can act in accordance with them. It is only when we don't recognize that we are even making a decision that we have lost the battle.




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Guilt and Self-Forgiveness

Although I ended up working several hours on my Sabbath yesterday, it was not until late afternoon.  Both my pastor's message in the church service that I attended and the guests on "Super Soul Sunday" (OWN) provided me with much material for reflection.  Yesterday I wrote about the pastor's message which led me to decide that I really want a soft and open heart again.

Today, I'd like to share from one segment of "Super Soul Sunday."  Rabbi Irwin Kula was the guest "expert" with several guests, each of whom was dealing with significant guilt.  Kula, co-author of
Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life, talked about guilt getting us stuck and the value of forgiving ourselves.  When we wallow in our guilt, it is usually because we obsess on replaying the thing for which we feel guilty, attempting to replay the circumstances over and over again with "What ifs?" 

One of the wisest things that he said is that in order to move beyond our guilt that we must redirect the "What ifs?" into "What now?" or "What next?" His words really got me thinking. "What-iffing" is destined to frustrate us repeatedly because there can never be a satisfactory outcome.  No matter how many ways we replay the past, there is no way to change it; there can never be reality in any of the alternatives that we imagine.  The past is the past, and nothing can really change it.  The only place to make change is now.

Mostly, I've lived my life without regrets but there are three things that really bug me.  I have been guilty of what-iffing...for years, even decades...thinking that if I imagined the perfect combination of events that somehow, like magic, I would be transported in time back to the event for a do-over.  There are no do-overs.  Yet over and again, I've been unable to pull myself out of the do-over mentality.

In each case, I did the very best I could do with what I knew at the time.  No matter how many more resources I have now or how much more I know, it doesn't matter. Although it seems like I've spent lots of time grieving, I may need some more conscious grieving. But, my real work now is to focus on the "What now?" and "What next?" The time has come for forgiving myself, so that I may move forward.

I've often said that the biggest regret in my life is my inability or lack of resources to have saved my marriage and to have hurt the person I loved most in the world (still do) in the process.  I have grown a lot.  Now I can actually see what I could have done differently, but I couldn't learn that without having been where I've been in the last 20 years.  Not only are there no do-overs, but if we could, we couldn't employ resources that we didn't have at the time.

While that is clearly my biggest regret, as I've reflected over the last 28 hours, I think I have much more guilt over the failure of my business.  Actually, it isn't the failure of my business that has caused the guilt, but what happened because of it.  Many people think that the best entrepreneurs are those who have had at least one business failure.  One of my clients--a multi-millionaire in the hundreds of millions--had experienced several business failures, along with his several huge successes. 

Knowing this, I don't beat myself up too much about an economy that went bust at the time current events cut deeply into another revenue stream and just as my publishing house closed the part of the business which published two of my books.  I had been very prudent about having multiple revenue streams and months of retained earnings to carry me over the bumps.  Mostly, I just shrug about that: there really was nothing I could have done to change those circumstances that I hadn't already done.

What makes me ache about my business failure is that when I lost everything, I lost a small nest egg that my father had left me.  My father worked very hard to provide for his family and to send me to college.  I can remember many long days in even longer weeks of doing pretty physical labor.  Quite frankly, I don't know how he did it.  My parents were frugal and good savers. The owned everything outright with no debt. All that hard work and frugality allowed me to start my business and take time to write three books in the first place.  I am truly grateful for those opportunities, and at the same time, it makes me ache that all my father's hard work just evaporated. 

I have serious guilt about losing that money.  In my "what ifs?" about this, I've even imagine having a conversation with him, hoping that somehow if he understood it, I'd feel better.  The truth is that I don't think he would ever understand it.  He wouldn't blame me, but I am sure he would have a very difficult time understanding me being entrepreneurial instead of working at a more conventional job.  "What-iffing?" will never change that.

Finally, I've ended up later in my career in a dead-end job that has been financially devastating to me in the wake of my business failure.  I took a huge pay cut to take a job that I thought would allow me more upward mobility, as well as the opportunity to sleep in my own bed on weeknights.  That was just as the Federal government went into a three-year pay freeze, and now that we've gotten a whopping 1% increase when local cost of living has gone up way more than that, I've netted enough each pay period to buy a latte at Starbucks...if I don't buy a vente.  To add insult to injury, the work environment has been toxic.  Water under the bridge.  I made the move.  It is good resume material, and I have gotten to sleep in my own bed every work night since I took the job...until tomorrow. (A sign?)

The time has come for me to grieve my losses and move on.  The past is the past.  Populated by ghosts, it isn't a good place to live.  I even think it may have had something to do with the hardening of my heart about which I wrote yesterday.  Yet, I don't want to be glib about this.  I plan to set aside a time for a grieving ritual, and then, I think, literally plant some seeds to remind me that, when I plant for the future, something can actually grow. 

Rabbi Kula said that forgiving is not forgetting.  I believe that forgiving is how we free ourselves.  I've written in the blog before about forgiving others.  Now it's time to forgive myself.