Nature & Spirituality – Page 2

CFS, Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health

Make Way for Compassion!!

August 21, 2015August 21, 2015 Diana

I think I’ve probably written this here before, but I’ll say it again: I don’t like to talk about my being sick. It feels like I’m making excuses or just complaining. I find myself extremely boring and self-conscious when I do. But it’s a fact of my life, so, in order to be authentic, sometimes, I just have to suck it up and do it.

This happened recently when I met up with a friend that I hadn’t seen in some 18 months. It was uncomfortable, but I decided to tell her a little about how hard the previous 6 months had been—that I’d been having trouble stringing together more than two okay days in a row. She paused, looked at me deeply and said with great sincerity, “Diana, that’s terrible.” I felt myself start to squirm in the face of this expression of true compassion. For that moment she had placed herself into the trenches with me, feeling the mud and the cold and all the nastiness. I was both awed and made uncomfortable by her reaction. I could feel my defenses starting to rise. Defense against compassion! I realized how ridiculous that was, so I deliberately attempted to relax into the feeling, dissolving the walls that thought they were keeping me safe, but were, instead, cutting me off from kindness. I tried to allow her compassion to wash over me, to touch the parts of me cowering in the hidden caves of my psyche.

A few days later, in conversation with a new acquaintance, the fact that I have health problems again came up in passing. With little information and without asking for more, the woman I was speaking to offered the same kind of compassion my friend had—open and encompassing. Again, I was awed, but this time, I didn’t try to brush it away. I just said, “Thank you.”

A week ago, I was able to “pay it forward”, so to speak, when the young woman who was dishing out the prepared salads at the deli told me she had been suffering from insomnia. When I expressed concern, she replied, “It’s okay. I’m young.” “No,” I countered, “it’s not okay. It’s lousy!” I don’t know if it made her feel cared about or, in any way, better, but we shared a smile that felt genuine and heartening.

These experiences taught me two things: 1) Expressions of compassion do not have to be longwinded or elaborate. They just need to be made with earnestness and presence. And 2) All the compassion in the world won’t do you any good, if you’re not willing to receive it.

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Nature & Spirituality

What Happens When Mindfulness Gets Twisted

August 12, 2015August 13, 2015 Diana

Somewhere along the way, I’ve gotten it a bit wrong.

I started practicing mindfulness about five years ago. I have found it so helpful—in falling asleep, in coping with difficult emotions, in enjoying small things in a big way. On my path to healthfulness, mindfulness has been my greatest guide.

However, during my studies in this vein, when I was learning about how desires so often cause suffering, and about how we take false refuges in food and drugs and busy-ness, and all of this was making a ton of sense to me, I started to tell myself that I shouldn’t want anything. Because wanting was, at best, unhelpful and, at worst, lethal. I began to read all wanting as dangerous—including any inner spurring toward the pursuit of joy or a well-lived life. This too, I decided, would cause the same kind of suffering as always wanting just one more cookie.

Somehow, I forgot that it’s not so much about desire, but attachment to how things turn out. I also forgot that it’s not just the body or the mind that wants things; it’s also the soul. And all the soul really wants is to express itself, in the words of a movie from 1990 title: Truly, Madly,(and) Deeply.

Our souls whisper different things to us. They give us dreams of being star athletes, successful bakers, or great parents. They tell us these things so that we may experience life to the fullest, so that we may share our light with others. And, yeah, we can distort our souls’ desires. We can become so attached to them that we begin to believe we are less than nothing if we don’t achieve them. We can become so consumed by their pursuit that we have little mind for any of life’s other beauties. But that doesn’t mean they’re not important.

I have spent quite a lot of my life—even before I started studying mindfulness—trying to make myself smaller, trying to quiet my soul’s messages, telling myself: these are things I should not want. After all, happiness isn’t getting what you want, it’s wanting what you have. Right?

On the other hand, as I start admitting my dreams to myself, as I begin to know that believing in them is not only okay, but right and proper, I find that I do want what I have. I want these dreams. I want the work they ask of me. I want the fulfillment they bring. Even if it doesn’t all have a storybook ending, I find that they are not bringers of suffering, they are deliverers of life.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with a friend, or even, subscribing. Thanks and have a great day!

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health

Lessons in Self-Compassion from a Little Grey Cat

May 8, 2015October 5, 2016 Diana

My cat looks up at me as I enter the room, hope in her slitted eyes. Luna’s half asleep, but there’s a chance, however tiny, that I might come down to the tan, shaggy rug and cuddle with her. “Meow?” she asks. “Sure,” I say, and lower my comparatively large mass to her diminutive form.

“Yes,” her nuzzles say as my fingers find her soft, grey fur. “Again. More.” And even, perhaps, “I love you.” I think she does love me, though I’m not sure what that means to a cat. Some have claimed that feline affection is merely a way of making sure there’s no interruption in the food supply. But, in my experience, she relies on much less appealing means to make sure I keep feeding her—those evermore demanding meows that tell me how mean and stupid I am that I haven’t yet figured out that she needs more food.

But, back to the petting: as Luna fervently swipes her cheek once more against mine, I think, “Well, if she likes me this much, I must be a little special. I must be really sort of okay.” I lean into the notion—though it’s a foreign action for me. I, like so many of us, have often felt it so much safer, easier, and yes, God forbid, more virtuous to think less of myself rather than more.

Last week, I listened to a dharma talk given by Tara Brach (a meditation teacher, psychologist, and author) that speaks to the idea that much of our suffering blooms from this source—the belief that something about us is not okay, sometimes fundamentally and irrevocably so. And the antidote to this poison is that we find compassion for ourselves in those moments when we feel that self-hatred. So, I ask myself, “Would you speak to your niece this way? Or to anyone you loved? Or to a stranger?” And then I can remember that I am someone’s niece and someone’s loved one and many people’s stranger, so really maybe there is room for self-compassion in my heart.

One of the quotes Tara related during her talk was from Rumi: Whenever some kindness comes to you, turn that way, toward the source of kindness. Lately, I’ve begun to pay more attention to my reflexive reactions in the face of kindness from another. The other day, after sampling a cake I had made for her, my mother informed me, “You sure are a great baker.” I can’t tell you how astonished I was to discover how ridiculously hard it was to say, “Thank you,” instead of “Well, I just followed the recipe,” or “It’s not like it’s hard,” or “Anyone can do it,” or “You’re just being nice.”

Instead, I tried to turn toward the notion of my goodness—not just the part of me that’s able at baking, but also the essential, limitless part of me to which I so rarely pay attention. I tried and—keep trying—to lean into a sense of kindness toward myself. I imagine myself like my sweet (and annoying) Luna, yielding her small head into the tenderness of my hand, knowing it is safe there, believing in my innate goodness, even when I am still unsure.

Please note: You can find a catalog of Tara Brach’s talks (all free) here or on iTunes. The one I have referenced here is from 4/22/2015 and labeled (Retreat Talk) Loving Yourself to Freedom.

🙂

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health

How to Do Nothing

April 24, 2015May 7, 2015 Diana

I first learned the term wu wei studying philosophy and religion in college. Taoism—from whence the term comes—held immediate fascination for me. The idea of not forcing anything in life held such an elegant sense, I could feel it down to my tiniest cells. But that didn’t make it any easier to practice.

A few years later, I explained to my therapist my understanding of the principle of wu wei. That it meant “do nothing”, but not really “do nothing”, just “do nothing” in the sense of, you know, not trying to make things happen in a certain way and stuff like that. She demurred quite forcefully. “No, wu wei, means, literally, do nothing!” I didn’t really buy what she was selling. Clearly, one can’t sit around “doing nothing” all the time and call it a responsible way of life. One needs to grasp the bull by the horns, pull oneself up by the bootstraps, win one for the Gipper, and follow any number of other effort-filled adages that lead to a successful, fulfilled life.

The only problem? I’ve tried that. Many, many times. And, yeah, if at first you don’t succeed, and all that, but there’s also the one about the definition of insanity being trying the same thing over and over, hoping for different results.

There is also this quote from the book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by famed Trappist monk, Thomas Merton:

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork . . . The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

The problem with the wisdom of mystics like Merton and Lao Tzu (the purported author of the Taoist text Tao te Ching) is that it is almost diametrically opposed to conventional wisdom. If you have a problem or, for some reason, don’t like your life, conventional wisdom states that you should figure out how to solve the problem, discover how to make yourself happy. You do this by making lists, by talking it over with other people. You make plans and plot charts, set goals and establish rewards. It’s all quite simple, you just have to make a decision and move forward.

A mystic, on the other hand, will tell you to stop. Right now. No, really. Just put your hands down, take a deep breath, and be exactly where you are. Don’t think about where you want to go. Don’t think about how you’re going to get there. Let that information rise to the surface in its own time. And the really annoying thing about this is that it feels like it’s TOTALLY the wrong thing to do. Your mind is reeling in free fall. “What do you mean I shouldn’t think about where I’m going? How will I get there if I don’t? ‘Cause I sure as hell don’t want to stay here!” But that’s exactly where you need to stay: right here. Wu wei. Do nothing.

Darn mystics.

Note: The picture at the top of this post is a scan from my pocket copy of Stephen Mitchell’s interpretation of Tao Te Ching. I highly recommend it.

🙂

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health, Writing & Reading

Making Lotuses

April 17, 2015October 4, 2016 Diana

It’s been one of those weeks. The kind where I made a hamster running to nowhere on his little wheel look good. It’s at times like these that I have to remind myself to embrace the mud. As the wonderful Vietnamese, Buddhist monk and poet Thich Nhat Hanh says, “No mud, no lotus.” So I will slather myself with the muddiness and muddled-ness of my actions and thoughts, and believe—know—that a lotus will grow from this mess—sooner or later.

As I was writing the last (first) paragraph, my mother came in and brought me a flawless white viola—the only plant to grow from a seed packet I bought her a year ago. It’s not a lotus, but it’s pretty darn special—and well worth the wait.

For more on exciting things coming out of decidedly grosser ones, check this post from a few years ago: An Ode to Compost.

Also, April being national poetry month and all, I encourage you to seek out some of Thich Nhat Hanh’s beautiful verse.

Thank you for reading.:)

Louisiana, Nature & Spirituality

The Poetry of Water Birds

April 10, 2015September 2, 2016 Diana

The goslings hatched yesterday.

Oh, how I have worried since I saw their mother sitting on her nest so close to our apartment complex’s drainage pond, that in the unforgiving torrents of southeastern Louisiana rain often rises up to swallow all the land it can find. I have wanted to remonstrate with her gander, as he cruised around territorially, daring anyone to disturb her sanctuary, but seemingly unconcerned by the dangers of hungry water. In the night, I have heard the waterfall pour down, and I have said a prayer for the little eggs under their mother’s belly. “Let them be safe. Let them not float away.”

They are floating now, little yellow fluff balls in a tidy line on the water, one parent in front, the other in back. They have joined their fellow pond denizens: the few big black ducks—a chorus from a Greek play who greeted us in the early morning darkness when we first arrived here. And the troop of male mallards—three of whom sometimes stand nonchalantly and, from my point of view, comically, on the cement wall surrounding their home. Other times they scurry gracelessly through the complex searching for food. Whoever said that ducks go quack? These do not. They mutter a low mat, mat, mat like so many absent-minded professors churning their great ideas in the open air, there being no more room left in their overstuffed minds.

Then there are the visitors: The great egrets, their beaks long, true, yellow spears, their impossibly white feathers waving in the wind like ceremonial robes. They strut slowly and quietly through the shallows, waiting for the right moment to stab into the water and toss their prize to the back of their throats to make the long snaking journey to their stomachs.

The great blue heron does this, too, but he is more stately somehow. Perhaps it is only his superior size, but no, there is something in his bearing that brings a certain otherworldliness to mind. His feathers seem to change colors to suit a whim. On a grey morning he may even become invisible, matching the air’s dusky complexion. On a bright day, he may be streaked with blue and white and black. Always alone, the heron is never lonely. His pose is unhurried, the long beard of feathers at his neck giving him the air of an old man thinking of times long past and great mysteries only mystics can contemplate.

More infrequently we the see the snowy egret—a fisherman down to his great, yellow rubber boot feet. And the lively, blue kingfisher—the lookout and the herald. Perhaps he is even now dispersing the news of the goslings’ arrival with his twittering, kissy call.

I am grateful for these birds and for the everyday poetry they compose simply by being alive.

Thank you for reading. 🙂

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health, Writing & Reading

Learning How to Trust Myself

April 3, 2015October 4, 2016 Diana

One of the things I love about writing are the little gifts—the spontaneous pieces of wisdom—that sometimes arrive from seemingly nowhere. Are they born of my (much) wiser subconscious? Or are they endowments from some outer source that chooses (thankfully) to take over my brain once in a while? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

What I do know is that when I was writing my first novel, one character decided to tell another, “. . . the best life is not one in which one struggles to be good all the time. It’s when a person believes in her own ability and desire to do good, and allows those positive actions to just happen on their own.”

This is a lesson I have been trying to learn for several years now. After college, I spent a summer flailing at massage school. I attempted to bolster my morale and failing health by making signs with construction paper and magic marker that said things like FAITH and TRUST in big block letters. At the time, I think I was telling myself to trust in God, but even then, I think I knew that that meant trusting myself as well. This was not an easy task as I knew what all I had gotten up to in my life. I knew the stupid things I’d done and the smart ones I hadn’t. And I didn’t feel very trustworthy. Older now, I can recognize good reasons for my actions and inactions—many of them related to being hopelessly human—and I can also see how in trying to do the “right” thing, I was getting it all so sorrowfully wrong. I got so constricted trying to get it right, there was no room for my creativity and love of life to breathe. I was strangling the very parts of myself that have the most to offer. I knew I needed to trust myself, but I couldn’t do that because I thought the only way to be trustworthy was to be infallible—something I am most certainly not.

But going back and reading those serendipitously generated lines reminds me that I don’t need to trust myself to be mistake-free or be ceaselessly industrious or know how to handle every problem in my life. What I need, is to recognize that even though I am human and prone to blunders, my desire to be a positive force in this world is real and that, if I let it, is likely to yield some surprising and delightful results.

Thank you for reading. 🙂

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health, Writing & Reading

Just a Moment

March 13, 2015October 4, 2016 Diana

Before I got sick in high school, I ran cross country and track. At the end of each season, there would be an awards night, invariably during which a slide show of pictures of the student athletes would be shown and Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time” would be played. I had already sat through a lot of these presentations during my older sister’s very successful running career, and I remember yearning for the day when my picture would be up there. More than that, I ached to fulfill the song’s message: to have that special moment “when I am more than I thought I could be”, so that I could “feel eternity” and “be free”. It didn’t have to be in running. It could be in whatever field I chose to pursue, but I was sure, with that silky, soaring voice egging me on, that, one day, it would happen.

I think a lot of us live this way—waiting for our lives to start. We train ourselves to do this with the stories we tell and the ones we consume. After all, how many movies or novels are there about someone living their lives from day to day as best they can? A few perhaps, but most of us find them unbearably boring. We crave adventure, love, excitement. We meet our favorite protagonists when they have been tasked with a great struggle and we leave them when they have found love or have met some elusive goal.

Don’t get me wrong, I love those stories. Heck, I’ve written those stories, but I think they, like the song, can confuse us about how we might want to live our lives. For a long time, I thought “One Moment in Time” was such a great, inspirational song—and it is. It tells us that through hard work and determination, we can become whatever we dream. And, history has borne this out. It can be true—but not for all of us. Sometimes we fail. Even when we try with all our wits and might and heart, sometimes we can’t capture the brass ring we believe will make our lives whole. And, I for one, would like to believe, that’s okay. As Mick Jagger has told us countless times: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need”. Our job, a part from trying, is to recognize what we need when it arrives. But here again, I’m talking about waiting. Living for some time in the future. For that time when I’ve lost the weight, when my body works the way I want it to, when I get this job or have that relationship. We put our attention on hold until that magical time when we feel like all our ducks will all be in a row and the euphoria induced by this knowledge will keep us sailing through life.

I’ve been frustrated again lately about my lack of outward accomplishment in this lifetime and haunted by fears that I will never have my one moment in time. And I realize that even though I am doing a lot of things to achieve my goals, a part of me is just waiting. Always waiting. And you know what? I don’t want to wait anymore. I don’t want to think of my life as unfulfilled because I haven’t won an Olympic gold medal or gotten a publishing contract. And, come to think of it, I don’t want just one moment in time—hoping and believing that that instant will carry me through the rest of my life on clouds of ecstasy. I am determined to have many moments—like when one of the little song birds comes for a visit on my window ledge, or one of my nieces gives me a hug for no reason, or noticing the crazy vivacity of acrylic paints. Or recognizing how beautiful my harp sounds even when I am struggling to learn a hard passage. Or feeling how just how soft my little, grey cat is when she comes to greet me in the morning. Or sensing the subtle trickles of honeyed relaxation that seep through my muscles whenever my mother touches me. Or remembering how grateful I am that my legs are capable of mobility, even when every step is painful. Or, or, or. The truth is I could go on for days.

When I was a kid and my family would eat something particularly delicious, my parents, both native German speakers (though different dialects), would instruct us, “You have to eat this mit verstand.” I instinctively knew that this meant it was so good, it would be criminal not to savor it, but the literal translation for the German is “with understanding”. We were supposed to eat with understanding, with gratitude, and with an attentive curiosity about what it was all about—every facet of it. That is how I would like to experience my many one moments in time. I don’t always do it—a lot of times I forget—but, I think for me, this is where eternity and freedom truly lie—in realizing the saturation of life in any sort of time—whether it be joyful or dull or difficult. These are the moments I am living for and that I am resolved to live in now. And if I get a publishing contract or somehow jump into an alternate universe and win a gold medal, I will endeavor to meet those moments with understanding, too.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health

I Shall Not Live in Vain

February 20, 2015May 7, 2015 Diana

Some days, being part of the solution does not come easily. I am tired. I am scared. I am in pain Or, I’m just grumpy. It’s on these days that I contract my expectations down to a single goal: to not be a part of the problem. On those days, I am not going to be doing any mind-blowing activism. Heck, I may not even be smiling at people. In fact, I probably will be in my bed, under the blankets, hiding—even from my cat. So yeah, no making the world a better place—and that’s okay, so long as I realize, that if I’m not careful, I might be making it a worse one. How? By telling myself—for whatever insidious reason—that I am a loser, a failure, a waste of space. By becoming a black hole of negativity that is just yearning to suck the light out of the rest of the existence.

On those days, I do my best to be kind to myself—if not for my own good, then for everyone else’s. I think it’s hard to argue with the notion that we are all connected. We may not understand the nuanced workings of those connections—if they are physical or psychic, or both, but whether we like it or not, we affect each other and all the other life on this planet as well. According to Chaos Theory, a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the earth can cause a hurricane in another part. So, if I, if any of us, abuse ourselves with nasty thoughts, even for one day, how much damage does it cause? And not just to those around us, but to the world at large? There are a great many sources of malice in this world and I don’t want to work against the good people who are making inroads against these ills. I hate the idea of adding—no matter how faintly—to the darkness.

In one of my favorite poems, Emily Dickinson writes:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain,

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

Which is great. A worthy way to live. But if I can’t do any of these things, then let me start my charity not just at home, but in my own heart. If I can’t be part of the solution, please, at least, let me not be part of the problem.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health

Real Work

January 23, 2015May 7, 2015 Diana

“This is the real work.”—my words to my mother as we sat the dining room table a few nights ago. I felt like I was about to spin out. I’ve been more tired this week and my tasks have become overwhelming. I was getting scared—and when I get scared, my body freezes in place, and my mind tries to run away. But this time, I didn’t want to do either if those things. I’ve been down those roads. I know where they lead.

Some years ago I had a dream in which I was walking in the woods near the house where I grew up. Traveling uphill on an autumn day, I enjoyed the colorful leaves decorating the trees. After a while a car drove slowly past, and it occurred to me to become nervous. Some yards ahead of me, the car stopped, and a man got out and hid behind a tree as if waiting for me. My inner alarm blaring, I turned on my heels intending to flee down the hill. But as I did, I saw a second man step out from behind the first, pointing a gun at him. Already in flight and frightened by what might be done to me, I didn’t stop to examine the scene any further. I fled down the hill and formulated a plan of where I might go to hide. Suddenly, I found myself swamped in cold water and snow. It came up to my waste or higher as I struggled to make my way through and escape the torture that seemed to pursue me.

When I related the dream to my mother at the time, she replied, “Well, you won’t like what I have to say about it.” “What’s that?” I asked, steeling myself for her answer. “What came to me is that you were supposed to witness, and instead, you ran away.” It’s taken me 10 years to figure out how she was right. Of course in a physical showdown, the most preservative thing to do is fight or flee, but this was my subconscious—no physical danger, just the warring of inner demons and gremlins. When you run from those guys, there is no escape. And going hand-to-hand with them is less effective than one might think.

Psychiatrist and mindfulness expert Daniel Siegel tells a story in his lectures about what happens when a person is bitten by a dog. Say the dog has its teeth clasped around your hand, your innate response is to pull away from the pain and danger. And the dog’s response is to strengthen its hold on you, clenching its teeth and digging them deeper into your flesh, thereby causing more pain, more danger. But, if you were to relax, and allow your hand to move further into the dog’s mouth—in effect giving your hand to the animal, its gag reflex will kick in and expel your hand from its mouth.

I don’t know if this is true in practice, but the idea, on an emotional level, is sound. That is why, as I stated here last week, I want to embrace my illness—as well as whatever part of me is healthy—and let it all just be as it is. Not that I don’t try to feel good, but that I don’t consume the moments of my life with conspiring or running away. I want to come home to my body, come what may, and know that I am safe here—even if it is painful and scary.

One of the many health practitioners I’ve consulted over the years once told me, “Be in your body. You want your body to be there for you, so you need to be there for it.” It has taken me at least 10 years to understand what that meant (Apparently my learning curve is a nice and gentle decade-long slope!). Now, even when I don’t feel all that good about myself, I remember that the organism that is my body is still beautiful and amazing—like a tree or a flower or so many of the other living things that I respect and cherish just because they are alive. I have spent so long running away from pain, but now I am leaning into it, paying attention, allowing whenever I can, for as long as I can.

And this is the real work I was talking about a few nights ago—being there at the dining room table and saying to myself, “I feel like I’m about to spin out,” and letting that be, without judgment and without trying to change it. These moments of sitting with difficult emotions or thoughts and not acting on them is some of the hardest work I’ve ever done. It feels so much easier to start howling, or throwing dishes, or binging on donuts or TV. But I know that if I do any of those things, the second I’m done, those thoughts and feelings will still be there—all the moldier and nastier for my having tried to ignore them. But if I stay with them, or as the Buddhists would have it, offer them a cup of tea, it gets better—maybe not right away and maybe not exactly in the way I think I want it to—but it does get better.