SacredSpace

The Second Half of Breathing

2007-01-25T14:12:00.000-08:00

Today has just been one of those days. I kept running into...inspiration. And not having a clue what to do next.

Ordinarily, this would not seem to be a problem for me. I have spent too many days of my life wandering around in deep funks, fogs, and pits of despair. During these times I would long for just a tiny bit of inspiration to get me going. Just a little spiritual kick in the pants to get the energy moving.

Today I just found moment after moment of "Oh! And I could do this!..." "Oh! Or I could do that!" "Oh! And what about this??..." It seems like all those books and workshops and CD's on manifesting have all done their job and my life is popping up daisies and roses and lake-side properties in Canada just waving hello and calling out, "Here we are!! Just like you asked!" (OK, to be fair, I don't remember the Canada part, but I wasn't very specific so...)

Oh...the problem? Well, inspiration after inspiration after inspiration ends up leading me to do little more than hold my breath. I forget to participate in the second half of breathing....exhaling. Letting it out, letting it go. That is the part of the cycle of manifestation that I so often forget. It is here and the Eternal is now asking of me: Are you as willing to let it out as you are to let it in? This is the question of the Still, Small Voice that is neither insistant nor resistant. And so may I learn to be through the stilling of my mind, the quieting of my heart, the small moment of breathing out and letting all be at peace.

What's New?

2007-01-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

All things new are being reviewed, considered, vowed. Re-solutions: The opportunity to look at the ways of reacting and inter-acting that did not work in the past and revise, re-think, repair them.

At this dawn of the year 2007 I wish you all that you wish for yourselves. May you be well, may you be at peace.

"There is a gap or space between stimulus and response, and...the key to both our growth and happiness is how we use that space."—Viktor Frankl

Questions Seeking Answers

2006-12-27T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some intriguing questions that you might ponder as you continue on your journey today...

*What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

*What would you want if you knew you didn't have to be unhappy about not getting it?

*Imagine you are at your own funeral. What do people say about you - not from the pulpit but in whispered voices at the back of the room? What would you like them to say?

*What would you do with your money if you had all you could ever need?

*How would you live your life if you knew you were going to die feeling perfectly healthy in five years?

*What would you feel you've missed if you found out that you had 24 hours to live?

*Imagine you are on your deathbed and you have had a wonderful life. What are the four or five things you are most glad that you did?

(questions courtesy of geniuscatalyst.com)

Love and Learn

2006-12-15T15:37:00.000-08:00

At 12:31PM this afternoon a beautiful woman lost her life to a long dance with breast cancer. I had the great honor of being able to share the last few days of her life and death with her. She will forever be an angel and inspiration for me. Her name is Wendy Matlock and her courage and gusto for living was only upstaged by her courage and grace in dying.

Wendy was an amazing force for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Please consider a donation to your local breast cancer center to help find a cure.

The lyrics of the following song came to me from her as I left the hospice and was heading home. I offer them to you because I believe they encompass the way she lived and provide an excellent example of how to understand that all of life is grand and glorious in it's living.

**************************************************

I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles(chorus)

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears
Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn
You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn

(lyrics from "You Learn" by Alanis Morrisette)

Christmas Wonders

2006-12-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

Love Christmas? Hate Christmas? Not sure exactly what to think about the whole thing?? Well, you wouldn't be the first or be alone. The following is the summary of a television Christmas special which attempted to do something "a little different" to honor this holiday:

A Muppet Christmas with Zbigniew Brzezinski (1978)
A year before their rather more successful Christmas pairing with John Denver, the Muppets joined Carter Administration National Security Advisor Brezezinski for an evening of fun, song, and anticommunist rhetoric. While those who remember the show recall the pairing of Brzezinki and Miss Piggy for a duet of "Winter Wonderland" as winsomely enchanting, the scenes where the NSA head explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen was incongruous and disturbing even then. Washington rumor, unsupported by any Carter administration member, suggests that President Carter had this Christmas special on a repeating loop while he drafted his infamous "Malaise" speech.

Nine more howlers like this, including a particularly awful Star Trek episode and a stab at a swinging swinger Santa, can be found at: "The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time."

Goals and Gains

2006-11-28T12:06:00.000-08:00

And so it is done! At 3:57 PM yesterday I typed "The End" and found myself with 50K + 71 words of a complete novel. All the major plots and subplots were sketched out, the main characters were developed, and their relationships to each other were at least outlined if not fleshed out.

There wasn't much fanfare with the finale. I wondered around the house. In the living room I encountered four sleeping cats. Two of them raised their heads when they saw me, the other two just lifted open an eyelid.

"I'm done! I won!" I said and raised my arms in the air touchdown like.

They just settled themselves little more deeply into their respective beds then they all went back to sleep.

During this month friends have occassionally asked, "So, what is it that you get when you win?" To which I had to keep answering, "Nothing." And that is the whole point, as far as I'm concerned. You win no thing in doing something like this. The little certificate above is a file you download. You fill in your own name and then you can do with it what you will. What I "won" was watching myself be consistent and committed to something I had never done before. I developed the stamina and backbone to write something even when the scene I was facing was two characters in chairs facing each other and I had no idea what they were going to say to one another. I kept daily word count goals even when I found it hard to do. I managed to do this in the midst of work, home life, attendance at a conference in Seattle, and Thanksgiving.

And here was the most important thing I did all month long. When I typed "The End" and saw that I had passed the 50K mark, I simply stopped. I had completed what I set out to do.

There is a verse in the Tao Te Ching which reads:

Better stop short than fill to the brim.

Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.

Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.

Claim wealth and titles and disaster will follow.

Retire when the work is done.

This is the way of heaven.

This speaks directly to the cautions of trying to acquire fame and gain for oneself. The Buddha was very clear that seeking recognition and glory is one of the surest ways to find suffering in your life. It leads to jealousy, greed, competition (and therefore setting oneself to be better than another.) I never felt the need to be in competition with anyone else. I had my goal and when it was reached I put down the pen. I can pick it up any time I want to in the future when/if it seems good to begin to edit. In this way I do not feel burnt out, stressed out or anxious. Knowing when to stop is as valuable as knowing when to begin.

For now, what is good to do is come back to my life as it is, catch up on housecleaning, cootch my kitties. I am deeply grateful for this experience and yes, I'll be back next year!

(Lynn's novel, "Touching the Velvet Elvis," was fueled by vast amounts of caffeine in many forms and by the good folk at pandora.com and their awsome online radio station!)

Heading Toward the Finish Line!!

2006-11-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

Woo Hoo!! Yes, boys and girls, I'm less than 1200 words to the finish line of this year's novel writing challenge!! I figure that I will cross it with flourish by tonight. I'm having a blast going neck and neck with some of my NaNoWriMo compadres here in town. I'm savouring the moments here at the end as I see it in sight and I'm not really in a hurry to cross. When it's over, it's going to be over. Sophia, Delmer, Helene, Harley and Dane will have come to their combined resolutions and will begin to fade from my consciousness, while the reality of my here and now will take up clarity once again. It's been fun and lots of lessons have come my way during the process. Truly the journey has been far more important than the goal.

Nevertheless, stepping over that finish line is going to be cause for celebration!

...It Continues...

2006-11-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

Ten days into NaNoWriMo and I have discovered that there may not be enough coffee in the known Universe to sustain my effort. If I weren't so tired I'd grow the beans myself.

But tired I am. Oh, sure, the normal writing of the 1667 words per day needed to keep on track doesn't take too long. Maybe an hour and some. That's if you have some idea about where you're actually headed with the thing. And if your main character doesn't all of a sudden decide to explore Istanbul and you have to scurry off to Google the place and try to figure out what's there. And if the procrastination demon doesn't drag you all over the internet in a sudden fury of needing to read blogs and myspace and the weather sites and the music sites etc. And, of course, that's if you all of a sudden don't have this incredible passion for housecleaning. Given all those "if"s the 1667 words might actually take you about 12.75 hours to write. Or more.

And, in the end, I'm having a hoot and a howl because it's so much FUN!!

It Begins....During a Dark and Stormy Night...

2006-11-01T20:54:00.000-08:00

Midnight was the watching hour for the start of National Novel Writing Month!! 50,000 words in 30 days, kids! 70,000 would-be authors sent fingers flying across the keyboard starting lines as the bells tolled.

This is my first year and I'm already having a blast. This is insane in all ways but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Certainly good for the old discipline muscles.

So, if you'll excuse me, I have these voices in my head....

Enlightened Activism

2006-10-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

As I do in my daily practice, I have avoided using this blogsite to discuss the issue of politics. In my experience it is a topic so emotional for most people that conversations around the state of the nation often get mired in destructive, divisive thinking. This only serves to create and perpetuate the sense of separation from others which can only lead one to a misunderstanding of why we are here at Earth School.

However, I am taking a little detour from my own rule because I have found this to be a truly worthy cause which is promoting understanding and unity. They are well organized and getting national recognition currently. There is a particularly excellent speech by Marianne Williamson in which she notes that the time to advocate for a U.S. Department of Peace and Non-Violence is right now, when no one believes it can be done. They provide many options for ways to get involved.

Please take a moment to look at their website if for no other reason than to uplift your spirit in knowing that, during this time of turmoil in our nation's history, there is a very bright light of peace and goodness burning.

LOVE

2006-10-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

It Just Is

This posting goes out with deepest bows and gratitude to my mother, Ethyle Beatty Mortara, who would have been 82 today. May the merit of this blessing go out to all beings who are suffering, especially those suffering from the complications of diabetes. May All Beings Be At Peace.

The Pain in My TOE!!

2006-10-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

I woke up with it early this morning. Throbing, pounding pain. It is being created by a hard lump of unidentifiable "stuff" lodged under my skin on the inside of my right big toe.

I have no idea what it is. No puncture to indicate a poke or bite of some kind. There is swelling (hence, "pain") but no discoloration. No warning of its arrival. It is just showed up and I do not have any more information about it other than a) it has arisen, and b) it is abiding as we speak.

Now, given the teaching of anatta, or no permanent existence, there will be a "c)" to follow: this too shall pass. Small comfort. In the meantime I meditate on the frailty of the human body and the unbelievably sharp, tight focus on the present moment that living with big toe pain offers as an opportunity to practice every bleeping moment meditation. And uncomplaining, all acceptance.

Sort of. >:~(

Monks Don't Dance

2006-09-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

This was a delusion of mine for a very long time. In the tradition I trained in, monks do not dance. I was taught that dancing was a distraction from training. However, to my complete delight, I have discovered the error in my training. Oh yes, indeed, monks DO dance! In prayer and with joy. Here are some splendid examples from different traditions.

DANCE YOUR PRAYER INTO THE WORLD

(All photos except Roshi Joan Halifax courtesy of Google Images. Photo of Roshi Halifax courtesy of Upaya Zen Center)

Nothing Real Can Be Threatened....

2006-09-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

In the text "A Course In Miracles" there is an exquisite saying: Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God."

I have worked very deeply with this truth over the past two weeks. My hospice work is getting fuller and richer.

One patient is a wonderful man in his 90's whose wisdom in spiritual matters astounds me. I literally sit at his feet because he has trouble holding his neck up in order to look at me while we converse about God and he shares his favorite scriptures from the Bible with me. One day I was blown away at the complete appropriateness of this form. He is a great teacher. He is a devout Seventh Day Adventist.

Another man is the caretaker for his wife who has very advanced Alzheimer's. He is well into his 80's and struggles with his own limitations of aging but cannot bear to send his wife away from her home. They have been married for over 50 years. Now, she looks at him with incomprehension and tells him that she scares her. When he smiles back at her it is a smile that breaks my heart. He shares his Mormon faith with me and I let him say all he wishes to say. He is not trying to convert me. He is trying to hold on to the only anchor he has.

Within all of this I come to a deeper faith and stillnes about my own beliefs. What is real about my interactions with both of these men is that we cherish our faiths and therefore, not feeling threatened by the other, we are curious about each other and can share our common ground. Our faiths embrace and all that is unreal; the differences and fear that divide people from each other; melts away in the light of common respect and gratitude.

Herein, indeed, lies the Peace of God.

^$^%&!!!

2006-08-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

Been that kind of a day.

The Fruits of Training

2006-08-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

My garden has exploded and I have become an urban farmer. Plums, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, apples. All of them have decided to ripen simultaneously.

This Buddha statue sits beneath my plum tree. I have watched it sit serenely as plums fall around it all day long. I reflect upon the fact that often I feel that my efforts in training are fruitless. Yet, if I truly look into my life with the eyes of a Buddha I see that, indeed, the fruits have ripened and lie all around me. They are there, but remain neutral. They do not shout out at me to see them, harvest them, make use of them. They lie there and it is up to me to extend the further effort to gather them and partake of them with gratitude. However, if I do nothing with them they will simply lie there, continuing to ripen then rot. Becoming food for ants and wasps and squirrels. Or simply turning into compost to feed the source of their birth, growth and death. Nothing wasted.

This training is a wonderous thing and I am deeply grateful for the lessons of the Dharma which come from simply living this extraordinary, ordinary life.

Happy Father's Day!

2006-06-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL OF YOU LOVING AND HARDWORKING FATHERS!!

Thanks so much to all you dads out there who have done what needs to be done, played the silly games with us, and gave us kisses even if it didn't seem the manly man thing to do.

I dedicate this message of love and gratitude to my own father, Henry Mortara, and to my son, Ian (pictured with his own son, Austin). Ian, you are an AWSOME DAD!!

The Size of Life and Death

2006-06-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

"She thinks of how much more space a being occupies in life than it does in death; how much illusion of size is contained in our gestures and movements, in breathing. Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest." From: "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham (1998)

I remember standing at the side of my father's coffin, looking down at him, and wondering when he became so small. I think I always carried the child's-eye view of him with me -- the one that remembered the bigness of him. Yet there, in that box, I realized, for the first time, how little space he truly occupied. What was so large, almost larger than life, was, indeed, the aliveness of him.

Now that I am working in hospice I see this again and again. The body comes down to very little. I few feet long, a few feet wide. I have garden beds that occupy more space. Yet, I can always sense that there is this enormous aliveness no matter what level of consciousness the person before me may currently be in. Each person's life is vast but our bodies are really so very small. When death comes where does that vastness go? Into the memories of those we leave behind? And, over time, as those memories fade, what, then, is the true size of our life?

Born Enlightened

2006-06-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

As I have been taught, we are all born enlightened and then begin the process of forgetting that this is our true nature. We experience suffering early because, as the first Noble Truth states, life is suffering. The mind interprets our suffering as indicating a failure somewhere in our universe and we start to label ourselves negatively. Thus the layers of greed, anger, frustration, delusion begin to cover our True Nature.

Our True Nature is what we see right here in this exquisite photo. I believe that somewhere, sometime during everyone's journey here on Earth School we all have moments where we reach out and become our fully enlightened Baby Buddhas and we begin to peel those layers back to our sweet, soft, innocent and divine essence. Pat your belly, laugh with pure joy, wiggle your toes in the grass. Remember....

(Photo courtesy of Great Vow Zen Monastery)

The Teacher Becomes the Student

2006-05-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

Herein lies my teaching for the day:

This morning I went over to my son, Eli's, site and got the opportunity to read his latest blog entry. As I began to read I became quickly disoriented. Who wrote this?? My son?? Wait, wait wait...

As I continued to read I let go the mom thread and read some very deep, moving and insightful commentary about a life explored. There were questions asked but not necessarily answered. There were dilemmas noted that found a voice. There was a resolution at the end that found it's way to a frog, a lizard and the evening grass.

Within it all I found resonance with some of my own life and I found myself nodding in agreement. When I was done I had to laugh a little because a scene from my dream last night came to mind: a priest is talking to me and he suddenly leans over and stares at me and gets very intent and asks in a hushed tone, "How do you know about Immortality?" I laughed because I figure that the next time this priest looks me up in Dreamtime I'm going to tell him that everything I know I learned from my son.

Some days it's just good to let yourself go down the rabbit hole wearing a grin.

The Hardest Thing

2006-05-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

Over the course of my life I have often been asked about, or refered to, the hardest thing I have ever done. I used to say it was being raised as an abused child and surviving. Later, it was raising my kids as a single parent, and then it was giving up everything and leaving the world to enter the monastery. That was followed by the event of leaving the monastery and having to re-enter the world and re-create my life as a lay person.

This morning's meditation revealed the truest thing that I have done that has, in the end, actually been the hardest. To change. All of the events above have really been simply the context for change within. Looking hard at myself, looking hard at my mistakes, my flaws, my fears. To be willing to transform my greed, anger and delusions into Compassion, Love and Wisdom. The hardest thing I have ever done is still the hardest thing I am doing. And it will be the hardest thing I will do in the future.

And I am willing.

Seeing is Believing?

2006-05-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

Summer nights are so exquisite for lying on the sweet grass and gazing toward the dome of the heavens above. Stars and planets cast their glittering light into the vast, deep night. We sigh with the beauty and try to count them.

The next time you enjoy this restful past time consider this -- a percentage of the stars that we see shining are a mirage of the past. Although our eyes swear to us that yes, indeed, there is a star, and there is a star, many of these seeming realities have long, long ago burnt out and faded from the universe. That which our senses tell us to be 'real' is not. It is simply an illusion of the dead past co-existing with the present.

What else in our lives do we swear to be true that is nothing more than a dream of a star from the past?

Just What Mother Always Wanted!!

2006-05-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Although a bit early I would like to take a moment to thank all the moms out there for their hard, hard work, their dedication to a job that does not hand out degrees or diplomas when you graduate (if a mom ever graduates), and their selfless sacrifices made in the context of everyday living.

Our local paper ran an ad for a fancy salon's Mother's Day special. One of their spendier packages promised, among other things, the following:

"A Champagne and Caviar Facial" and "A Decadent Lunch with a Rose"

While I would personally prefer to consume that champagne and caviar, I think a rose would be a superb listener....

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Call of the Han

2006-05-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

The han is a wooden block which is located outside the meditation hall. It is struck approximately 10 minutes prior to a meditation period. I have always had a love/hate relationship with this particular instrument. When I was the one behind the striking mallet I loved it. When I had to endure the often ear-splitting crack of it, and I was late, tired, frustrated, or wanting to get that 'one more minute' of work done on some project of the moment I simply abhored that sound.

Somehow, despite my best ego-will, that sound has gotten into my blood and bones. I miss it when I do not hear it here at home. Somewhere along the Way it ceased to be a marker of time and became a call, an invitation, from the Eternal to drop the worldly ways and mind, to come back to our true home, our place of rest.

In the end, that very invitation is beyond sound and we learn to hearken and respond to it with the Eye that hears and the ears that See.

Cool Times

2006-05-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

This morning during meditation I realized that I had come to a 'cool' point in my training. These times are experienced as very flat and almost lifeless to some people. Some would say that they are 'stuck' because usually our training is experienced in some difficult way as we struggle with our issues, our karma arising. We are twisting in the wind with our feet to the fire. No, not fun at all, but at least we are aware of movement of some kind.

In the cool times we find there is often little besides ordinary life to attend to and our experience of our emotions is often 'dead'. We are not even really depressed...there is just a 'nothing' to life. It seemingly lacks impetus and motivation. Many people, myself included, find these patches of training often more difficult than the fiery times. There appears to be a disconnect to, and disinterest in, our lives and ourselves. Sometimes there even feels like a disconnect to the Eternal. We seem to be adrift in a void.

My teachers were always very candid and acknowledged that they, too, had their cool training times. Some of them still went through these even after 30 years. The way to train through them is just the same as with all other training: sit with it and know that it is impermanent and change will come. And, as with all other moments in our lives, continue to practice with uncomplaining all-acceptance and the attitude of gratitude.