A Happy (and Sad) Birthday

Today I turn 39. It feels strange, this first birthday without my mom, unsettling. Someone is missing from the birthday equation. The entire last couple of weeks have been difficult — the light is shifting, the nights are growing colder, and the changes remind me of last year and the way her health began to deteriorate with the end of summer. I imagine autumn is going to bring even more of these memories, more grief I'm going to have to figure out what to do with, an unwanted gift that doesn't fit well, isn't the right color.

Ayurvedic wisdom advises bringing "a flame of awareness" to any emotion that needs to be purified — a flame that will ripen and cook it, liquefy it, and eventually burn it away. How much awareness this actually requires and how long it needs to continue I have no idea, but I suspect I've been simmering on something that needs more of blow torch. Or how about 39 little candles, 39 flames of awareness on this day of both Happy and Sad Birthday?

Missing my mom won't distract me from the many, many, many things I have to be happy about today. First of all, I'm taking it off from work and the weather is gorgeous, the sky cloudless, the air filled with the sound of late summer crickets. J is home too, so I'm not alone. Cards in pastel colored envelopes arrived in the mailbox this week, even a card from my dad who seldom remembers what month it is anymore, let alone anyone's birthday. An e-card found its way to my inbox from my sister-in-law-to-be in China. J and I drove up to Brattleboro, VT for the afternoon on Sunday for window shopping and white wine and wood-fired pizza and espresso creme caramel for dessert, yum. This morning he woke me up with a card and small gift and a handful of flowers from the garden - fern and drying globe thistle and a small sunflower. I'm looking forward to the year ahead, the opportunities it's going to bring.

Last year, like every year, I called my mom on my birthday. To make her laugh I told her about all the not-so-subtle hints I'd dropped to J about what I wanted him to get me (like this post, and yes, he did). "Well Mel" she said, talking to me from yet another hospital bed but suddenly sounding more like her old self, "Why don't you just hit him over the head with the thing?"

Ha! That's the mom I miss, always making us laugh with some straight-faced sarcasm, but every time I think of the way she said that I smile, a little gift in itself.

Hey, give me back that stuff I didn't want!

J and I spent today sitting in our driveway with some of our accumulated stuff strewn provocatively across a huge table. Old things found new homes, and it was fascinating to observe what people bought and why, as almost everyone had a funny explanation or story to accompany their purchase.

Our old dog crate was picked up by a man who had been mysteriously "adopted" by a tame cockateil that had landed at his feet one day, and whose owner he'd not yet managed to find. A woman took a piece of a vintage crate stenciled with "Product of Peru" for a friend who'd spent her whole life living in the nearby town of Peru. Our 80 year old neighbor fell in love with a McCoy planter shaped like a lumbering brown bear. A man who collects such things bought an old "Honest John's Yams" label. A string of vintage Christmas lights became a gift for a son who had just finished his summer's homework, two days before classes begin again. A man my age who remembered playing the game "Dark Tower" as a kid took it home for himself and is probably playing it again right now.

With almost every sale today I could sense the memories, nostalgia, and emotions driving it, as if I were watching a little movie.

I watched my own reactions just as closely. Most of these objects have been sitting in boxes in the attic for some time. Regardless, I found myself experiencing a twinge of attachment each time something sold, an emotion I've never felt after, say, dropping boxes of things off at the Salvation Army. Why?

Another thing I noticed is that whenever I got up from my seat and started touching or picking up objects, a car would slow down and stop. And when one car stopped, another would inevitably follow suit. Why?

I suppose it's because our interest in a thing is very often based not on our own need or desire for it but on other people's interest in it. Obviously in today's culture what's popular is desirable, whether it's a best-selling "must read" novel or a dusty old lamp from the corner of our own attic, ignored for a decade.

Oh, you like that lamp? You're actually buying it? Why am I not keeping it then, if it's so desirable? Am I missing something? Do you think I'm an idiot to be selling this lamp?

Wow. Despite the fact that the whole point of having a yard sale was to get rid of things I'd deemed as unnecessary or unwanted, witnessing someone else's interest in them made me second-guess myself. On the other hand, leaving a box of stuff at the Salvation Army is easy because one doesn't see anybody else wanting any of it. Fascinating.

I thought I was more immune to this mentality, and it was worth sitting in the driveway all day to learn otherwise. Not that it's anything to be ashamed of, but it's a motivation I'd prefer to be aware of.

All-in-all we did pretty well with the yard sale today, but at dusk I carefully packed up the unsold items. I'm going to drop them off at the Salvation Army this week. It'll be easier.

Tuesday night the cattle J and I have been looking after seemed restless. When we pulled up to the field and parked the car they emerged from the foggy, green horizon and lumbered towards us at a steady pace. J went boldly ahead, but I lingered by the gate as they approached and eventually turned tail and made for the "safe" side as they kept coming, lowing and mooing.

"Maybe it's the full mooooooon!" I shouted to J above the din.

The full moon may have been hidden behind clouds that evening, but I could still feel its pull, and so could the cows. According to the tradition of Ashtanga yoga, the relative positions and energies of the moon cycle correspond to the cycle of the breath. "The full moon energy corresponds to the end of inhalation when the force of prana is greatest. This is an expansive, upward moving force that makes us feel energetic and emotional, but not well grounded. The Upanishads state that the main prana lives in the head. During the full moon we tend to be more headstrong." (from here). When I'm feeling headstrong it's dangerous enough, but when horn-bearing animals with low IQs feel headstrong I prefer to stay out of the way.

All of this reminds me — did you hear that astronomers have discovered a new solar system, much like ours? And that our own solar system is even older than originally thought?

Did you feel the full moon effects this week?

People with More Patience Than I...

...can make intricate miniature masterpieces out of pencils.

To see more of these amazing little sculptures by Dalton Ghetti, click here.

Via: CraftGossip.com

Six Senses Sunday #63

See:
• A hawk and I startled each other during my morning walk. The hawk's perch clattered as he hurridly lifted off, but he didn't fly far and landed quickly on a low branch. We were perfectly within sight of each other for several minutes, until he swooped further into the woods.
• Rain makes the garden of potted annuals outside the front door vibrant
• Yesterday I saw J's maternal family tree traced all the way back to 1569 in Normandy, France.

Hear:
• The patter of rain drops on leaves, rocks, deck, puddles, roof...so relaxing. Today I'm going to curl up with a blanket and a book.
• Last week a friend sent me a wonderful new kirtan mix cd, which we listened to in the car on the way to NH yesterday

Taste:
• Warm whole wheat Indian flat bread (called paratha) drizzled with oil and garlic, tender chunks of homemade cheese cooked with nuts and a touch of cream in fresh herbs and spices, and whole chick peas cooked with spiced spinach sauce. I wish I could say I prepared these dishes, but the credit goes to India Palace in Northampton.
• Speaking of chick peas, I tried this easy, tasty recipe for Fried Chickpeas with Broccoli and Fresh Peas last week (substituting chopped up green beans from the garden for the peas).
• J marinaded some tempeh for me one morning and when I returned home from work I made a tempeh and potato hash type dish from the Chopra Center cookbook — the tempeh salty from all the Bragg's liquid aminos and the potatoes crispy brown in spots...delicious.
• Slightly green-tinged chocolate chip pistachio cake
• After losing all our tomatoes to Late Blight last summer this year's crop has more than made up for it in both quantity and juicy sweet quality.
• Last night I drank the Worst Tasting Thing I've ever had in my life: a warm tea made with powdered Triphala. The bottle should come with a warning label for the taste alone — this was so bitter it made me want to gag with every sip.

Smell:
• Northampton smelled like salt water on Saturday. I noticed the scent as soon as I stepped out of the car but didn't mention anything, and a while later J commented that the air smelled like "salt water and New York City." Maybe it was just the heaviness of the atmosphere reminding us of Manhattan.
• The damp earthiness of this rainy Sunday, blowing in through the screen windows

Touch:
• My body has being uncharacteristically uncooperative this past week or so. My joints ache and pop and crack. I feel a bit like a snap-together model dinosaur about to fall apart. I'll go to the doctor this coming Friday, to ease my mind, at the very least.

Feel:
• So sad for J's memere, without her husband of 65 years. The two of them were such lovebirds.
• Beginning to think about cozy things for the months ahead.
• Anxiously awaiting my yoga and meditation teachers return from vacation.

Light

Yesterday at work my phone rang just once. Giving each other one ring used to be how my mom and I found out if the other was home and available to talk. I glanced up at the phone as an unfamiliar number flashed and disappeared, then glanced at the clock in the corner of my monitor. 11:45 AM — the exact time my mom died, and here it was the 9 month anniversary.

Later on I slipped out of the office to take a little walk, and thinking of my mom again I began to mentally chant Akal. A funny little blue car caught my eye as it passed by in a line of traffic. "Happy Trails to You" was painted in black letters across the back of it.

"Until we meet again." I finished.

Several days ago I posted a link on my Facebook page to the Huffington Post article End of Life Brain Activity - A Sign of the Soul? written by Stuart Hameroff, MD and Deepak Chopra, MD. Almost immediately the following comment from someone I haven't seen or really heard from in decades appeared beneath it,

"Maybe for death fearing wishful thinkers. Give the cells awhile to all die off and unable to emit sporatic electro-chemical signals. If you find something then, we can talk Deepak (that guys a serious piece of work)."

Fascinating the people who will crawl out from the woodwork when you pose a thought-provoking question. Have I mentioned here how much I adore Deepak Chopra? I sometimes joke that he was my "gateway drug" to Sanatana Dharma and Ayurveda. So of course my first reaction to that comment was one of defensiveness — quickly replaced by understanding. Who am I kidding? I've struggled with skepticism my whole life. I probably wouldn't leave a comment like that anywhere, but I might have entertained a similar thought in the past. And admittedly I've had a lion's share of fear. Fear of death. Fear of the depths of my grief. Fear that life could be meaningless.

Rumi writes in The Uses of Fear:

A donkey turning a millstone is not trying
to press oil from sesame seed. He is fleeing the blow
that was just struck and hoping to avoid the next.

For the same reason, the ox takes a load
of baggage wherever you want him to.
Shopkeepers work for themselves,
not for the flow of communal exchange.

We look to ease our pain, and this keeps civilization
moving along. Fear is the architect here.
Fear keeps us working near the ark.

Some human beings are safe havens.
Be companions with them. Others may seem to be friends,
but they are really consuming your essence
like donkeys lapping sherbet. Detach from them,
and feel your flexibility returning.
The inner moisture that lets you bend
into a basket handle is a quickening inside
that no one is ever afraid of.

Sometimes though, it is fear, a contracting,
that brings you into the presence.

When my mom died fear turned out to be only the jumping-off point into an ocean of deeper experience, complete with the occasional warm spots of bliss and some shivery cold spots of struggle. Among other things I've been learning lately, one of the hardest lessons has been that a spiritual practice is not as passive and easy as I once assumed. On the contrary, it's pretty challenging on a number of levels. Regardless, I've found more than enough reasons to keep swimming than simply "I don't want fear pull me under." Fear already pulled me under, and I managed to pop back up to the surface, thank you very much. Can I produce hard scientific proof of the sort that would change the opinion of my commenting friend? Of course not. That's not what the quest is about. I'm not selling something. I didn't write a comment back.

I'll let Rumi have the last word.

What happens with longing and spirit is different.
Illumination comes, and there is no more considering
what follows logically or seems contradictory.

Light dawns, and any talk of proof
resembles a blind man's cane at sunrise.

How to Be Alone

I've seen this popping up on lots of blogs lately but it wasn't until this morning that I took the time to watch it. Really sweet.

Undying

The Sikhs chant the mantra Akal (pronounced "ah-call") when someone dies. It means "undying." Today I chant Akal in memory of my mom who died 9 months ago today, Akal in memory of J' pepere who died early on Monday morning, and Akal in memory of Eileen's dad who died yesterday.

I'm sorry I couldn't find a video/recording to embed in this post, but if you visit here and select "listen" you can hear Snatam Kaur chanting Akal after her brief introduction to the chant.

Who would you like to chant Akal for today?

Rural Life

This week we've been looking after our friend's Highland cattle.

Who sometimes bear a striking resemblance to Water Buffalo, I think.

This is Thor, the big black bull who I photographed from behind the safety of the fence.

And this is the newest addition to the fold.

I felt a little nervous being in the field amongst so many horns, but the cows were far more interested in their hay than in me.

With the exception of curious Xanthi.

Six Senses #62

See:
• J and the Giant Peach!
• Vixen night swimming, only her white chin visible above the dark water
• Zig-zagging around dozens of frogs jumping onto the road in celebration of the Sunday night rain
• An interesting rock propped on the wall outside the office today...

Hear:
• "We're really close to Jesus coming back to earth" overheard while eating out.
• "We'd like to offer you the job!" Ouch.
• A double cd of Ayurvedic Sutra chants
• The dog's tail beating a happy rhythm on the dining room floor

Taste:
• Tofu in a peanut curry sauce
• Tofu in tamarind sauce with pineapple and peppers
• Coconut juice on ice
• Tangy fresh Go Berry frozen yogurt, from local grass-fed cows
• Onion rings, a rare indulgence in fried food
• Salt water taffy
• Sun-warmed blueberries

Touch:
• Floating in warm lake water
• Finally figuring out how to move with the breath, a little
• Morning walk in gentle rain
• Plucking handfuls of ripe berries

Feel:
• Continuously wondering why people need to talk so loudly in public?
• Suddenly unable to handle the ridiculous amounts of caffeine I thought I was accustomed to
• Sad at having to restore my iPods factory settings, occupied by the task of refilling it with music I haven't listened to in years

Smell:
• Night air that smells like watermelon when I wake
• Pine pitch fingertips
• Lavender oil on the temples before bed

Time May Change Me

I woke up to change this morning — gray skies and drizzle, the thirsty garden drinking, spiderwebs outlined in droplets after many dry, sunny weeks.

Though I've settled down a lot in the past decade when I was a bit younger I used to place an inordinate amount of value in change, and with any chance to do so I would seize the opportunity to leap into the great exciting unknown. I would change my address and my hair color, change states, change jobs, change relationships as easily as slipping off a comfy sweater in favor of a glamorous dress. I would choose any and all change, for better or for worse, and deal with the repercussions afterwards (including, incidentally, some hair cuts that made me weep).

There's an adrenalin rush that comes with dramatic switches, followed by the challenge of re-stabilizing one's world time and time again. Part of me enjoys that. My mind needs to be grinding away on something constantly, "grist for the mill" my meditation teacher calls it. If a good challenge doesn't exist in my life I will create one to work on. This trait is neither good nor bad — I'm not going to admonish myself about it, but I am coming around to the realization that I can and should control the quality of grist I feed my mind in order to manifest change that's connected to my destiny and not just a horizontal leap-frog to a place and situation that, below the surface, isn't any different from the one I just left.

With that said, last week I made a difficult choice. I chose not to change something that part of me has wanted to switch up for a long time. I chose stability over insecurity. I chose something dependable over something that sounded fun but potentially fleeting. I said "no" to an opportunity I would have grabbed even a year ago. Though my work days are socially quiet and I feel disconnected from my environment, I chose to stay still with that quiet and disconnection for a while longer because it's teaching me lessons of vital importance — what I want and what I don't want, what I need and what I don't need. Where I'm currently staying is teaching me about where I need to be going.

Of course some doubts still troubled me once the decision was made and irrevocable. Did I fail the test? I asked J. Did I miss an opportunity that I was supposed to take? Then a friend expressed the question I myself was wondering, "Why did the universe dangle that carrot in front of you?"

Maybe the universe dangled that carrot to test my resolve in sticking to my quest, a journey that has absolutely nothing to do with working in a town with shopping, wonderful vegetarian food, street musicians, and a beautiful week day farmer's market (as lovely as all those perks would be, sniff). I didn't fail the test, I made a hard choice to stay focused on a longer-term goal, a radical transformation that's demanding all of my focus, rather than expending my energy on a shallow jump that could potentially throw me off course.

The (sometimes boring) stability that we establish in our lives allows us to simultaneously be grounded and stretch out into the unknown — for me this has meant taking time off to go on retreats, having enough money after bills for books and classes, having the mental energy at the end of the day and on weekends to study and write. In Anusara yoga this concept is called "rooting to rise," firmly setting the foundation of one's pose as preparation for the next principle, "opening to grace." Change isn't good, change isn't bad, but making a change requires energy — it should be worthy of the expenditure.

Now We Are Three

That's right, it was three years ago today that Secret Notebooks • Wild Pages was born. Three years feels like a lifetime ago, and in many significant ways it was. I began with the intention of "giving birth to myself" without realizing how significant that motive was to become when I lost my mom. I'm still trying to decipher who and what I potentially am and how to unfold, moving along the path of where I am now — which is my fate — to where I'm supposed to be — which is my destiny. Many of you are traveling the same road and I'm grateful for the company. The support, observations, and insights that you share here as well as on your own beautiful blogs keeps me going, both online and off.

We've traveled many miles together in three years, have we not? I thank you for that.

Abundance

Wow

This is how close to Krishna Das I was for Monday night's kirtan at the Zen Peacemaker's in Montague. No zoom necessary.

It was J's first time seeing him.

"Wow" was the first word out of his mouth afterwards. I can't really sum it up any better than that.

Woodstock, NY

Six Senses Sunday #61

See:
• the vanilla ice-cream cone shape of Hydrangea blossoms
• kitties enjoying the last drops of Kefir in a pint glass
• admiring the layered Berkshire hills while driving around lost
• waking in the middle of the night to catch sight of a rising red crescent moon
• an almost empty freezer - I sold the last of my meat to a friend today. It will soon be filled up again with fresh-picked blueberries.

Hear:
• beautiful kirtan with Guara Vani and As Kindred Spirits in Woodstock, NY last night
• clinking glasses, a toast with friends
• the crow of a Bantam rooster and the squeaky-wheel sound of Guinea hens. Our old neighbor has moved back in with her animals, providing us with an interesting auditory challenge, to put it politely.

Taste:
• Blueberry muffins and a thick slice of blueberry ginger cake from the A-Frame Bakery
• Spicy Chana Shaag and Navaratam Korma, Basmati rice, Poori bread, Lassi, Chai and rice pudding from Mountain Gate Indian restaurant
• Rice pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, garlic, and fresh herbs
• Watermelon dessert
• Sparkling Pomegranate juice

Smell:
• Patchouli-Rose oil
• Tibetan wool rugs
• sweet Sunflowers


Touch:
• my Pitta pulse bumping beneath my middle finger
• fingertips pressed so hard against the yoga mat they turn white

Feel:
• proud of myself for selling two old bureaus I wasn't using, simply by dragging them out to the end of the driveway with a "for sale" sign propped on top of them
• excited about the Ayurvedic correspondence course that should be arriving in the mailbox this week - a warm up
• a little confused by a major decision I may have to make soon, hoping that intuition will guide me in the correct direction when the time comes