This Stuff of Heaven

This summer felt like just another summer with just another Powell trip. I’d been to Lake Powell a gazillion times, dating back long enough to memories unremembered.

And over the years, the lake had somewhat lost its lure.

Like New Yorkers who apathetically pass by supernatural skyscrapers each day—

or Parisians peering out into the landscape, seeing beyond their iconic Eiffel Tower—

or Californians who no longer detect the briny, beachy air they breathe.

Like them, I had become impassive about a place, remarkable in its offering; I’d ignored the powerful immensity and native spirit exhaling from that lake.

But this year, this summer, I woke up. I saw Lake Powell as it was. My prosaic familiarity changed into awe, awe for the lake, awe for the change it created in me, and also reverence and gratitude for the change it allowed within those whom I call my best friends – those whom I love most – my family.

All of us arrived already exhausted, weary and on-edge. All of us struggling with the typical life rigor of providing for bare necessity. All of us striving to hone ourselves and our children, ardently attempting to refine and become better. And most especially, all of us with our unique infirmities, weighing on us so individually –

My sister-in-law, learning to navigate life as a new widow, without my brother. And the relentless strain of raising 4 little-ones all alone, with all the anxiety, and all the exhaustion, on top of all the grief.

A close brother, open about being gay, and apprehensive about how he is being received, and fearful how the religious chasms lingering between him and his loved ones might alter their relationships—

Impeding health scares, threatening test results, bodies waning, pulled down from the gravity and heaviness of life.

Brothers and husbands and sisters and wives and parents, all stricken with unique physical, mental and spiritual ailments, in manifest as we grow older. All of us trailing difficult histories. And all of us clenched with particular anxieties and worries about the imminent future.

And with our particular load, or perhaps in part of our individual pain, there felt a wedge, a wall around each of us, the wall pronouncing, “All of you don’t understand how hard and rough and relentless life has been for me.” Each one of us eager to feel validation for our personal life struggle.

But as the days went on, I noticed a sort of mutation occurring in all of us. The lake and the red rock and the sun (and the lack of cell service) seemed to cleanse us of all that exterior load that had been so suffocating. That wall, that wedge had dissipated, dissolved of its divisive forces, as if the lake itself possessed a quiet power, gradually absorbing our anger and our hurt.

And we were left standing as we were, real in our vulnerability, and somehow freed from the laden stones weighing previously upon us. It became suddenly so clear, so easy to see each person authentically, so accurately. Like the honest intent and nature of our hearts were exposed. And it was compelling how similar our hearts were! We all had been wanting and needing and gasping for the same things: to feel loved, and to be heard, and to find peace.

We then experienced a unity and a communion which blossomed and fed and filled us. The bland, cordial kindness was replaced with truest interest and care, the awkward conversation turned to dancing and laughing and punching wars with my brothers that left my arm blue for over a week. The grandpa and uncles filling in for missing fathers, and the love-filled teasing extended to those feeling out of place. Easing the pain, filling the pain that had once been our source of separation.

The rest of the week we soaked in that place, that milieu, filled with beautiful repose and comfort – sweet soluble comfort.

We had arrived, depleted and floundering, anxious to find solutions and answers and reprieve from our very individual life struggle; when finally it was realized,

we understood,

we were the solution, the answer to one another’s ailing all along.

We were each other’s solution.

It was there in Lake Powell, engulfed beneath towering walls of sandstones, it was there the walls of differing opinion, and heartache, and belief came crumbling down and it was there that I saw the necessity of combined hearts, the need to nurture and care and feed one another. The peace, the rest, we are all pleading, longing, aching for was, and is, only found in each other.

If a family of much the same upbringing can become so disjoined, think of all the variances within our culture, our nations, our world and how we can seem so far removed from one another’s frame of reference and how it is so easy to misunderstand one another and be misunderstood. We will disagree and have differing beliefs and will be influenced individually and separately by our unique life circumstances. But dwelling on these differences and disengaging from one another and even despising one another is not only diminutive,

but it is entirely fruitless.

Our peace, our hope, our rest is found in the comfort of one another.

We are each other’s solution.

We are all pleading, and longing and aching for rest, for joy, for peace and for love –

And we may just find that this stuff of heaven, is already in our midst. It is right in front of us, it is found in one another.

““A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe’ —a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.””

— Albert Einstein (1950)

Photo by Julie Blackmon: Homegrown, "Night Movie."

The Bountiful Body

We live in a culture where women are constantly modifying the body they were naturally born with. There’s a relentless emphasis to morph, sculpt, tone our womanly form to look like a twelve year old boy, wax our innately hairy bodies, enhance female areas, color our hair, inject or even alter our faces,  suck out “imperfections,” I could keep going, but I’m really quite tired of it all.

Ultimately, we are conditioned to feel a sense of lack when we view and observe our bodies. There’s always an urge to improve upon what is naturally there. And there is an exhausting focus and energy given to enhancing our perceived lacking selves.  We end up trying to fit into an “idea” of who we should look like, and thus fall ever short to that ideal.  Of course we are then left to look at ourselves with constant disappointment. So sad!

 In reality, we should restructure our homogenized concept of the ideal to refit an individualized admiration for our unique selves.  

“It is a revolutionary act to embrace who we are, just as we are.”

— Dr. Jessica Zucker

Indeed, it is quite radical to release ourselves from this conditioned obsession to “fix” our bodies. Our shallow visual relationship with our body can and should become more comprehensive and bonded.  

Often we feel it is best to relinquish all feeling and sentiment toward our physical frames and direct all our energy and attention entirely to our inner selves; but this is not the answer. We never should become impassive and aloof from our bodies. We must continue to care for, respect, honor, nurture, and sustain them—these structures marvelously formed from matter.  Because it is through our bodies that we experience life. And the more disconnected from our bodies we become, the more disconnected we become from life.

In the words of a past university professor of mine:

“The body is the cup in which to drink the world.”

— George Handley, "Home Waters"

And when we acknowledge this one true fact, our focus shifts from befitting an unavailing ideal, to honoring an already present body, a body that is constantly giving, constantly enabling.  We then come to admire the nuances that make up our own body, the differences that separate our form from all the others. And instead of tweaking, breaking, altering, criticizing our physical forms, we desire to give back to this gratuitous body that allows us to inhale and exhale life.

When our attention to bodily appearance converts to bodily appreciation, we are then awakened to the wide expanse of life that is pumping, respiring, moving all about us. And this process of body nourishment and cultivation becomes circuitous, as our bodies in return, allow us to engage more completely with all of life’s interactions. It is a bountiful transaction rooted in giving and receiving, and giving and receiving again.  

Discovering and admiring our individual forms requires a shift in how we view ourselves and how we view others. And this can take time, especially because our culture will continue to condition our minds with its habitual, hollow message of glorified "ideal" body imaging. It will take active and diligent persuasion, personal persuasion, to nourish ourselves with bodily appreciation and cultivation. But as we begin to enjoy our variations, the parts of us that differentiate us from everybody else, we will also begin to discover and delight in all the diversity existing among us. And our concept of beauty will become far- reaching, expansive and abundant, and our confidence will grow unbounded... when we come to realize how bountiful a life our body is giving us. 

(Photo: "Deep Sea Diver" by Brad Tennant)

What the Darkness Taught

Growing up in the Utah high desert I constantly complained about the summer heat and the contrasting frigid winters. I longed to get out and find a milder climate. And I did. London, Hawaii, then Oregon all brought calmer weather. Snow days were rare, or even obsolete; and summers were in a word, idyllic.

But in lush gorgeous Portland, for the five years we were there, I felt wet most of the time. Yes, the temperatures rarely dropped below the mid 40’s, yet the whole world seemed so soggy.  But mostly, beyond all the sogginess, I ached for the sun.  No living organism is bright and alive without the sun; basic biology tells us this. It was normal that I wanted my being to feel warmth. Light. Joy.

And yet the world kept going and we all stayed alive somehow, despite the absence of light. But the life and light I had inside started to fade, diminish. The darkness outside made my insides all dark too. 

There existed in the landscape an almost unearthly physical splendor, and the people, and land, and food, and culture were genuine and real and true. And these things brought me light. Portland was alive and rich in so many ways.  And I fell in love with it all, a deep love. Yet there was this perennial hole within me, and I was never fully alive, in bloom. I needed more sunlight.

And now we have moved back to the desert, my place of beginning. And this desert heat envelopes the land of where I live. And it is curious how before, that heat was so undesired, so disruptive. 

And now, because of experience, because of opposition, I soak in the energizing light and the warmness of the sun. Allowing my soul, both body and spirit, to absorb its life giving rays.  The heat nourishes my once dampened, dire self and the light lifts my mind, my soul, even my freckles, freckles that had gone missing for awhile.

And even in the long icy winters the sunlight streams through my windows and I can actually feel of its warmth.

So long this light had gone missing.  But I now perceive how that period of darkness was imperative. It was there in the darkness that I recognized how precious, how desirable light was and is to me.  Without light’s absence, I was incapable of seeing light’s life preserving gifts. The darkness taught me to cultivate light, to feel exceptional appreciation and joy when I am touched by its warmth.

As humans we endure misfortune, pain, distress. And our lights, once so illuminating, begin to fade. Yet, we must remember that within darkness, in pain, in suffering we are acquiring the ability to ascertain the light, the moments of joy and life and beauty.  And then when the cold darkness weakens and we feel warmness reaching through, we will abide in its comfort like never before. We will have enlightened aptitude in perceiving the wonder and joy that does exist. And this keener awareness will allow life to feel even sweeter than ever before. All because the darkness taught us.

(Image via avogageforever)

Loving it Here

Living in the moment, or living more "horizontally" as I like to put it, has been at the heart of this blog.  And the purpose in reconciling with this concept, again and again, is so that we learn to attach ourselves to the life we are living--right now.

And to immerse our entire selves into every day and every moment and every encounter, with the help of our innate sensory abilities. Using these bodily abilities enables us to pursue an astonishingly more exciting, fulfilling, joyful continuation of living.

Life beyond sheer survival. 

“We think through the mind, but we live through the body... who delights in color and music and texture and fragrance—and the five senses are our windows onto this world of sight and sound and taste.
...Certainly, it makes more sense to see the bodily senses as portals of joy.”

— Terryl Givens, Fiona Givens

I'm sure many of you readers are familiar with the site, or feed, Humans of New York. I recently fell across this post of a daughter with her mother and was overwhelmed by the simple sagacity it contained.

This lovely woman embodies horizontal living. She radiates life and hope to all of us who are exhausted and laden with much surrounding ache and distress. She shows succinctly that there is enduring wonder and light. Even here in this place.  

There is much to be glad of, if we only are keen enough to notice.

Here is the post:

““What’s your favorite thing about your mother?”

”She loves life more than anyone I’ve ever known. I hope she doesn’t mind me telling you this, but recently she’s had some health problems. And her health got so bad at one point, she called me and said: ‘I was starting to wonder if there was any reason to go on. But then I had the most delicious pear!’”
”

— Humans of New York : Saturday 28 June 2014

Moving through Time

I think about time a lot. How time is perpetually moving, never stopping.  And how our lives keep going because time keeps going, even when it feels like we want it all to just slow down

or even pause,

 just so we can catch our breath.

And perhaps time’s most enigmatic, ethereal revelation is recognizing time past, life past, bewildered where it all went

and how we are so changed from life then, and life now.

I’m certain we all experience a golden nostalgia for life long ago, we perceive it to be simpler, less painful. Perhaps it is the romantic quality of the dated film or photograph; but most likely it is our memory so selective, emitting the mundane and the unpleasant, reminiscing mostly the good.

And sadness is created as we watch a life in its early stages, in blissful hurdle over sprinkler heads, grazing in dandelion summers …unaware of life’s imminent misfortunes waiting ahead.

Returning to the county I was raised in, causes me to frequently bump into individuals that were part of my life before marriage and kids: friends, neighbors, acquaintances, teachers, etc.  And it catches me unaware. Like my two worlds are succumbing to a brazen collision, a crash of life then and life now.

Somehow, somewhere I have created a canyon. A chasm in time separating my life, even my being, into compartments of existence. But this isn't reality.  We are, in reality, a composite entity of every experience, every encounter, every relation.  

“Time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people. There is no such thing as was — only is. ”

— William Faulkner

Einstein, the man who saw time as relative, rather than time absolute, said, "the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."  Timelessness allows us to sojourn beyond parts, phases, stages and into an ensemble of life experience. 

As adults who once in youth, frolicked in that freedom of summer light, that past felicity and respite will never be long lost. It remains constantly within; it is ours to carry and sustain through eventual winters ahead.

And we may now have to hurdle obstacles far more daunting than sprinkler heads as time keeps moving; but I'm certain that when we look back at the now, we will remember the good and emit a lot of the unpleasant, just as we did before. And we will recognize how we have bloomed throughout it all.

As we connect the dots, seeing the continuity of ourselves and of our fellow travelers through time, we will apprehend the totality and the grandeur subsisting in every individual life. And no more sadness will arise from remembering what once was, because we will comprehend each life in gratitude and in genuineness: a life consummate in whole, unfragmented and eternal. 

Staying Alive

In motion all day. Never stopping.

Night time hits. All kids asleep. Finally.

Absurdly quiet. Aching to veg. First moment alone with myself. 

I let my haggard body sink, melt, dissolve into the cushions of my couch.

House Hunters International is on. It's always on this time of night. TV power -- click... And I feel freedom. 

But not really. 

Because I realize that all day I have been nourishing, mending, loving, feeding brains and bodies and spirits outside of my own. And my brain, body, spirit is hungry for care.  And although so much of me desires to be swallowed up whole into that couch, there is more of me that wants real nutrition. The kind of nutrition that will feed my entire soul: brain, body and spirit. 

I pick my body, all exhausted, off the couch, and put on walking shoes and a jacket. I leave the house, detaching myself from that world in there; that world that I love, but a world that is always in need of my perpetual attention.

I walk in silence for awhile; then eventually put in ear-buds. A book, a talk, a song, awakens me from all of the vacuous monotony.  I drink in the real sustenance I have been yearning.  

Some days I find it in writing, or reading, running, breathing, bending, creating good food, or eating good food, photo taking, photo editing, learning, really learning, listening, befriending, remembering.

All of which require action on my part. 

This kind of nurturing, this kind of freedom, takes effort. And sometimes I just feel completely out of effort. So achieving this can be admittedly hard.

But only in the beginning.  It's hard in that first movement, that first choice that gets us off the couch.  But once we are in motion, we find we are absorbing it all so intently. We must have been so thirsty.

And when nourished in this manner day by day, we become more eager and we realize our lives are richer. 

Every day we must urge our tired beings to do something, at least one thing, that seems hard but that is feeding us personally. Something which inspires, challenges, arouses, enlivens us. 

We will then recognize we are revived, restored, more awake. We will have more to give because there is more of us that can give. 

All because we made the effort to get up and stay alive.

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(Photos taken by Laura D'art)

What Really Is

My favorite 7 year old, if raising himself, would undoubtedly squander his life to electronic gaming.   And perhaps we, my husband and I, make his obsession worse by denying him any gaming units or even any computer time in our home.

I just want his unadulterated brain to stay sharp and alive and motivated.

So we regularly discuss the why behind our rules. Because he is incessantly asking.

And it always comes down to the same phrase, “Buddy, we just want you to focus on what is real. And video games aren’t real." 

After pounding this concept of “real” into my kids’ heads, I have attempted to instill a keener focus on what’s “real” into my own life, and subsequently exclude time and energy spent thinking or giving to things that are of lesser realness.

So I hate being late for things, like really hate it. And I was late for one of the kid’s pediatric checkups the other day and was in panicked fluster topped with heated anger at my family, all because we were about to walk in that office door 8 minutes late. 

And then, as if somebody had climbed into my brain and ignited a “reality” synapse, I suddenly understood what was real in this situation; but most importantly WHO was real. 

If the doctor’s appointment needed to rescheduled, so be it. No damage rendered. 

 But these kids sitting behind me in the car were and are everything. Their well-being is everything. And I was hurting their souls with my anxious fury. I shifted to what was real: them. And the things that weren’t, melted and faded, and it all seemed okay. 

Our world is obsessed with the portrayal of fake realities, or idealized images of idealized realities. We can even promote idealized realities of our own lives whether through social media, or even social interaction. But the double consciousness we gain by surrounding ourselves with all this fakeness is entirely detrimental.  What I mean is that we see all these idealized life portrayals and an emphasis on aspects of life that seem so real. But when we have a sudden loss of something so real. Like a loved one. Or a relationship lost. We begin to decipher and discern what things are of great and real value. And what aren’t. 

It becomes strikingly apparent that realness is grounded in people. In seeing goodness in people. And giving goodness to people. It is found in relationships, in connections, in attachments.

Deciphering what is real comes back to the last post on our motives. If our motives are self-elevating, self- aggrandizing than we aren’t dwelling in what is genuine and true.  It’s at times difficult to detach this from reality though, because our society and culture praise self-promoting success. 

But when we are motivated by love for this world and for the people inside it, we find stableness. Because we are standing in realness. We must ask ourselves, do we get degrees, jobs, homes, cars, because we desire to bless and enjoy our interactions with mankind? Or do we do it to impress mankind? Do we exercise, clean, read, write, study, preach, shop, cook, weed, plant, because of our love of this world and love for humanity? Or do we do it to impress humanity?    

I was walking past my college campus a few weeks ago and noticed the harried, worried nature of all those students. I was so one of them. Head down, bogged down by my sole individual load, tunneled into my own, massive life burdens. And how inane it all seems now that I couldn’t see past that paper, or exam, or assignment. It all seemed so big and real at the time. Oh that GPA seemed so real.

And then came life. And love. And pain. And grief. And beauty beyond the boundaries of language. And I reminisce with regret that I failed in recognizing the actual realness existing in the students and teachers I came in contact with. And I so regret and so wish my emphasis would have been less on the fleeting scores and more in my pursuit of enhancing the world we tarry in. I missed it. 

And so we all are living in the weedy mucky stuff below, because it takes constant daily weeding just to survive… no matter what season of life we are in, be it school, parenthood, etc. 

 But if we can peer through it all and really perceive what is real,

 or rather who is real,

we will find we aren’t missing it, missing life. Cause nothing will give us greater pain in the end than the realization that it all passed and we were blind to what and who were actually real. 

Contrastingly, nothing will bring us greater fulfillment than discovering who is.

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(Top image by the incredible Christina Thurston)

(Bottom cinemagraph via Anne Street Studio)

Thief of Joy

I need Yoga. Because I am anxious and uptight and I can get a bit extreme.  Yoga is the only way I can actually “keep calm and carry on." The strenuous postures and flow supported by the continual inhale and exhale, soothes my brain and permits it to find rest.  I’d be maniacal, or technically more maniacal, without it.

But this post isn't about how wonderful and healing yoga is, although, yoga is very much those things.  It’s about how I was able to turn something so therapeutic and restorative, in this case, yoga, into a destructive, even corruptive activity.   

I was just getting back into my yoga practice after having baby #3 and felt pretty uppity in my yogic capabilities. Until this early morning class I went to, where I was noticeably the outcast to this ardent, kinda cult-like, morning group. I set my mat next to a woman who likewise had just had a baby and who was still in the stages of early nursing. As we began our sun salutations and ventured further into the class, eventually contorting our bodies into floating poses and back-bends beyond normal human ability, I quickly saw this woman was incredible.  She was so rhythmic and serene, so completely malleable and light in her movement.  By the end of class, I realized I had spent my entire hour comparing my abilities with hers, that I hadn't even savored my precious time to myself.  I couldn't let go of the thought that she had outshone me. That I was less than her. I walked out that door entirely defeated.

But anyone who knows anything about yoga, knows that it is supposed to be an individualistic, healing practice. The movement and breath and postures are meant to cleanse and nourish your own body. You learn to feel and hear what your own body needs.  Comparing and competing with your neighbor destroys the entire practice. And comparing myself to this woman had most definitely stricken, even corrupted, my own source of nourishment.  

There’s this quote by Teddy Roosevelt that can’t escape my thoughts; you've probably seen it floating around Pinterest, you know the one:

Well it’s true. It is. And that’s why I can’t get it out of my head. 

Basically any aspect of human life can lose its virtue and power in supporting and sustaining life as it becomes compared and contrasted against another person. 

It takes love out of our thoughts

and our hearts,

as we fragment loving, feeling, whole human beings into single abilities, talents, looks, assets.  

And then yearning to exceed or advance upon those singular facets.  

C.S. Lewis wrote,

We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not.  They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others.  If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest.

                                                     - Mere Christianity

What if we were motivated by love in all things instead?

What if we did yoga out of love for ourselves and for the benefit of those surrounding us. What if love was the driving force, rather than the need to measure up or excel above the next individual….

Start looking at what motivates you to act or to think in the ways that you do? If you are trying to prove something, or be better than the next, you will never find joy.

It will always escape you.

Because there will always be someone smarter, wealthier, wiser, kinder, prettier, faster, stronger, taller, skinnier, etc. But if you are motivated by love you can always reach another person, you'll see the beauty and goodness in yourself and all you come in contact with; in this there will always exist satisfaction and joy.

From this view, we let go of competitive elevation, of degrading or promoting, and we become filled with compassion, confidence. We begin to see ourselves and each other as we are, whole and real and good. 

Motionless Movement

There’s this book, a favorite of mine, where its passages, ideas, even phrases are randomly brought to surface in my everyday living, but most especially as I compose posts for this blog.  It’s a French novel: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, authored by Muriel Barbery.  And like most French story-telling, particularly in film and literature, the dénouement, or finale, to the story ends emitting soberness; much unlike our American tradition of happily ever after. However, there is sublime and stirring beauty amidst the soberness, all gained from generally unnoticed yet profound encounters experienced by the protagonists.  I dare say, the French promote reality, while us Americans are obsessed with idealities. 

Anyways, Paloma, one of the two main female leads, is a 12 year old, burdened with genius and struck with an inability to find purpose in human existence. Living within a family of wealthy pseudointellectuals, Paloma philosophizes that if life is pointless, than it is pointless to be living it.  But before entirely giving in, she begins a journal to record “any beauty that there is in the world, things that, being part of the movement of life, elevate us” (Barbery 38).  It is her resolved attempt at giving life one more opportunity to prove its purport before ending it.

I mentioned in last week’s post, that I, at times, feel life is more about enduring than enjoying.

 And as Paloma, I have made an effort to be more keenly observant of my collision with life.

I want there to be joy amidst the enduring. 

And I’m convinced it is found in what Paloma calls “motionless movement”, where we aren’t moving “toward,” but remaining fully present in the moment, grounded, nonfragmented, centered (39, 41).  It’s what we have been referring to as horizontal living. 

For our futures are concealed from us.  And our past is gone from us. And seeking life behind us or beyond us, fragments us from life happening in the now. 

And so, in this favorite book of mine, we witness Paloma discover the beauty in everyday movement, and ultimately find an objective for living, even joy-- in this life... throughout the persisting and amongst the enduring.

What follows is a record of her encounter with a moment of motionless movement entitled:

Journal of the Movement of the World No.4

A choir is a beautiful thing

Yesterday afternoon was my school’s choir performance.  In my posh neighborhood school, there is a choir: nobody thinks it’s square and everyone competes to join but it’s exclusive….

Every time, it’s a miracle. Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size, and there’s this life we’re struggling through full of shouting and tears and laughter and fights and break-ups and dashed hopes and unexpected luck—it all disappears, just like that, when the choir begins to sing.  Everyday life vanishes into song, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love, and it diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion.  Even the singers’ faces are transformed: it’s no longer Achille Grand-Fernet that I’m looking at (he is a very fine tenor), or Déborah Lemeur or Ségolène Rachet or Charles Saint-Sauveur.  I see human beings, surrendering to music.

I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself but sometimes it gets close: I can hardly keep myself from sobbing.  So when they sing a canon I look down at the ground because it’s just too much emotion at once: it’s too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing.  I’m no longer myself, I am just one part of a sublime whole, to which the others also belong, and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life, instead of being an exceptional moment, during a choir.  When the music stops, everyone applauds, their faces all lit up, the choir radiant.  It is so beautiful.

Observing and uncovering the beauty in everyday living, and becoming really enraptured with the bounty possible, we become fuller and more complete; we are less fragmented and disjoined.  Paloma sought for it and found it. Look for it. And I promise, you too will find it.

Tom Jamieson for The New York Times

Getting Wet

A few months ago my 31 year old brother collapsed, without warning, and died.  It was an undetected heart arrhythmia. And since then, I’ve had a paradigm shift. A huge one. His sudden departure, from this mortal phase of existence, has caused me to see life so differently. And it has especially caused me to see other’s so differently.  Like I notice them more. And I feel of their malady more.  At times I am overcome with moroseness for the abundant affliction that persists here.  Not just in my familiar circle, where four babies and a loving wife are left fatherless and husbandless, but within all the lives of all of these people. Admittedly, I even question, at times, if life as man is more about enduring, rather than enjoying.

However, accompanying this heightened commiseration for the plight of mankind, is an acquired bravery and courage, courage that I failed to notice existed inside.  It’s like there is this true grit that stirs with vigor and eagerness at life yet to be lived.  That I am here in this body experiencing loads of incredible and radical emotion, getting soaked by life, by all of it.  And to be weighing the amount of good against the bad, or the pain versus the joy, or toil competing rest, is pretty much pointless.  Because the point of it all, is to get wet. In other words, it is becoming acquainted with the whole gamut of emotion and sensation and experience.

And when we look around, we realize, everyone else is getting wet too.

Really wet.

In recognizing the communal nature of life rain, we suddenly feel greater strength to not only abide the wetness, but to maybe even sing and dance together in it. 

Overall, life is to be lived in, and lived in side by side. It must be felt in all its pain and glory so that whenever this part concludes, whether at age 31 or 101, we will feel entirely rendered and worn out, joyful that we took full advantage of this incredible ride.   

*Images of the "Rain Room" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan

           *Click Here to see an exclusive video of this unbelievable exhibit.

Stuck in the Moment

In an earlier post, well actually, this blog’s introductory post, I wrote of the benefit of learning to live more horizontally, and by that I meant living more in the moment by feeling more in the moment.  Horizontal living entails greater awareness of the sensory experiences occurring all around us.  And in succeeding posts, the goal of this blog has been to help facilitate your ability to access this “horizontal” awareness. 

Really being “in” the moment requires our ability to see and feel and touch and taste and hear the ongoing’s of life surrounding us. However, it is our human nature to be one step ahead preparing for future moments; and many times our thoughts are looking behind and dwelling back there, at life already lived.  It is quite hard to suspend ourselves from the vertical onslaught of time, and experience a moment contained and exclusive to itself.  Yet, if we voluntarily access our senses within a given moment, our senses give us the ability to engage and become absorbed into a span of time where we feel most alive and most connected, integrated throughout the soul and the body.

For instance, I’m rocking my one year old, reading him a book before his afternoon nap.  And unintentionally my mind is wandering to the unfinished laundry, and the unachieved run I was probably never going to get in that morning, and oh, I forgot to renew the library books online, and gross, is my leg hair really that prickly? Lucky husband…. And abruptly I pop back to the rocking chair I’m sitting in.

 Suddenly I realize that this boy is heavy. He is no longer a baby.  He will only get older, heavier, more independent. And I am missing it.  I feel overwhelmingly ill that there have been so many instances inadvertently squandered, due to my own disconnection from a beautiful moment with this boy, who is fleeing babyhood, moments never to be regained.

And so I refocus. I begin to feel the tops of his feet all porcelain and smooth. And I smell his newly cleansed, lavender emanating, curly hair. I look into his big brown perfect eyes. And hear his enthusiastic gibberish pointing out familiar animals on pages that we've read a thousand times.  And suddenly I’m fully aware. I’m “in” this moment and I am consequently satiated with intense love and happiness for this boy's life that is mine to care for. 

Ultimately, when we engage with our senses, we immerse our entire self into a life’s moment and in return we gain greater purpose, connection and life affirmation.

I enjoy reading Michael Gerson’s opinion column he writes for The Washington Post; and recently I read a personal article he wrote, “After my cancer diagnosis, seeing mortality in the near distance.” He remarks on his change in perspective caused by this cancer diagnosis.  I love what he notes concerning his “intensification of physical experience;” he writes,

I was fortunate to see mortality in the near distance. As I awaited to learn my fate, I noticed an effect on matter — an odd intensification of physical experience. Things around you offer more friction and hold your attention longer. Commonplace things like the bumps on tree bark. The light filtering through floating dust. The wetness of water. A contrast knob is turned, revealing the vivid pleasures of merely existing.

This heightened awareness applies to strangers in the street, who suddenly have faces. An unsolicited smile, the obvious creases of worry or pain, engage your emotions...All of this is a function of a shifting perception of time. When the days seem limited, we more fully inhabit them. The arrow of time makes decay inevitable — and each moment unrecoverable. So we gain in appreciation for things as they are when we realize they will eventually be otherwise.

It is my issue to readers to participate in this heightened physical awareness, this horizontal experiential style of living where we fully engage ourselves with multisensory consciousness.  Practice just feeling the grass underfoot and what that sensation brings.  Smell the earth awakening from deadened winter.  Go up and touch the buds starting to emerge from barren trees. Look and observe and really hear the emotion of your loved ones, as you engage in seemingly simple conversation.

 And suddenly you will be connected to not only the moment, but to the earth you stand on, and the body you live in, and most significantly the people you interact with.  And from this connectedness you will experience a more full life.  Like Mr. Gerson said, you will begin to “reveal the vivid pleasures of merely existing.”

From Girlhood to Womanhood

It is weird being grown up. It never feels real. I keep waiting for the consummate moment when I will feel a woman, no longer a girl.  Even after 3 children and almost a decade of marriage, I feel inadequately aged.  Like I am an adult charade.  I even feel foreign in this grown up body, curved and matured. 

Surviving inside me is that small girl who spins in the wind, and cries when she falls down, but inhales the smell of grass stains, and even, every now and then, wants to be calmed to sleep. 

I've long contemplated and deliberated over the essence and mantle of womanhood, the kind of womanhood expanding across culture and continent.  What makes girls become women? Does becoming a women reach beyond just a physical transformation?  Is there also a spiritual metamorphosis accompanying girlhood to womanhood?

This is what I have learned: I have determined that girls become women when they exist for more than just themselves. A woman’s purpose generates beyond the individual and ruminates within lives outside their own.  And a girl feels she has become a woman when she embraces her otherness, the life she gives in addition to her own life.  This life giving source not only lives in the physicality of child bearing, but also in the creating, strengthening, educating and growth of souls. 

And when a girl fulfills this role of vitality, she has matured into and received the distinction of “Woman.”

In regards to that girlish wonder that is still thriving within, it is never lost. A woman gets to keep that. For from that wonder a woman implants hope to lives that are thirsty for life.

Even seeing our grown bodies as life giving emblems, bodies created after the pattern of the “mother of all-living”, we are reminded to breathe hope and nourishment into our fellow men. And we may eventually experience comfort in our mature frames, knowing they are a symbol of our life-giving abilities to both bodies and souls.

We must never let life experience, relationships, or trauma suffocate our capacity to sustain and nourish mankind.  If we no longer feel capable of creating, we aren't whole; we are at the crux where we must regain our womanhood.  It is imperative to reclaim. And the world at large will undoubtedly benefit by us doing so. 

"It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life."

                                     - C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

On Letting Go & Pimples

I get these underground, buried pimples on my chin sometimes.  And every time, despite past experience, I think I can push all that white crap to the surface and pop it all out. And of course, what ends up occurring, is a massacred chin with cuts and bruises, even scars; and the un-phased, stubborn, underground zit smugly stares back at me.  I never learn. I repeat this same mistake over and over again thinking THIS time I will discover success: pus popped, mirror splattering, white head success.  Gross. 

Deep down, I know that if I leave it alone, it will go away eventually, without all that self-inflicted additional mutilation. 

In life there crops up metaphorical pimples. Things that aren’t completely life altering, but that make our insides bubble in fury.  Like our child locking the car keys in the car while at Target; or your husband’s 60 minute bathroom habit; or the newly discovered bleach spot on your newest blouse; or the guy who flips you off because you cut him off driving while trying to reposition your babies propped up bottle (I mean, not that I would ever prop up my child’s bottle or anything.) 

The point is, life will always be unpredictable and even unavoidably messy.  But ruminating, dwelling, agonizing over life’s inevitable annoyances will only exacerbate our frustration, not resolve it. It may even cause negative scarring on our outlook of life.

At best, we must laugh at the impossible and then breathe. Breathe deep. Breathe slow. And then recognize, with gratitude, that this is part of being alive. And move on.

Eventually the pimple and any memory of it will all fade away.

Until the next one comes; but this time I vow I’m going to just let it be.

“Let it be” album cover, 1970

Bloom

Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes life even hurts a lot. Sometimes it feels like everybody is on a fruitless journey towards happiness; like walking up a downward moving escalator, we never quite seem to make it to the top. Sometimes we do make it to the top of certain things: career, the “ideal” body image, dream home, dream car, social circles, etc.; only to discover the top doesn't yield that all enveloping and interminable happiness we collectively desire. 

Succumbing to the pull of the downward moving escalator at times feels like the easiest and, to be honest, the most seemingly logical action. But succumbing won’t help in achieving happiness. Happiness lies in the constant movement upward. And it especially dwells within the horizontal movements: the moments where we focus on the doing, rather than the getting done. The horizontal encompasses living within each moment: feeling, discovering, being alive with all of our senses. The horizontal escapes the chronological quest for progress, where we are constantly looking forward to a better place, a better life, a better situation. Living horizontally allows us to connect with the present world we live in and the present people we live amongst; and most significantly, it allows us to find joy and happiness within such connections.

This blog is an effort to help us in our effort to move forward vertically by learning to live more horizontally. By learning to observe, see, feel, taste, and connect we begin to experience a multi-dimensional, fulfilling life. Bloom desires to aid in this prospective blossoming of long term plenitude and happiness in women, women from all locations and life situations. 

Bloom: /bloom/

verb. to flourish, to grow, to bear flowers

noun. a healthy, vigorous, or flourishing condition

(Image: "Duluth" Brent Schoepf via Flickr )