Vernal Equinox

[Jamie]

[Rita]

Communicating via art. How I see the world; How she sees the world.

The Child at Heart

Acorns sprouting their little green seedlings.

A momma and her baby cub.

The most beautiful, joy-filled smile of my favorite little boy.

Children at heart.

The nakedness of love.

If I were to ask my best friend in what ways her children are transforming her, perhaps she might say something along the lines of, 'they bring me most fully into the present moment, where every spec of the earth is filled with the fullness of the universe.'

We are all children at heart. We are all naked at heart. Each of us carries the world within us.

Beyond our skins, Beyond our selves

In what way are you being transformed right now?

This is the question my supervisor asked of me in my journey with practicum. Our clients change us, she says. They, and the process, transform us.

Naturally, this question occurred to me in a deeper translation: In what way are these changes and transformations deepening my practice? In what ways is my spiritual practice being challenged?

A few key words immediately come to mind: unconditional positive regard, compassion, patience, breathing, openness.

In a more process-oriented light, I'm beginning to become aware of the movement of the therapeutic process. Minutes before a client steps into my office, I close my eyes and step out of my skin -- I step out of myself and go forth. I don't put anything on, but I take something off. The client sits down with me and I feel a part of me, deeply sincere, raw, and yet also sharply defined and carved out, meets that other person in this bubble-like space we create together. That space is unique for each individual I sit with.

I think of Rogers and the interesting shift he made in the later part of his life where he took a turn from the humanistic into the more transpersonal realms of therapy. He didn't necessarily leave the humanistic behind. No, he had it with him as a foundation. But he began to find that he could transcend himself and still be with the other most fully, perhaps more fully, than simple congruence affords. This unique quality and way of being is presence -- something Rogers had only just begun to write about before he died.

Presence is what I hope to explore more of. If I bring anything to this field, if I leave anything behind, I hope it is to offer an exploration and deeper understanding of this quality, process, and way of being which is Presence.

The Stairway

Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook, like a knight from some old-fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

Leonard Cohen.


How does it happen that two strangers pass with just gentle swipes of the shoulder, and one keeps steady while the other's heart leaps as if in the midst of danger? And all the while it's only the brussle sprouts who bear witness, and they could really care less. They're already about to be devoured.

----

Sometimes the past comes suddenly into the present, without warning. Each time I think to myself, next time, next time I'll be ready. What is it I'm ready-ing for? The final break from the illusion? A breaking revelation? The past to untie its impossibly tight knot?

---

I had a dream the other night that I was full of an electric pulse. I went to wash my hands in the bathroom basin and electrocuted myself. There was a violent shaking as a wild, untamed power trembled throughout my body. A bright spark popped and sputtered in the middle of my heart and I woke up gasping for air.

----

I go to practicum three times a week and listen to the sorrows of the world. Somewhere inside of me I bear an image of a woman carrying heavy buckets of water from an overflowing well. What is that woman going to do with all of those buckets of water, I wonder. Will it help the well? Will it stop the flooding? She needs to find the source, but she knows that will require that she go down... way down into the middle of the earth. Someone elses earth. Someone elses darkness. Does she have the lantern ready? Does she have the right amount of light so that not only she can see, but that she can walk that other person out too? Or will she discover, way down there, when she finally arrives at the source of it all... that she, and the other, are actually One?

Feral Children

An idea has sprung forth! A marvelous, inspiring, exciting idea!

Speaking on the phone the other evening with Rita, we got onto the topic of her art. I'd noticed on her deviant art page that she hadn't posted a new piece in quite a few months. Inquiring as to why, she confided in me that she hadn't had much inspiration lately. Being the ever-aspiring therapist (in-training) I am, I began to ask her more questions to see if she could find some answers to this blockage she felt she was encountering.

Her art, you see, is digital in nature. The confines of her illness limit her tremendously, which is why she has come to do art in the first place. She can't even step outside her back door. The closest to the outside world she can come, physically, is by lying on the floor of her living room watching the beautiful doves dance around her old, untended garden. Her art requires photographs... photographs of the outside world. Photographs which she has no way of taking herself. She has considered using stock photos, but they simply lack the inspiration necessary to engage her.

This is where the idea machine in me began humming. I have a few cameras. I have been aching for artistic purpose and inspiration for years now, having been swallowed up by the gulf of academic writing and research. What if we started a project together?

Here's the idea we've come up with so far: Throughout the week I take my camera with me everywhere I go, shooting pictures of things which speak to me. I'll send her all of my weekly photos and she'll then look at them in search of one or two which speak to her. She will then transform this photograph into one of her remarkable digital works and send it back to me. Then, I will take her piece of art and "listen" to it, writing either a poem or a little story to go along with it.

The end-product could be either a blog we keep in which we update a weekly 'art speak' creation... or we save all of our work and put it together in a book. I think we should shoot for both!

We're so excited about our new adventure together that we can already feel the electrifying pulse of inspiration rivetting our consciousness. The project is really about empathy, and how two friends communicate to one another via the media of art. I'm interested in the way we take up, interpret, and re-create that which we share with one another. I believe it will open up a new window onto the uniquely beautiful relationship we have together.

To begin, I sent her these few images shot over the last few years. If we find that we can work together in this way, we'll start this journey of speaking through the tongues of art...

Spiritual Disobedience

I had a striking epiphany this morning in meditation. I've been working lately on feeling my way out of the habitual thought-involved mind and into the still clarity of witnessing. Looking at the way in which I typically engage with thoughts it occurred to me that part of the illusion with our minds is that we listen to and identify with our every thought. We think that it is "ME" who is thinking, me who is deciding, me who is liking and disliking and wanting to go here and there and on and on. In reality, the mind is simply producing via the faculty of thought a billion thoughts all day long. Due to our fundamental belief in the illusion of thought as self, we obey almost every thought that comes into our minds. We listen to them as if they were the holy grail. "I'm fat. I'm too tall. I hate this. I love that." Etc, etc.

Why not begin disobeying? I began to try this one small measure: every time I caught myself beginning to listen to a thought in meditation, I chose to disobey the call to listen. I coupled this with the labeling technique. My attention then would be pulled towards the thought and I would respond gently with "no, no attention" and then label it "thought". What took shape was subtle and did not involve pushing thought away. It was simply a matter of deciding to take control of my own mind. There is a wisdom far greater than the intellect. The soul knows this. Open to it with effort.

The Gradual Path

Am I making progress? What kind of progress? In what ways am I progressing; in what ways ought I progress?

These are a few of the questions on my mind as of late, along with a host of others. I've been experimenting a little with meditating continuously (once or twice daily) versus taking breaks from mediation all together. What are the differences? How is the practice affected? What changes or does't change in the mind?

When I was practicing heavily, meaning two to three times a day up to nearly two hours a day, I had begun to easily notice the still point within and to maintain that still point with ease. When I take a "break" from meditation the still point can be found again upon return to the cushion but it is much less stable, tuning in and out like a cellphone signal. After a few days back on the cushion for 45 minute sits, the still point begins to settle in a little more and a little more each time I sit.

Although some say that there are different paths one can take in terms of progression, I'm finding solace (and patience and perseverence!) in the knowledge that buddhism and meditation is a gradual path. Insight, calm, and clarity come gradually. For some, and with certain techniques, these things can come suddenly and quickly. I've experienced this as well, but I have a lot less control over the sudden paths because it has only ever come to me spontaneously. The path of gradual progression gives me faith and hope, it keeps me going and reassures me when I begin to doubt myself or my progress.

It's important not to take the gradual path as reason to sit back on our laurels and wait for enlightenment, peace, and wisdom to come to us. There is still so much work to be done. But for a while, I find, I can give up the striving nature of the mind and relax into the meditation itself, watching the breath, watching the thoughts bounce around, watching the stillness come in and stay awhile, then watch it depart down the stream of thoughts.

I believe it's important to continually check in with ourselves to see how we're doing. Am I trying too hard? Am I too lax? How have I grown? In what ways can I grow?

I've found lately that I've been growing temendously in equanimity. There is a great deal of spaciousness within me when difficulties arise around me, or when a situation comes about in which I would have ordinarily become emotionally swept into. It's liberating to have that spaciousness and the opportunity to decide how I want to respond.

At the same time, there are still struggles between these two great polarities of the hindrances: restlessness and sloth and torpor. In meditation I can see the restlessness as a basic tightening, or tension, inside of me that either wants something I don't have or doesn't want what I've got. For right now, I'm working on meeting this tension with the active feeling of openning to it and and then warming it with love. Soon I will ask myself, is this technique effective? If not, what else might I try?

This is the way of the gradual path.