Tag: Zen

Beginner’s Mind

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 
Spring cleaning has me 
in the darkest corner 
of the sunroom with a
stick in hand, wrapping 
old webs around the far end
like drab cotton candy.

The spiders staked
their claim last fall,
orb-weavers, I think. I 
didn’t get too close,
and nights were longer and
cooler and spent indoors,
so I let them have the corner. 

When I reclaim it on a warm May
day, the abandoned webs cling 
listlessly to wall and screen
and bench and reach as if alive for
the oar I offer from a far shore. 

The weaver of the orb
mustn’t mind rebuilding her home. 
It seems to be the point, to start
again from the beginning.  

The cardinal builds a new 
nest every year, sometimes 
even twice.  
Moles burrow constantly and
don’t use the same tunnel again.

The hostas in my front yard disappear
completely each winter and always 
come back, from a tiny green peek 
through the dirt to a maturity even
grander than before, fueled by
energy both fresh and remembered. 

Everything starts over.  Life
is not always added to. 
It is sometimes
begun anew.

Why Interfaith

~ Deb ~ 10 Comments

Interfaith is a term that can be used in two distinct ways: first, interfaith can mean, and usually does mean, when people from different religious traditions join together for a common purpose. This is big. This means that people who identify with a religion that is probably more than just a religion — it is probably also culture and family and possibly even geopolitical ideology — decide to love and welcome and interact with and respect people of other faiths.

But there is another way to define interfaith, and it’s the one with which I most resonate. For me, interfaith is not just appreciating other traditions, but dipping into them as I feel called, creating my own syncretic faith, which, truth be told, is ultimately what we all do to varying degrees.

Picking one great wisdom tradition to claim as a sole identity would be like tilling a half-acre garden and then planting only marigolds. It would be like fielding a Super Bowl team with 11 running backs. It would be like trying to write a great symphony using only B-flat.

From Buddhism, I learn zen and mindfulness. From Judaism, I learn history and tradition. From Islam, I learn reverence and devotion. From Hinduism, I learn true yoga and the wisdom of non-duality. From paganism, I learn to honor the earth and recognize my place on it. From Christianity, I learn compassion and grace. From atheism, I learn respect for science and reason. From Sikhism, I learn service and kirtan worship. From Baha’i, I learn unity and peace.

Should I go on? Because I could. So many gifts from so many sources — how could I ever choose one?

Being a minister from this perspective means that no matter what spiritual identity a person claims, I will hold space for hope and divine connection on their behalf, offer my support for their journey regardless of which path they are on, and rejoice in their spiritual evolution, even if it looks nothing like my own. I will love Jesus with them and chant the name of Shiva with them and revere the Prophet with them. I will pray for them, meditate with them, light a candle for them, or sage them. I will accept them fully even as I am accepted fully by the One Supreme Being with whom I have my most precious relationship.

What a beautiful and glorious work is that to which I have been called. I live in a state of wonderment and delight that the Divine has entrusted me with this sacred task.

Peace be unto you. Om.

Duck, Duck, Duck, Zen

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

My good friend and sherpa-guru, Denise, recently reminded me of the spiral quality of the spiritual path.  The idea is that the journey is not a straight line or even a chaotic one; it’s a purposeful and patterned returning and returning and returning to constant themes throughout our lives, each time seeing them from a higher place.

This might show up in our emotional work in this way: We visit a therapist in our 20’s to work through a particular emotional pain.  We journal and scream and talk and cry it all out until we feel a release.  It’s gone!  We’re light and happy and free.  Life is beautiful.  Until a year later when the same old shit pops up again.  It might seem we wasted all of that time, energy, and money.  But if we’re really aware, we recognize that we’re seeing the old pain from a slightly different perspective.  We’re a floor up in our spirit, but we’ve circled back around to the same side of the building.

The spiritual journey follows a similar stairway to heaven, and I’ve gone round and round.  I’ve learned to recognize different levels (“fifth floor: ladies lingerie, peace of mind”).  An early level is one I call:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Forget About It

Actually, there are at least two preceding levels: Practice-Forget-Forget-Forget, and Practice-Forget-Practice-Forget.  But, we can talk about all three together.

The practice is our spiritual work.  It looks different for each of us.  My practice is meditation, yoga, engagement with my spiritual community, reading, walks in nature, and general mindfulness.  Some people practice with prayer, church/synagogue/temple, playing tic-tac-toe.  Literally ANYTHING can be part of a practice if you have imbued it with that energy.

Early on the journey, I had really great intentions.  (Pause for delayed laughter.) I knew what called to me, but I hadn’t quite found the groove.  I worked at it.  Boy, did I work at it.  And I would forget it, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, and at least a time or two for years.  It took getting beyond those levels to really see how important the forget-about-it times were.  Those were the incubation periods.

Then came the next level:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Wander In The Wilderness

Until we completely purge our inner victim, we’re destined to periodically wail into the heavens, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” This is done with a flourish of great drama.  This is the level on which we find ourselves saying things like “But I’ve been doing my work; really I have.  Why does God let this HAPPEN?” (Wail, moan, general gnashing of teeth.)

This, too, is an important time.  I believe Jesus may have been on this spiral when he spent his 40 days in the desert.  It’s the level where we wrestle with angels . . . and devils.  At times, we threaten to scrap it all and live our entire lives in happy hour at the beach.  We are tempted to buy happiness by giving up the hope of joy.

The most important moments of transformation happen here.  We make a decision: keep climbing or jump over the rail.  What we don’t realize is that jumping over the rail only puts us back into a forget-about-it state.  We WILL be back.  We can’t un-know what has been revealed to us.

Eventually we reach a new landing:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Practice

We’ve achieved consistency.  We walk our talk.  Life still presents challenges, but these are much rarer, and we tend to view them from a place of detachment.  This doesn’t mean we don’t care; in fact, we have learned compassion at levels we’ve never known before.  We just don’t internalize pain so readily.

This is a beautiful level.  It can also be exhausting.  The practice brings peace, but in those 3:00 a.m. moments when no one is watching and we’ve dared to be really honest with ourselves, we still sometimes wonder, “What’s the point?  IS there a point?  Is something supposed to HAPPEN? Is this IT?”

And then magic happens.  It happens because of our practice.  It happens in spite of our practice.  It happens most often in those 3:00 a.m. moments of heart-opening honesty.

The magic doesn’t have a level.  It dances around the spiral like pixie-dust and star stuff.  It waits until we’re ready.  And then it teaches us the next step:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Surrender

Every great religion teaches it.  Every great master has done it.  Every enlightened being lives it.

How do we know God?  How do we align with Divine Mind?  How do we step into the One-Ness?  We. Stop. Practicing.  At least for a moment.  We stop everything.  We release.  We let go.

We surrender.

Much like the early levels, I’m sure there are some additional levels here, and perhaps the place of true bliss is one of surrender-surrender-surrender-surrender.

Maybe there is even something after that.  I’ll let you know.  I’m still climbing.

Never Wave a Brick Wall in Front of an Aries

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

The best way out is always through.

                                                   — Robert Frost

My regular readers should know by now that I am presently running in continual exhaustion mode.   After three straight weekends of chicken pen building, it would seem that a regular, non-working weekend would have been on the docket.   But then the “doghouse” blew down.

It happened on Wednesday.  The canvas-covered, tent-like garage structure that we were using for a dog shelter blew away in the winds that Oklahoma sent our way.    I spent Thursday and Friday planning and then Saturday and Sunday building a dog house.

It is a stunning structure.  I might have even momentarily channelled my grandfather during this process.  It is large enough for both of our big outdoor dogs (and probably a third, should we meet with temporary insanity again).  It has a peaked roof, which now is low enough to actually hold in body heat, thank you Soonerville.   And as soon as I get the wood siding and shingles on, I’ll post a picture.

On Saturday, I thought I might actually collapse.  Why is it that only celebrities can be hospitalized for exhaustion?  Either they’re really getting treated for something scandalous, or they’re pussies.  I have to question that whole “hospitalized-for-exhaustion” thing because I feel I’ve pushed myself about as far as humanly possible and didn’t need any medical attention.

Then on Sunday, I felt oddly refreshed.  I was still achy and tired, but it was a comfortable, familiar feeling.  I no longer felt like I was dying.   In fact, I felt like I was living.

I’m beginning to get into the zen of accomplishing something every day.  I’m really beginning to get into the zen of building things.  Working with wood seems natural to me.    However, I am not getting into the zen of lifting a 4’x8′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood over a fence by myself.

When I was little and didn’t feel good or was just tired or maybe just didn’t want to go to school, my mother’s answer was always, “Get up and move around and you’ll feel better.”    It really pissed me off when I was 10.    Between my genetic material and my Aries nature, there was no way I was going to have a life of leisure.

And there ain’t no gettin’ around that.