Water Dreams
Lincoln City, Oregon, September 2011
Dreaming of water.
Waves moving, lapping, smoothing.
Calming fluctuations.
Unfolding Beauty (and Practice)
I had acupuncture today, a long session to discharge all the chaotic energy I've been running on for weeks now. Mostly the only poem I could come up with is:
Too tired
To make
Poetry.
So here's a great opportunity to practice with the side of me that stokes up that chaotic energy to just tough it out, get through. The side that prods the voice that's tired and small into producing anyway. Here's a chance to practice a gentleness that encourages that a haiku "counts" and isn't slacking off on the 30-poems-in-30-days goal.
New Butterflies, Westminster, Colorado, May 2011
And here it is, a haiku about new butterflies.
Emerging slowly.
Wings wet and still unfurling.
Unfolding beauty.
Thinking of CK in Early April
Eggplant from October 2011, NOT early April in Portland!
I miss her when she goes.
I cultivate small
Rituals of comfort--
Spicy food.
Fennel and eggplant.
British television.
Loud music by
Bands she just
Tolerates for
The love of me.
It gets easier,
This practice
Of absence.
But never easy.
I'm merely
Whiling away
These moments
Of longing for
Her safe return.
White Cloud Blossoms
CK is in Arizona until Wednesday evening attending a conference. I decided last week I'd work from home today so I could take the car in for an oil change and check up. After the rain we'd had today was warm, bright and sunny. It was really nice to be home with all our companions, enjoying the sun coming in through the windows while I worked.
Being at home today also gave me time to stop by the bank and get a new debit card since mine had expired Saturday. That stop at our credit union let me take a moment to enjoy all the flowering apple trees in the courtyard, with one tree still rather bare and not yet flowering.
This evening a friend came by and had dinner with me. I made spicier grilled tofu than I normally would and we compared the merits of his Tabasco vs. a small bottle of hot sauce that had been given to us during the Road Food Festival in the French Quarter while we were on vacation. Having a friend stop by for excellent conversation really helps combat the blues I feel when CK's on a trip -- seems obvious, need to try that more often!
The sunshine, the flowering trees and the pleasant company yield forth another haiku for my poetry month!
Like a warm promise:
Day of sunlight after rain.
Dazzling brightness.
White Cloud-Blossoms, Portland, April 2, 2012
Poetry for April
I really enjoyed the times I participated in a 30-poems-in-30-days challenge. I was thinking about it last month and decided to just do it for the enjoyment and challenge of it this year. Since April has 30 days, today starts the effort with a haiku about month endings.
As I drifted off.
March ending in cold, hard rain.
Water sounds above.
Central Oregon Coast Forest Columbine, May 2011
Chocolate Poetry and Busy Life
CK is down in Mountain View and has been for over a week. These long trips are hard. Right now with everything going on with Mom, it has felt really tiring. Work is very busy, although I've come to understand that the nature of my new(ish) job is that my team is always busy. Right now I feel like I should be working, but I am letting myself take the evening off having done work the past couple of nights and over the past weekend. I'll be working some this weekend too!
This evening Dora and I took a 40 minute walk up to the park and around the rose garden a few times. The moon was golden and beautiful and it was a chill, but dry evening. The happy result of the walk, combined with enjoying a big bowl of simple borscht and wheatberries for dinner, was finishing off a chocolate bar and enjoying every bite! I've been trying to be much more mindful about what I'm eating and how much. It is far too easy to fall back into mindless eating and it feels good to really savor the chocolate and make the bar last days!
The particular brand of chocolate includes love poetry printed on the inside of the wrapper. I really loved seeing part of Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney and I thought it would be nice to share it.
Sonnet 81
O kiss, which dost those ruddy gems impart,
Or gems or fruits of new-found paradise,
Breathing all bliss, and sweetening to the heart,
Teaching dumb lips a nobler exercise;
O kiss, which souls, even souls, together ties
By links of love and only nature's art,
How fain would I paint thee to all men's eyes.
Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part!
But she forbids; with blushing words she says
She builds her fame on higher-seated praise.
But my heart burns; I cannot silent be.
Then, since, dear life, you fain would have me peace,
And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease,
Stop you my mouth with still still kissing me.
Other
Xenophobia is a great, big-points-in-Scrabble kind of word. Wictionary defines it thusly:
Noun
xenophobia (plural xenophobias)
- A fear of strangers or foreigners.
- A strong antipathy or aversion to strangers or foreigners.
The Seventh Grave Precept, one of the vows I received when I took refuge, provides us with clear direction about xenophobia:
Realize self and others as one. Do not elevate the self and blame others.
Mom & Mr. Murphy, January 2012
The past ten days have been a roller coaster, a Mom roller coaster. This time it is something entirely out of the realm of the usual conflicts and hurt between us. In some ways there's a rather painful familiarity to what's been happening, but for now I don't want to go into the details, although I will in time.
What I want to talk about is what happens when we do not realize the self and others as one. What happens and what we are capable of when we don't practice with the Seventh Grave Precept.
We truly see and hear about the consequences of seeing people as other every day. Wars, murder, sexual exploitation, ethnic violence, abuse, theft, and more all happen because one group of people sees another group as other and their xenophobia lets them justify all manners of horrifying behavior.
We also witness this when animals are treated as commodities to be tortured, killed, and consumed. We tell ourselves that animals don't feel the way we do, that their suffering isn't on par with ours so we find it acceptable to treat them horrifically. We justify laws that classify sentient beings as property and allow barbarous treatment of them to be classified as "animal agriculture".
The Seventh Grave Precept asks us to keep our hearts open to the compassion of the Buddhas. It tells us to never flinch away from taking responsibility for ourselves, never put ourselves above another being either by seeing them as other or through blaming them for our own poor choices. At every moment we look at another being knowing that they are absolutely the same, equal with ourselves.
The First Noble Truth reminds us that we all suffer. It is the human condition to suffer. In this, and in so many other ways, we're each of us exactly the same. We all long to be loved and seen for who we are. We fear the suffering of illness, injury, loss, and our inevitable deaths. Each and every moment we're all out there together with our worries, hopes, dreams, and desires.
The past 10 days have created a gulf between people who have tried, in their own flawed and human way, to love each other. There's been both discord and joy, misunderstanding and communion. There have been unexpected and grave illnesses. In the end my Mom was seen as other and experienced shocking treatment because of it.
It hurts a lot and I am mindful of an anger so keen that it leaves me feeling ashamed and overwhelmed.
In contrast to the negativity that comes from not practicing the Seventh Grave Precept, loving-kindness and compassion arise naturally. In response to the events of this past week I see the true compassion people have for one another. There have been so many people, some of them complete strangers, who've offered help, time, money, creative thinking, concern, and loving-kindness. People have been giving in so many unexpected ways. These kindnesses, both small and large, help me to remember to keep my heart open instead of closed in anger.
Strengths
Several years ago, at the last company I worked for, there was a team building initiative that saw my team and the client team we worked with. We all received a copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths
While I don't think companies can manage people on the results of these kinds of tests, I do find them rather interesting. I think they can provide a little insight about people you are working with. Outside of work I've occasionally run into people who've also taken this and I've enjoyed talking with them about what they've learned about themselves from the results they got.
Here are my Top 5 Strengths from a few years ago:
- Input
- Learner
- Restorative
- Connectedness
- Intellection
Fast forward to my new company. One of the directors in the IT organization has a few initiatives to reach out to other women at the company. Next week she's having a facilitator join a group of us to talk about the results we had from taking the "StrengthsFinder" test. We all recieved a copy of StrengthsFinder 2.0
Given how interesting I found this process the first time, I signed up. I also was very curious to find how, or if, my top 5 strengths had changed much. A few years ago 3 of my 5 showed that learning was vitally important to me. That combined with the other strengths really showed, accurately, my love not only of learning, but of sharing what I'd learned with others.
Here are my results based on yesterday's test:
- Learner
- Strategic
- Responsibility
- Empathy
- Connectedness
I'm not at all surprised to see that my ability to learn still tops the list. I feel like that "Restorative" strength has deepened and grown into "Empathy". Given how strongly I feel about the interconnectedness of all things, I'm also unsurprised to see that Connectedness remains one of my top strengths.
However it is the addition of Strategic and Responsibility that really make me think. In the past few years I've become more involved in community building, helping to put on events that see hundreds of participants and sometimes spanning multiple days. I think this kind of volunteering has really grown my ability to think strategically. I think I've always been mindful of being responsible for my own work and actions, even if during some times in my life I've tried to pretend otherwise. Now it has evolved into a real strength.
I really look forward to what comes out of the session with the facilitator next week!
Gratitude 2011
I've mentioned before that Thanksgiving is a rather meaningful holiday for me. I love the celebration of the harvest, particularly in preparing delicious vegan food for a big feast. I also really love looking back on the year, reflecting on the events that have past as the darkest days of the years tick down. Sharing this holiday with people I love means a lot to me.
This year CK and I nearly spent the holiday in Sacramento with her family. Her Father is trying to cause some problems and she hasn't been down in a while. Ultimately we realized we were feeling very stressed in planning to go down. Bigger than her concern that she was falling back into the habitual behavior learned while growing up, CK realized that Thanksgiving with her family, complete with both turkey and ham being served, was another example of a communal meal that would leave us feeling distracted, sad, being made to feel othered by our being vegan, and complicit in the suffering of sentient beings.
So we stayed home and several friends came over to celebrate with us. Another friend came by to foist more dessert upon us and DW dropped by between our place, her Dad's and her brother's adopted family. We all enjoyed a big feast, with our friends bringing food and wine to celebrate with us. I'm so very grateful for this meal, this time with friends who share and support our desire to live our lives honoring peace and non-violence. I'm really honored by CK and her desire to make this holiday one that celebrates peace and non-violence -- even when doing so means dealing with a lot of hurt feelings from her family.
*CK has posted a really good article about her decision to not partake in a non-vegan Thanksgiving on her blog.
The buidling reflected in the pond behind the heron is the one my office is in.
This year also brings me gratitude for my new job. Just last Thanksgiving I'd gone out on an icy cold, windy day for my interview. I'd talked about it with friends during dinner last year, but had been certain I wouldn't get an offer. It has been nearly a year now, much of it filled with an intensely busy project schedule, but I'm so grateful for a team that respects me and I feel like I can grow my skills further at this company.
It doesn't feel right not to reflect upon how grateful I am for my wife. This past week we worked hard together making our basement closer to habitable and mourning the discovery that several of our old, leather-bound books have suffered mold due to the increased humidity brought on from the house being insulated & weatherized. CK hung vivid red curtains in our living/dining room, making the space feel cozier and brighter. I was once again how struck I was at finally having a partner in my life who was there for me during the hard work and the fun. It makes all the difference and I am filled with gratitude for CK.
There are also our animal companions to be grateful for. They bring us so much joy and despite the regularity with which we find ourselves cleaning up messes, barf, and endless piles of fur, we wouldn't have it any other way. I'm so grateful that we're able to open our home to our little herd.
Finally, some gratitude that extends beyond my home for the news this past Tuesday that our current governor announced a moratorium on executions for the remainder of his elected term. This news is so welcome and I am so profoundly grateful for it. Although I wish he'd go so far as to commute all death sentences to life in prison, making an even stronger statement against the death penalty, I at least feel like his announcement opens things up to serious discussion. I felt particularly touched by this quote from the statement that was released, "I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am Governor."
Moving Right Along
That's kind of what life does. When we're little it feels like it moves intolerable slow, as we age we find ourselves looking up, blinking in astonishment at how quickly things speed by.
Case in point. Here it is November, nearly middle of. Gracious!
Work remains very busy. I've come to accept that the crazy busy feeling at first wasn't the "ramp up" period of getting used to a new job, new team, etc. My team just seems to run on "damn busy" all the time and I'm trying to find peace with the fact that I end each week just worn out and feeling like I haven't accomplished nearly enough.
This past week I received a very nice compliment from one of the project managers. I'd run a meeting to review and validate user acceptance testing. It was a busy 90 minutes of keeping client testers on task and keeping our developer from feeling overwhelmed and picked apart. Later that day the project manager made a point to tell me how impressed he is with the work I put into making this project run. He went further to say that he felt he could really learn from the way I run my meetings and projects.
I'm trying to just let that one sit and feel good about it. I feel like I'm behind on all the tasks for that given project, so it would be far to easy to pick apart that compliment until there's nothing left but my task list. Instead I'm just reminding myself that I am actually very good at what I do and that people both see and respect it.
Mom... I haven't seen her since this summer. I've spoken to her several times, but I can't quite get enough energy together to see her in person. It is a combination of the fact that spending time with her literally eats away one of my precious weekend days, complete with a bunch more driving, and feeling the hurt of how she treated me.
We got into something of an argument on Monday night. I won't go into the details, but it mostly all got hung up on how angrily she meets my setting boundaries. When I fail to respond how she wants me to, she lashes out at me and at herself. I'm still growing the skill of setting a boundary and not rising to the bait when she responds negatively. It is hard practice and somehow seeing her in person seems like just one stone too many right now.
Her health remains precarious. She has ulcers that are bleeding and she's receiving transfusions about every 6 weeks. He husband's health is failing rapidly and she feels alienated by his family, like they don't trust her. It is hard and I feel so very sad for her suffering.
On my health front things are well. I've lost 10 pounds and my cholesterol isn't the 219 it tested at at the employee health fair, but a far happier 178. I've been going to the aqua power class on Saturday mornings and trying to go to a Zumba class offered at the gym at work. Being in the water on Saturday really helps a lot. Zumba really feels out of my comfort zone, I generally just try to keep moving and not crash into anyone else, but the group of women who go are generally encouraging and supporting, which helps.