Like Words Together Reflections from the deep end of Practice.

11Jul/090

Respite

I had a moment of panic last night, about an hour after I'd posted. Fear of being found out, fear of revealing, fear I'd said too much. Nothing but swirling fear and shame. I curled up next to CK who rubbed my back and told me it was alright, good that I'd written everything, until I felt calmer.

This morning I first awoke at 6AM, noticed the time, appreciated the sun coming in through the open window and went back to sleep. 90 minutes later I was wide awake so I went downstairs, fed the cats and sat zazen. My brain was bouncing all over the place this morning. It was just active, alert energy instead of the anxiety of the previous night. The fears over the post had subsided to worrying that I've written too many "downer" posts in a row. For the whole 25 minutes I sat zazen I just kept trying to come back to Metta practice, my breath and stay bemused, rather than judging.

Today has been one of the first Saturdays that has had nothing planned in weeks. CK appeared to be sleeping, not coughing, so I made a pot of chai and answered an email from an old friend. When she did wake up I made up a scramble of russet potatoes, seared tofu, red pepper, sweet onion and garlic.

It has felt like a creative day today. Making the scramble was a lot of fun and something we haven't had in a while. I also finally came up with a ginger-miso dressing recipe I'm happy with. I actually made the mini-box lotus shrine I've had in my mind for RG and a panel to go into the mint-tin shrine I'm working on to send to JAN. It felt really good to get back in touch with artistic pursuits. CK commented that she really enjoys watching me work on art projects.

After enjoying dinner out on the deck - quinoa, aduki beans, kale & the dressing I'd made - CK and I picked beans in the garden. We ended up with pounds of string beans - yellow, red, and green. I washed them and spread them out on the kitchen counter to dry a little before I put them in the fridge. We also picked a few cucumbers and a summer squash.

Before we went in we stood admiring the whiteness of the clouds, touched by the pink of the sunset, against the blue sky. She wrapped her arms around me, I leaned back against her, and looked for swimmers & pouncing cats in the clouds. After the heaviness of the past few months today has felt like a complete treat. I did my best to be present to this joy.

29Dec/080

Exploding Out

I had an appointment with IW today, the evening sky was so beautiful as I headed over. I took my art journal with me, correctly guessing that she'd find the drawing I did of how my fear feels very interesting. It is so energetic, which is something that my therapy with her touches into, the ways the energy is stored, bound up in my body.

I tried to explain to her that when I first was explaining the energy during sanzen with HB some time ago that the fear felt like a black hole. The blackness pulling in all the light and energy, the way a black hole pulls apart a dying sun.

I'd started the drawing with that blackness, the center of it and added the reds, yellows and oranges. The meditating figure I added later. Eventually I realized it was me, the figure. At the very end I decided to add features to my face. I wanted to feel hopeful so I drew gentle, peaceful features.

IW was excited by the drawing. she felt, contrary to my "black hole" image that I'd draw all the blackness exploding out. She was interested that it was directly over my heart, the black fear and angry reds. IW thought if I'd added lines, containers around it the energy would be shown as trapped inside, instead it was all rushing, draining out of me.

She hopes I'll do more artwork, she thinks it is a great outlet for exploring this energy, these memories. I mentioned to her that I'd got the idea to try some artwork after picking up a crayon during a guided meditation for trauma recovery. IW, like GM thought I have made a good choice in providing myself art supplies after that moment. Especially given how art was something that wasn't really I had a lot of opportunity to do growing up despite wanting to.

We talked a little while she worked on the trigger points in my body. I mentioned that GW thinks my mind lets go of things during zazen at the Dharma Center because it knows that I am safe. She agreed with that, but she also thinks that in the silence my body is able to speak. That through all of this my body is trying to tell me things. Eventually I'll get through all of this and my body will be able to let go of some of the pain because it has finally been heard.

On top of the posi

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22Dec/080

Staying with It

I've been inside most of the day, really all day since the only going outside I did was to walk to the edge of the sidewalk, marvel at the snow and go back inside again. I logged into work and plugged away at a project much of the day, the rest of it was spent completing some online training I had listed as an accomplishment for 2008.

CK decided this morning to drive after finding another person wanting to do the same. The other woman also has experience driving on the snow and using chains. A vehicle was rented, chains were bought and the two of them set off up I-5 from Woodland, California at 11:55 this morning. I've been very relieved to be able to text with her off and on as well as talk with her a couple of times.

Nearly 2 hours ago they passed Eugene and were less than 100 miles from Portland. The would have started hitting the results of the snow and ice storm within the past hour and she sent out a message that they put the chains on about 35 minutes ago (about 8:45PM as I'm writing). I'm not sure if she'll be able to come directly to the flat where Atari and I are waiting for her, she may get dropped into downtown. If the MAX is running, and the Blue Line is, she would have to do the walk from the stop which takes about 15 minutes of brisk walking on a normal day. I may bundled up and meet her partway with more layers.

I worked on things until about 5PM today then decided to wrap it up for the day, my eyes were feeling a bit tired. Felt a little better after some asana practice, some deep forward bends, lots of down dog & twists, and a few sun salutations. I felt so stiff after sitting all day working, the relative cold outside, and an undercurrent of concern for CK. Then sat zazen for a little while, had a difficult time being present today once I tried to settle into stillness with that worry and ache.

Earlier in the day I had started some soup and it had filled the flat with a delicious smell. I finished zazen feeling hungry and impatient. I'd brought my dinner, soup and toast, out and realized that I'd started to check emails, news, road conditions, Twitter... All distraction while I was mindlessly eating dinner. I put the laptop aside and brought myself back to dinner, fully appreciating the very tasty soup I'd made.

I've been online either working or checking personal stuff (email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter) so much today that after eating I put aside my iBook at went back to my journal again. Added the words "NOW" and "HERE" on torn bits of blue paper, plus a red square (an homage to the "you are here" dots on maps) to the cover.

Last night I'd played around with the idea of putting the drawing of myself meditating in the journal. It isn't a realistic style image, it is me because I know it is. It is a drawing I did after explaining to HB what the fear feels like in my body. I had described a dark, heavy, cold blackness at the center of my chest. It felt like tendrils of that blackness snaked out, devouring all the warmth and light around me. Like a black hole consuming the matter around it.

After working on the colors for a while I went back and added just a little definition to show that there was a person there. When I put small lines in the face I decided to give the hint of a smile to the mouth. I wanted to see myself as knowing peace in that effort, despite the crushing, destructive feeling of the fear I still was able to maintain some equanimity. I spent a fair bit of time on carefully cutting out the piece, trying to preserve the tendrils of colors. I mounted it over gold foil, origami paper.

Neither the cover nor the piece inside feel completely finished to me yet. I've set them aside for the night, opting to write some and let my thoughts around them both settle. CK is on the outskirts of Portland now (about 10:24PM as I finish up this entry), making slow but steady progress.

It has been good practice, this past day of being alone. I look forward to waking up with CK tomorrow morning, knowing she is safely back in Portland. Back to the practice we share together.

21Dec/080

Until I have something worthy

CK is still in Sacramento. Portland is covered in at least a half inch of ice on top of several inches of snow. At least another half inch of snow has fallen this afternoon. It is cold, windy and totally unlike Portland. Which is why CK is still in Sacramento. And I miss her a lot.

I'm at her flat, my other home is how it feels now. I don't have cable traction devices for the Outback and the ones DW had for her little car were too small so AM drove me over in the truck so I could stay here. Last night I'd noted just how cold the flat was and that Atari hadn't eaten very much. AM and I talked about it and agreed I'd just stay over here if she was still stuck.

Atari was so happy to see me. It took a good three hours to get the flat up to a comfortable temperature. I also turned on the electric blanket and he's now sprawled out on it, a paw outstretched, sleeping comfortably. He's been extra friendly and loving. I'm really glad that AM can be at the house taking care of Zonker & Phoebe and DW so I can be here to make Atari comfortable.

When I first go here I just stayed bundled up, on the bed (on top of the electric blanket), reading. Atari got on my lap after I'd put on some REI fleece pants I had over here and I read Lavinia for a while. It started to snow hard again so I decided to play with the snowshoes, walked up to the end of the street to get a feel for them, and took some pictures. Gratefully came inside, noting how much warmer it felt, and did some chores.

Before leaving the house I did something out of the ordinary. I grabbed some more art supplies. My sketch book and Art Stix had migrated over here, primarily so I could show her something I'd done. I grabbed up the book I'd bought a couple of years ago at Rainbow in San Francisco, my collection of paper (origami, samples from San Francisco, etc.), the pencils and my glue.

I was chatting with CK this evening and told her that I'd started to do a collage on the cover of this sketch book. It is just spiral bound with heavy card stock cover. The inside is filled with high quality, heavy, hemp paper. I bought it for myself on a trip visiting SJ and every time I've opened it I've held myself back. On some level thinking that I needed to save this nice book for really nice work, that anything I'd put in there now wouldn't be any good, unworthy of the book.

So it has been blank all this time. The cover got bent on the front providing a way for me to feel angry at myself for mistreating this special thing (I never use). I just move it around, occasionally open it and appreciate the paper inside, all the blank pages. The book I lug around now is cheap and I judge most of what's in there unworthy. Sometimes I color pieces on it to cut out and use elsewhere.

I love the idea of an artist's journal. I also feel somehow called to honor this desire in me to create this way. I guess it is another place where I get stuck calling myself an 'artist'. I think about journals and never start one, never satisfied with any unifying theme. I made one cool page dedicated to Mondrian in my other book but have never followed on my idea for doing pages around other artists I've enjoyed the work on.

In light of trying to see my creative efforts as worthy in my own eyes I started to cover the bent cover. Adding a collage of papers for creativity as well as reinforcing the bend so it will work better. It doesn't need a theme, I'll just add in things when I am inspired to make them. I already have a couple of ideas to start myself off. It is just the art that is here with me now, which is entirely worthy.

16Dec/080

Winter’s Cold

Outside it was frigid today. The cold felt bright, intense, brittle; reminding me of Wisconsin. As soon as I sat in the car the cold sank into my hips and they ached. Winter's cold is not a friend to my body, it tightens and resists the cold, pulling in on itself to try and keep the hearth going.

After my last meeting wrapped up I quick looked at CK's blog, which is allowed on the network at the office and contains her most recent Twitter posts. I saw that her office was not warming up at all, it was a bit past 11AM so I checked to see if she wanted to get lunch. We met up in the Park Blocks and headed over to Blossoming Lotus for delicious lentil & wild rice soup and a very tasty maple glazed tempeh sandwich (messy, CK laughed at the sight of me with stuff on my chin).

I finally saw her office, walked over with her after lunch. I liked the way the window saw the edge of the Chinatown gate, as seen from across a rooftop. On the way back out I realized what the smell in the building recalled -- being in the Wright Art Hall at Beloit. I worked in the Wright, as a attendant in the museum my freshman year, and ultimately as the assistant to the Wright Registrar.

I spent days going through the records of the collection. One project involved affixing the small images taken from cut up proof sheets onto the actual paper record. While working on this project with the modern art print collection I would often be unable to correctly determine the proper orientation of the image. I'd have to take the record, the tiny photograph and a magnifying lens back into the stacks with me, locate the original piece of artwork, figured the orientation of piece and affixed the photograph to the paper.

It was both a tedious task and an utter delight. I viewed photographs of much of the collection, especially the modern art. Working in the museums, I also worked and researched in the Logan collection, also meant that I had numerous occasions to hold priceless pieces in my hands. Old things, amazing things.

Once I took a spinning a weaving class down in the basement of the Wright. Hours spent bent over a 4-harness loom or setting up a back-strap loom using the banister to tie off to for tension. When I last left Beloit one of the looms was holding a half-finished project of mine. Rose colored cotton, chosen mostly for affordability, done in an simple open-work lace. Then plan was to continue the autumn of what would have been my senior year, only I never went back.

CK's office is in a building that smells like the Wright. A dry smell hinting at plaster, paint, pencils, paper... creation. The building evoked memories, many of them precious.

Pulling on clean, cotton gloves to handle artwork or artifacts. The smoothness with which the huge drawers containing prints slid out. The feel of the ceiling mounted storage, the shift of it as you opened them apart like enormous pages. The chill of the ceramics storage in Logan's basement -- particularly there. Many hours coming in from the cold outside to descend into the dry, chill ceramics room. Bundled up, sitting on the concrete making meticulous notes about the Peruvian pieces I was researching for my thesis.

The scent of the medium of artistic is very rich for me I realize. It feels like yearning sometimes, wanting to create. I want to create artwork for CB & HB when I take Jukai next autumn. I am able to picture it in my head but I feel confused as to where to begin.

I imagine the impression of a gate as the back of the piece, with words from the Flower Sermon running on the edges, "I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the true form of the formless, the subtle Dharma Gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures." A wooden artist's model of a hand holding a flower. Perhaps the flower is made of beads on wire, making the flower easy to twine about the hand. Somewhere there is a smile, just the hint of it, Mahākāśyapa's moment of realization. I've thought about the base being an enso with the hand rising out of it.

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16Dec/080

Art Thoughts

I woke up having had unsettling dreams, tired and worn out. It was hard to get going. It occurred to me that I should jot down the dream, but didn't get to do it right away so the images drifted away while I showered.

After having lunch with CK today I finally went over to her new office with her. Although it is so near my own office downtown, for some reason I'd not popped in there at all. The building, split up into smaller spaces, is used by several artists and the scent of the place reminds me of the art hall at Beloit.

I can remember having ideas for projects in school as a kid but no one to work on them with me. Anytime I want to create something with my hands feeling at a loss as to how to execute what was in my head with my hands. I never got to take an art class after 7th grade ceramics. Not entirely sure why, maybe it was too expensive to buy supplies.

Like singing, art is a place where I feel resistance, my inner critic pushing me down, patronizing my ideas and efforts. Refusing to actually apply the word 'art' to anything I create. Craft yes, art no.