Amid Overwhelm

Life is Hard Right Now

I do not want to hear, for you to tell me,
that the unknown is a magical place
full of wonder and rebirth.

It’s not that I don’t believe you,
it’s that now
is not the time.

I do not want to be told
to stop feeling
what I am feeling
because you
do not know
how to listen.

I am in no mood to field
your unsolicited advice.

When I say life is hard right now,
I want you to feel what it is I am saying.

I do not need
to be saved
or for you
to fix it.

I know what I’m about.

When I say life is hard right now,
without drama or fanfare
or want of verbal response,
I am honoring what it means
to be human.

___________

Downsizing

Here’s what yielded from my most recent wave of downsizing. Even in our small (550sf) relatively already uncluttered house, I was able to collect a good amount of items to usher onward to other hands.

A poetic telling:

Another wave of downsizing (in hopeful preparation for selling our house and moving on land).

A big table overflowing with items to usher on.

Each wave harder still.

Each wave going deeper into the annals of time.

Each object holding its own memory or delight or charm – a symbol of what I never want to let go of, but will.

Some things are easy to give away.

Others require a great pause and remembering of service offered before cutting the cord.

Some things are like a tiny death, like leaves marching to the ground in late autumn to conserve lifeforce energy for winter, in preparation for another spring.

_________

Just this morning, I found a buyer for my drum set. Now in place of it, I have opened up real estate in our small house to leave out my meditation cushion (verses tucking it away each morning after I use it).

Gratitude & Stress

Non-duality has been on my mind a lot lately. The art of balance & blending. Of holding more than one part of reality to be true at the same time as another perhaps seemingly paradoxical/contradictory part. For example, gratefulness and being stressed out are not mutually exclusive feeling states. I have been experiencing high volumes of both of these on board in my mind/body system lately a good deal of the time, simultaneously.

The teachings and wisdom centered around non-duality date back a long ways and from my very limited understanding originate largely from Asian cultures. Many people from many lands for many years have been passing down knowledge and wisdom around non-duality, and I am especially grateful for my root teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, from whom I first and foremost have been led and instructed by in regards to this thread of practice.

My sense is, for many of us, non-duality is a tricky wicket. For a long long time, I understood it only in theory. But as my practice grows and strengthens – and perhaps also as I get older – I feel as though I am now starting to actually get what it means on a real, felt experience level.

Thinking, speaking, and acting in a Yes AND sort of way verses an Either OR sort of way is no small task. I think it’s relatively easy to grasp on a cognitive level but applying it IRL takes some real practice. And currently, and for a little while now, I feel as though I have been getting a lot of practice.

My husband and I are in active land search mode right now. Since spring has sprung here in the mountains of Montana, we’ve been getting a lot of boots on the ground time in. Every week we are out driving dirt roads in all directions on our quest for finding a place to set up shop. “Shop” meaning: a place for us to live year-round and also start our long-held dream of creating a mindfulness practice center that is open for folks to visit, stay, retreat (& maybe live), and build community (for info about our aspiration, called Empty Mountain, click here to visit our newly created website).

Mothers Day Is Not Always A Celebration

I am someone who has a high level of interest in keeping in mind certain smaller demographics of people when it comes to all sorts of matters. As I move more and more in the direction of writing and giving talks and leading events and classes in hopeful support of others on the path of Dharma-inspired practice, for instance, I am deeply invested in trying to do my best to write and speak and present in such a way that recognizes and stays close in touch with the reality of how among those reading & listening to me: trauma is present; mental health challenges are present; physical ailments/pain are present; marginalized people are present; eating disorders, addictions, great difficulties of all kinds (known and unknown; seen and unseen) may be present.

Thus, today I am aware that Mother’s Day is not a joyous celebratory day for everyone. This morning, when I checked my email inbox, I had a number of Hooray it’s Mother’s Day themed messages from a variety of different newsletters and list serves that I subscribe to. I don’t begrudge all of the kudos and shout outs to mothers. I’m not saying that I think our public discourse needs to stop celebrating and honoring mothers or necessarily even do anything differently. But when I see all of the Mother’s Day themed memes and posts and stories and signage in stores, my thoughts often trail to all the people for whom Mother’s Day is a hard day.

This holiday creates no distress at all for me personally. I have a great mom whom I love dearly, who is and has been supportive and loving and a force for good in my world. But there are many people who do not have good quality, love-filled relationships with their mothers. People for whom their mother: never cared well for them; neglected them; treated them poorly; was unable to protect them from abuse; was incapable of providing physical and/or mental/emotional support for them. People whose mother died in childbirth or died when they were very young or died suddenly or tragically. There are women who tried for years and years to have a child and were painfully unable. The list of reasons as to why this day may be anywhere from mildly uncomfortable to excruciatingly unbearable goes on and on.

Many of our U.S holidays are rough on certain smaller demographics of people (perhaps in other countries too but as I am unfamiliar with the customs and people of other areas, I don’t want to overreach and speak on behalf of things I know little to nothing about). I’ve met and talked with and heard from enough people to know that for some folks: Valentine’s Day is hard; Christmas is hard; Thanksgiving is hard; their birthday is hard; New Year’s is hard; Mother’s Day is hard; Father’s Day is hard.

So this is me, remembering and holding all of the people for whom this day is harrowing in my heart.