Hiatus

Hello, All. I'll be taking a short hiatus from the blog but will return in June! Enjoy your holiday and I'll catch you next month.

Rest is good. Mental rest is better!

Wisdom from Heron Dance #303

The most recent Heron Dance "A Pause for Beauty"--written by its founder Rod MacIver--had some lovely advice embedded within that I'd like to share here. It stresses the importance of slowing down and cultivating balance in your life. It stresses the need to slow down your life and look around at all your blessings. In short: it's truly lovely. Enjoy.

"I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to live life guided by love. I’ve got a long, long way to go but every day I’m trying to get a little further down the path. Love is a simple and obviously profound word, and in part that’s why I like it. I need something I can boil right down because I fall so easily off track.

I remember an inmate who had been in prison a very long time saying in an interview — it may even been one of the inmate interviews I did in the early days of Heron Dance — that “I love you” is one phrase we humans never tire of hearing. An Op-Ed article in the New York Times last week, by David Brooks, described a 72-year study of 268 men who attended Harvard College. They were gifted, affluent and apparently well-adjusted. It is a fascinating article (visit here to view), and the conclusion of the man who oversaw the work for 42 years was that “Love is happiness. Full stop.” The degree of happiness in a person’s life depends on the quality of human relationships.

Yes, I agree, but there is more to it than just human relationships. The degree of love we are able to pour into a work — for instance, a creative work — or even a place — for instance, a wild place or a community — affects the quality of our lives. Pouring love into a home even has an expansive effect: — creating a home of peace and beauty, a simple home, a home where others — strangers, friends and family — feel comfortable and at peace, contributes to the quality of a human life.

To build a life around love requires thought and care. You need to be rested. You can’t fill yourself with love when you are overtired and grouchy. You need to live a low stress life, a life with a margin in reserve — a financial margin, an energy margin. You need to put understanding and acceptance ahead of winning conflicts or prevailing in disputes. A life built around love probably involves a fair amount of surrender over relatively minor issues.

You also need to minimize the number of moving parts. When I’m going in lots of different directions or responsible for lots of different projects, I can’t find love inside myself and can’t offer it to others or even to my work. All of these things have some relationship with one’s friendship with oneself and, perhaps, as a part of that, a relationship to time in reflection and quiet meditation.

The Op-Ed piece also contains these observations: “A third of the men would suffer at least one bout of mental illness. Alcoholism would be a running plague. The most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success.” Mundane? We can’t be what we’re not. I’m not mundane and don’t want to be, but I have a very happy life. I love adventure, challenge, and learning. I’m fascinated by life. But balance is another thing. I often struggle for balance. I’m prone to extremes. When I’m living a balanced life — work and play, physical exercise and rest, the paddle down a wild river and then the return home to a quiet evening — I’m most able to find the love inside myself and offer it to the world."

Starbucks: The Way I See It #76

This morning I noticed the below quote on the back of my Starbucks cup. I thought it was so well stated, especially how it captured the essence of what it means to commit to something, that I wanted to share it here. Thanks, (self described "organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist), for sharing your thought with us.

"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating--in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."

~ Anne Morriss, self described "organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist"

Forming a commitment to something or someone goes well past ideas of attachment because when you commit, you give of yourself; you become one with something other than yourself and with all simultaneously. You no longer exist for yourself alone -- you can't. Perhaps this is why it is both so welcomed and so feared. For in the midst of our commitment, we let something -- whether an intellectual or spiritual pursuit -- or someone into our deepest center and make the decision to show up 100%. There is no hiding when committed. There is no hesitation...just discernment beforehand and then the plunge.

Marathon Training Lesson #2: The Mind

More time spent training for the marathon has led me to realize that while some of the challenge resides in the physical (easily adjusted by diet and rest), much more resides in the realm of the mind. Sundays are my long days--the days I tackle the highest mileage--and each Sunday I notice the mileage growing by leaps and bounds, sometimes by as much as two miles.

As the length stretches into the double digits I find myself thinking, "How am I *ever* going to complete this?" "How will my body handle the pounding?" But I realize it's just my mind working in overdrive, trying to anticipate the long road ahead and whatever challenges are out there.

It is in these moments that I just take a deep breath, give Zed (my reptilian naysayer) a yellow gumdrop and belly rub, and put one foot in front of the other until I'm in some sort of groove. I choose not to allow silly fears get in the way of my success, concentrating instead on the journey and taking it one movement at a time.

What Does It Mean To Be Happy?

I honestly wish I knew the answer to the above question. I think the easiest answer is that it is amorphous and not easily defined. And, yet, we've all had moments in our lives when we can say "I am happy." I can identify the feeling of happiness as a lightness of being; an internal joy upon witnessing humanity acting well and with compassion. A smile may play on my lips and laughter may echo from my throat in these moments. I may bee-bop around and walk with a skip. I don't always understand how it finds me and how I create it in myself, but I always welcome its presence and its sister emotion contentment.

Over the years, I have found that happiness is fleeting when you weigh it down with expectations and analysis. I have also discovered that I am happier for longer periods when I live with an attitude of gratitude and spend less time watching the news.

Recently, I read an intriguing article in the NYTimes about the tiny kingdom of Bhutan and its desire to measure the happiness of its people. I had to ask myself, "Can happiness really be measured?" "Is it really possible to chart government programs not by the economy they produce but by the happiness they produce?" "Do the two follow one another?" And, I went on to consider what this may look like in our own United States considering so many people are suffering and know little happiness right now. Or do they?





This was not my first brush with the Bhutanese philosophy on happiness but I find I continue to revisit this nation's thoughts and attitudes towards it often. Why? Because they are at least attempting to lead their lives by it and govern their nation by it. In this country, we have the right to pursue happiness but it doesn't say anything about the guarantee of its receipt.

It's interesting food for thought. I certainly don't want to fall prey to the Shangri-La attitude that there are happy places out there but it ain't here. I'm sure that if we had open conversations with the Bhutanese there would be some things they are unhappy about, even if it is just one iota of what we face in this country. Still, isn't life what you make of it? Isn't happiness a choice? I believe it is and that we could choose happiness in this instant if we really wanted to.

And this leads me to something else I've been considering lately. Why do we choose to be unhappy? We do we choose to allow external factors disturb our internal happiness? Why do we so easily give away our power on this? I haven't come to any conclusions but I am adding awareness of this to my daily radar, monitoring the times I allow it to occur and the times I don't. I know that I am moving towards greater awareness of my thoughts and the thoughts of others, filtering out what is necessary for my existence and leaving the rest behind. And, with time, I will become unflappable. Will it find me with greater happiness? That's uncertain....I'll let you know what I find out down the road.

Maya Lin at Storm King Art Center

One of my most treasured places to visit on the Eastern Seaboard is New York's Storm King Art Center. This large outdoor sculpture garden is situated on over 500 acres of rolling hills in the Hudson River Valley with some of the land acting as a working farm. I first discovered Storm King while hunting down North American exhibits of my favorite artist, Andy Goldsworthy. Walking around and through his stone wall has always been meditative for me, and I treasure it anew each time I visit.

So, I was absolutely delighted to hear that Maya Lin had added a piece to Storm King's Collection. Entitled "Storm King Wavefield", the piece examines the tension between movement and stasis. I look forward to my own visit this summer and to refreshing myself on Lin's work having seen much of it while a student at Yale and now living in the DC area. She has a powerful way of adding to the world's understanding of nature and memory, and she is someone whose work I would like to know better.

Lessons from the Pied Piper

The oldest picture of the Pied Piper as copied from the glass window of Marktkirche in Hamelin by Freiherr Augustin von Moersperg, circa 1300.

Growing up, I first discovered the story of the Pied Piper in the Brothers Grimm book my parents presented to my sister and me when we were young. In it, we learned that the Piper was called to rid a village of its rats by playing his magical pipe. Upon doing so, the villagers refused to pay him, prompting the Piper to lead away their children in an act of vengeance.

Recently, I circled back to the Pied Piper story as I was reading Clarissa Pinkola Estes's "Women Who Run with the Wolves" in an attempt to view the story through the lens of Jungian archetypes. Estes does not tell the story of the Pied Piper, choosing instead to share the Hans Christian Andersen story entitled "The Red Shoes".

In the story, a young girl falls in love with a pair of red shoes and begins to think of them above all else. In time, she meets a man who slaps the soles of the shoes (other versions feature a piper which lulls them into action with his music) which launches them into continuous motion. The young girl cannot take them off and is resigned to a life spent in servitude to her dancing shoes. One day she finds herself so weary that she begs an executioner to cut off her feet so as to be free from the cursed shoes and, as a result, spends the rest of her life as a cripple.

Estes introduces the story as a cautionary tale designed to teach young women the importance of cherishing one's soul worth and one's life's path and why it is so crucial to resist those who might try to seduce, threaten and rob one of it.

Continuing my reading of Estes's work, I appreciated how she was able to dissect each story and expose the Jungian archetypes at play, including the seductive Piper.

The Pied Piper is a powerful archetype and can be incredibly destructive if one never learns to stop the enchanting music he weaves (don't mean to pick on men...can be seen in women, too). The Piper will work to lull you to music which is not your own, seducing you to follow a path which is not your, and if you heed the call, could ultimately drive you to exhaustion and a crippled soul. Whew! I consider it one of the most dangerous archetypes out there. Still, on the flip side, the Piper can also serve as a powerful teacher by reminding you to honor your sacred contracts in life, relinquishing them for no one and no thing.

I've met the Piper in my own life and the meeting will forever stay with me because I came very close to entering into a life not meant for me, even though it sounded so pretty. I don't regret the encounter because I learned much from it, most importantly that I had a sacred contract somewhere else that I couldn't explain but had to follow. And the courage to walk away from someone else's music to follow my own has led me to a rich life with deep soul blessings.

The additional lesson of the Piper is this: you can't blame the Piper for choosing to follow his/her pretty music and giving up your power in the process. You can't cry "victim" but you can begin to claim responsibility for having a need to follow the Piper in the first place. My hunch is that it has much to do with not accepting one's soul contracts in life, even if they don't feel comfortable at first.

Caroline Myss has done some incredible work on breaking down archetypal patterns in her book "Sacred Contracts". In fact, I believe that sometimes we come into contact with others who remind us of the value of our own lives and the contracts we have undertaken, even if there is some pain involved. Pain, methinks, is the reminder that there is dis-ease afoot and lessons to be learned.

So, in my own life, I've met the Piper and learned some powerful lessons that forever changed me. The music stopped before any permanent damage was done and I find that I've embraced my life's purpose with more vigor than I had before. The Piper was the most dangerous figure/archetype I've ever met, leaving me with gratitude for the experience. I was lucky -- it was only a brush with the archetype and nothing more. In the end, my life was revolutionized and fruit grows where there once was much pain.

A Memorial Celebration for Dr. Kenneth Lindsay

Last weekend, I attended a memorial celebration for my friend and advisor, Dr. Kenneth Lindsay, at SUNY Binghamton. He passed away on March 2nd and I wasn't able to attend his funeral; however, I was determined to attend this celebration of his life so appropriately held at the University's Art Museum.

It was a beautiful affair, filled with music from the Baroque era (including some of Ken's favorite pieces by Henry Purcell) and made real by friends and family regaling those present with poignant and touching stories about Ken and his impact on others.

I cannot say it enough: Ken Lindsay was an extraordinary Renaissance man and scholar but he was also a hell of a nice guy who went out of his way to help others achieve their work. He was an unselfish teacher, a model husband, father and grandfather, and the type of guy who could weave a tremendous story over sharp cheddar cheese, crackers and cocktails.

Sitting in the Lindsay family home following the celebration, I holed up in the kitchen and took in the home's obvious history and all the love, kinship and laughter which pressed in around me. It felt good. It felt like home, and I suspect everyone else there felt it too. Ken was a beloved man and will continue to be missed by those who knew him.

There are few words for what it is like without him but having known him leaves me inspired and determined to try to make a difference in this world of ours. If I can help just one person, it will have been enough.

Lieberson's "The World In Flower"

Tomorrow the New York Philharmonic Orchestra will present American composer Peter Lieberson's latest work for mezzo-soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra. Aptly titled "The World in Flower" the work will combine the words of the Navajo, Neruda, Rilke, Whitman and others with vocal and orchestral music in an exploration of how spiritual life can flourish in different ways.

Lieberson, currently suffering from lymphoma and living in Santa Fe, was saddened by the world's intolerance and felt compelled to create a piece in which the common human experience was forefront. By using texts from different regions and eras in the world, it is his hope to demonstrate how similar and singular they are in philosophy and meaning. What I admire about his effort is that he is attempting to show how we are all very much connected to each other, perfectly making the point that intolerance does little but compassion does everything.

Click here to listen to an interview with him about "The World in Flower" or here to learn more about his study of Buddhism.

And while I'm happily ensconced here, I do find myself wishing I could be in NYC tomorrow to hear "The World In Flower" unfold in person.

The Voice of Wisley

I'm working on a blog about archetypes but in the meantime I thought I'd share this delightful study about plants with you. Currently, the British Royal Horticultural Society in their garden Wisley in Surrey, England is conducting a study to see if speaking to tomato plants really encourages them to grow faster. In 2007, a Korean researcher discovered that playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" encouraged quicker growth in rice plants.

So, right now, about twelve tomato plants are "listening" to Shakespeare, poetry and other musings and are about to be measured to see if they have really grown significantly more than those plants not currently enjoying the human voice.

Colin Crosbie, the superintendent of the trial and rather serious about learning how plants respond to voices, invited the public to try out for the honor of being called "The Voice of Wisley" a.k.a. the nation's most plant-friendly voice. On April 1, about 45 competitors, including Sarah Darwin, Charles Darwin's great-great-granddaugther, arrived with favorite readings in hand. Judges narrowed the competitors to just ten and now these tomato plants sit cozily in their pots and listen to these voices through headphones.

Stay tuned as I'll keep you apprised of which voice wins.
Speaking from experience, Stella, my aloe vera plant, always liked young adult fiction!

Call to Invisibility

One of the best things about training for a marathon has been all the time it's carved out for deep reflection and self-conversation, sometimes held alone and sometimes shared with my running buddy, Lynn.

Lately, on our longer runs we've been working to broaden our understanding of archetypal patterns afoot in the world (blog forthcoming on this) and other matters of spirituality which catch our attention, like the call to invisibility.

When I was sixteen one of my greatest spiritual mentors introduced me to the works of Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, and Caroline Myss, and I often circle back to these teachers when I'm trying to jump to a new level in my own understanding of how things work. So, when she handed me some new CDs from Caroline Myss on a recent visit home and said, "Listen to them...you will be amazed"; I didn't hesitate to take her advice.

Here, Myss discusses the call to invisibility (as well as her study of archetypes) and it has been a topic Lynn and I have tackled the last couple of weeks on our runs.

First, we were puzzled because there are times when drivers either notice us at intersections and pause for us to cross and there are times when we couldn't be more invisible; it always seems to happen in groupings -- occurring several times in a row with different drivers and all in the same window of time.

And this led us to a discussion of why this was -- was it because we had collective lower energy that day or was it that we were vibrating with a frequency that was so high, drivers who were not vibrating with that same frequency couldn't see us.

In the end, it really has nothing to do with drivers of these cars but everything to do with the energy pulsing in and around us. As we ran down the trail, I wondered what would happen if I increased my energetic vibration that much more...would it lead me to see things in the world that I am missing now? Would that which is currently invisible become visible to me? I believe that it would and this is something I continue to ponder and re-think.

Myss has this to say about invisibility:

"As people let go of their visible forms of power, they themselves become an act of power. The wonderful thing is that you can become a channel for grace without ever saying anything. To become an invisible act of power is the highest calling. This is walking through life with grace, and to do this, invisibility is key."

And I think what she means by this is that we are called to foster our inner lives and to perform invisible actions for others like prayer, forgiveness, compassion, and healing. There's no associated accreditation for these small acts but I believe that they are the necessary companions to what goes on in the actionable world and something to ponder and explore.