Dispatch from Los Angeles, via Holland and Italy*

dedicated to my comrades, particularly Sandra

When my friends and family check in with me of late, I reply with the above Bitmoji. Those of you who live on another, better planet, or who don't own a smart phone, or who disdain pictorial representations of oneself or, worse, words, who bemoan the dwindling use of language and/or have no idea what a Bitmoji is or even an app, should stop reading now. I wish I lived on another planet, wish I didn't own a smart phone, disdain pictorial representations of myself and, worse, of words, and I bemoan the dwindling use of language, but I do love the Bitmoji app and find endless delight finding exact representations of myself thinking certain thoughts, having certain emotions and otherwise living. 

It's going. My uncle is recovering very well here at the house, and Sophie is on her second day of her sixth month of intravenous immunoglobulin infusions. I have successfully navigated the World of Sub-Sub Acute Rehab by scheduling my uncle's health aide, bathing, OT and PT home health visits. The highlight of my week was when I paid $1.69 for his medication which filled my tiny little mother mind™with wonder, as you can imagine.

If you can't imagine, I wondered what our lives might have been like if Sophie's medications cost $1.69 over the years, as opposed to at least $70 after countless hours of wrangling and upwards of $500 when the wrangling doesn't work. All thinking by the tiny little mother mind™ is rhetorical, of course. Socialized medicine works effectively, I guess, for some of the country but could, apparently, be disastrous for the rest of us (I don't want no government coming between me and my doctor!), so we continue to grease the wheels of capitalism, the free market and Big Pharma in the labyrinthine corridors of the greatest country on earth's medical system, Brazil.

What else?

Speaking of capitalization, I've CAPITALIZED on the increased caregiver duties by increasing my meditation practice which means at this point that I've started meditating off and on all day long. Reader, I can already feel those neurons in my brain firing off peace as opposed to chaos.

The trick (for me) is to be truly mindful of even the shitty stuff, to acknowledge it in whatever way you need, to dwell on it, to muck around in it, to weep profusely over it, to wallow in it and to take your time doing it. It's only then that it rolls off your back, maybe even disappears. I say trick because, let's face it -- I generally feel completely unhinged and at the edge of consciousness, especially when I learn at 7:15 in the morning that Saint Mirtha will not be coming in, that I won't be able to attend my friend Tanya's screening, that the IVIG nurse is going to be early and -- well -- I won't bore you.

So, that's the dispatch from Los Angeles. The upcoming week includes continued caregiver duties on two fronts but also more teaching of English literature, a Clippers game with my love and, hopefully, a trip to Portland next weekend, planned for months.

* This title is a nod to those who were subjected in the early days of their child's disability or diagnosis to the treacly treatise by a certain writer who compared the journey of special needs parent-dom to landing in Holland instead of Italy. Don't ask.

And Peace*

First of all, as I fried an egg and toasted some bread this morning I wondered just how I do it. That's all. It wasn't self-congratulatory. I was just observing in a sort of mindful way how I absorb, think about, deflect and let fly the various emotions that accompany my daily life with Sophie. It's been a difficult morning. Yesterday, I took her to the beloved osteopath who worked on her for nearly an hour. Sophie was quite calm and even fell asleep for most of the visit, but as we walked down the hallway to go back to our car, she gazed off to the right and then collapsed into my arms in a seizure. I lowered her to the floor and knelt beside her as she jerked, cradling her head in my lap. When it was over, I sat down on my butt and just gazed back down the hallway, looking right out of the window at the far end. It was a long, light gaze. In the foreground were the tops of Sophie's pink high-tops, pointing upward, then a line of  pale carpeting and closed doors, symmetry, four-paned window, light, clouds.

We're working on adjusting the dosage of Sophie's cannabis and trying to tinker enough to get some better seizure control. I am actually pretty confident that we'll be able to do it, so when I say that I don't know how I do it, I mean balancing, the tightrope walk, the delicate stepping despite my bulk. Literal and figurative. Clumsy on the ground, the narrowing perspective, exploding out to light.

















*For those of you reading War and Peace with me, a chapter a day, please see my friend Criticlasm's fine blog about his own experience doing so (he inspired me to take it on). He wrote a blog years ago about his experience that serves as an excellent compendium. He's also a playwrite and wonderful critic of all things cultural, and you can find a lot of good writing at his other blog. Thank you, B!

Hedgebrook, Day 13

Beet Soup, Couscous Salad with Vegetables and Plums
Lunch at Hedgebrook on the 13th day

Don't big apartment and office buildings skip the 13th floor, call it the 14th? Is this something done worldwide still or only in the apartment buildings of New York City? I think of elevator doors opening into emptiness, the charade of living on the 14th floor when it's really the 13th.

I think about chance, good fortune, what is deserved, what falls in your lap. I think about being mindful of each day as it comes, letting it open and entering it.

It's the 13th day of my writing residency at Hedgebrook. It's relevant to the elevator thing only as much as its assertion of superstititon's hold on us. Maybe I should just speak of me. I can't get enough of using just one bowl, one plate, one fork, one knife, one spoon, one water glass and one coffee cup for my breakfast and lunch here in Willow Cottage. I have a tiny square of sponge onto which I squirt one tiny drop of concentrated dish soap and wash each utensil and plate before placing it in the drying rack beside the sink. I have two vases that I fill with water every two days or so and some flowers that I've cut from the garden --  daisies, bold-faced rudebeckia, a purple coneflower, something from the onion family, a gawdy hollyhock. Each morning, I wake to silence and birds and each night I fall asleep to silence and frogs, the wind through the pines that stand calmly outside my cottage. Each day is an idyll of idleness and work. Radical hospitality received. Exquisite simplicity.

I  too much look forward to the next day which will be one less day. Today. I'm not skipping the 13th day. I'll live through it, not depend on the 14th to define it.

Hedgebrook, Day 10

Windowseat in Willow Cottage, Hedgebrook

I startled at the sudden buzz of a fly, so deep I was in the writing. I've been killing flies all week, merciless and decidedly un-Buddhist. Where in the hell did that one come in? I thought. Had it slipped through a hole somewhere or been asleep and woken? Do flies sleep? It sounded frantic and beat against the glass of the window-seat. I opened the window a crack, and it made its way out.

Have you ever seen a bird climb a tree? I watched a small one make its way from the ground, up the pine outside the window, skittering up the bark, navigating the whorls and sappy spots and hopping in increments at a diagonal. When he reached a particularly large knot, though, he stopped and flew up to a branch where he perched in ease.

Happy Fourth of July. At risk of offending someone, I must admit that it's nice not to be waving a flag but to be deep in the greeny woods in the company of birds and bugs who know no country.

How We Do It: Part LI

photo by Jenni Werndorf

Today was not a good day for Sophie. She had numerous seizures, was both tired and wired, had clammy hands and feet and appeared confused. I imagine it was the full moon coupled with -- well -- whatever. She had an off day, a bad day, one of many in her life. Here's the thing. I was hanging out in her room at some point in the afternoon and felt the tweak of irritation when I saw her have another tiny seizure -- these are tiny jerks and pauses, and they happened all day, on and off, off and on. I felt a tweak of irritation -- not at her, really, but at the situation. The monotony of it. The goddamn constancy of it. A tweak, though. Just a tweak and not the surge, the seizing of the blood in the veins, the fury, the despair. I was mindful of that tweak, what it felt like, and it felt small, like a flame on a short match. Its size -- brief, small -- took me by surprise. I felt, instead, grateful to be at home with this girl, to be subservient to her needs, her instability and vagaries. I felt lit up for a moment, but with light, not heat.

Fall back

I've taken a mindfulness meditation challenge with a great group here in Los Angeles called Insight LA. I've sort of pledged to sit -- to meditate -- twice a day for 15-30 minutes. I say "sort of" because I balk at the "challenge" wording, the pledging, all that jazz. I should probably meditate on my resistance to certain types of language. This morning, though, I set my little timer that begins and ends with a gong (a beautiful, resonant sound) and did it. I haven't been formally practicing of late, although I would say that mindfulness meditation is so much a part of my life that I'm aware of it nearly always. The act of sitting quietly and paying attention to breath, to watching the mind wander and then gently bringing it back to breath -- well -- it's an experience or a way of being like no other. This morning, when the gong went off, I lay back down in my bed and fell asleep for three more hours, and during that sleep I dreamt vividly, something else I haven't done in so long I really can't remember. Fall. Fall back.

Mindfulness

With cousins in  Florida, sometime in the late 1960s

The sense of being far away is not something to overcome but to respect and include in loving awareness. This is the way to work with our difficulties, to include them and learn from them. Feelings that seem like adversaries can become our allies when they’re included, and mindfulness offers us nobility and joy as we open to what is present completely.

In fact, there can be something more authentic in the times you feel something’s missing than when you feel satisfied. The more deeply you practice, the more you realize how much there is to learn. Even the self that would judge your experience is not a problem to be fixed, but to be held with compassion as part of the path.

This is a way to keep loving awareness in the center of your life, even when it feels far away. Remember, where you are now is the perfect place to practice. 

Trudy Goodman

Founder and Guiding Teacher of Insight LA

from The Perfect Place to Practice

 

Mondays and Mindfulness and Conflict

Happy Monday. I generally wake on Mondays glad. No Monday, Monday can't trust that day. This morning, Henry and I woke an hour later because school started an hour later. The sun came through the dining room windows and lit on my yellow coffee cup so beautifully that I had to take a picture, felt grateful -- not in the way that is all the rage, that we're supposed to be -- but simply. Thank you, I thought, for this yellow cup, for that sun, for this day.

This weekend I went to a lovely party for a dear friend's birthday. A group of women sat outside by her pool, drank wine and laughed and talked and ate delicious food. At one point in our dinner, a few of us got into what wasn't so much a fight but rather a conflict about what's happening in the world, specifically in the Middle East -- in Israel, in particular. Yikes, right? Who in their right mind gets involved in such conflicts over dinner? Good friends can -- and do -- but it's still difficult. Voices were raised. Emotions were high and visible. My heart beat fast, especially when I was told, You're wrong! I won't go into the particulars, because that isn't my point on this sunny yellow coffee cup radiant Monday morning. We all paddled around the pool, even after the dinner and the disagreements and the emotion. All is well.

This morning, though, I began to listen to this video linked by Tricycle Magazine and was so struck by it -- by the synchronicity of getting the link in my inbox so soon after the uncomfortable conflict:

A Zen Approach to Conflict

If you have twenty minutes and are interested, I encourage you to listen to the video. The teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton, describes "three typical responses to disagreement, which correspond with Buddhism's three poisons: greed, aversion, and delusion. By learning to identify our patterns of slinking away from or escalating disputes, we take the first step toward transforming tense relationships into vibrant connections." If you practice mindfulness, it will be especially illuminating. This first "lesson" outlined not only the different and general ways we deal with conflict but suggests we begin to be mindful of how we respond when conflict happens. It's the first of a series, and I think I'm going to benefit a lot from listening to all of them. I was thinking it could help me move forward with nearly everything that I engage in -- not just my relationships with friends and family, but what happens when I interact with the systems of care for Sophie, and the ongoing fears I have as I vaccinate my sons, which currently rank up there as the most closely aligned body/mind issues I have experienced. I'm interested to hear what ya'll think.

Urban Observations and Musings on Mindfulness and Disappearance

I left the CVS last night at dusk and on the way out listened to a woman, on her way in, lamenting the death of Robin Williams. It took a moment for me to realize that she was not all in her right mind, as they say, because she was asking questions of no one in particular. Robin Williams is dead? Was it a suicide or did his wife kill him? For not doing the diapers? I made tentative eye contact with her, and she asked Do you want to change dirty diapers?

As I walked home, I realized that in my purse I carried nearly $1,000 of a powerful narcotic but that I was hardly the richer for it. I also carried a $12 razor and $20 razor blades for my older son. Narcotics and razor blades nestled in a brown leather purse.



Today I took Sophie to her every three month or so neurology appointment. While I really like and admire The Neurologist, have I told you how much I hate my life when I have to go to hospitals and appointments with Sophie? You'd think at this point that I'd be sort of numb to it all, but I'm not. At the very least, my mindfulness practice enables me to identify that the physical nausea, elevated heartbeat, stifled whimpers that would so much like to eke out of my mouth, and pinprick of tears behind my eyeballs are all just -- there. I can just acknowledge them as visitors, in a way, not suppress them or hate them or indulge them. It's very precise work, though, to do that -- one of those tightrope walks that I've told ya'll about. I have no idea why I have this problem, if you can call it that. At worst, I fantasize about various ways I could disappear -- not so much suicidal thoughts or death wishes but just an end to it all.


Those legs in that photo belong to three women who were in the waiting room in the neurology department this morning. Directly behind them is a sign on the wall in large letters, spelling out the word:

C O N Q U E S T

Whenever we go to see The Neurologist, I stare at that word and the plaques below it, memorializing the generosity of various people who, I guess, have helped to conquer neurological disease. I rarely feel gratitude when I look on this but rather am reminded, again, of how much I hate the medical world and, particularly, war imagery. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that I'm not waiting to see a doctor in Africa -- let's say -- where the walls and floors are speckled and splattered with Ebola-infected blood. The world is vast and cruel, my own issues and problems dwarfed. I just hate the idea of conquest and warriors and all that lingo. I make myself laugh by thinking it should read:

D A M N A T I O N

or maybe:

H O L Y  S H I T

I recognized a kindred spirit in one of those three ladies attached to the legs in the photo. She was an old woman, flanked by another old woman who was her sister and a middle-aged woman who was her daughter. I know these things because the three of them spoke loudly throughout our wait to see The Neurologist. The kindred spirit woman was the one who had some sort of problem, and while her daughter and sister were relentlessly cheerful in the manner of those who aren't sick, she said at some point or another that rather than have the test, which I think was a spinal puncture, she wanted to just go ahead and die. The middle-aged daughter remarked that her mother was so negative, and the sister, who was markedly thinner and sported a bouffant hairdo and make-up, opened her mouth in a sort of gasp and declared, Well, then, who is going to take care of me when I am older? I sort of wanted to get up and go over to the sick one and put my hand on her shoulder, tell the other two to knock off the positive shit and then say, Let's get the hell out of here, but just about then, the male nurse called out Sophie's name so I got up and reluctantly walked away. I did hear my kindred spirit tell her sister testily that she did have two daughters to help her out, but the sister said, It's not the same thing, and you need to cooperate and have a better attitude and then I was out of range, on my way in to juggling Sophie while the nurse tried to get her blood pressure and to walking her up and down the bland hallways waiting for The Neurologist to appear. 

I confess that the fantasizing happened in the parking lot, after the appointment, when I forgot where my car was parked, an occurrence that happens so regularly as to belie my otherwise formidable memory. Again, mindfulness practice helps, but oh, to disappear.

MMXIV

graffiti artist unknown*** 

Today's no different than yesterday, really, other than it's 2014, four new numbers, a new year, an imposition. Dirt lies in three pyramids in our back yard -- some of that dirt, I'm certain, unearthed for the first time in nearly a century. I fancied something discovered while the men were digging -- pottery, perhaps, or arrowheads, some fine bones, a skull, even oil. The men filled plastic buckets with big brown clumps of it, and they filled wheelbarrows, trundled it toward the pile. The men smile when I come out to stand at the edge, look down. They wear long-sleeved dress shirts despite the heat and the swing of the pick-ax. They speak no English. I imagine they have only recently crossed the border from Mexico, picked up clothes at a Goodwill. They are the Italians and Irish of yesterday who built the bridges and mined the minerals, lay the tracks and dug the wells, raised the buildings, built the country. The pyramids in my backyard are dirt. There are rocks and roots. The clay pipe lies exposed at the bottom of a seven foot trench, the dirt around it clean of anything primitive or even civilized. The trees that grow alongside the trench are a deep green. Their secret is their roots, twisted and preternaturally strong, or naturally so. They've crept through dirt, worked their way through cracks in clay, pushed into man-made cylinders, a relentless search, reaching toward water like fingers and eyes toward light. They've nourished themselves on waste, channeled what's left back up through wood and out toward branches and leaves, thick and glossy.

It's a new year, and we're fourteen years into an age. Our minds are thoughts, our thoughts are thoughts, only, just.










***Henry and I saw this on La Brea as we walked home from breakfast yesterday. Henry thought it might be Banksy, but I doubted it. What do you think? Anyone know? Steve Reed?

How We Do It: Part XXXIV in a series

When I forget to take a breath and take a breath, it's like late afternoon sun that slants through a door, sirens outside, through a glass and down a marble bar. The bartender squints, his shiny black head gleams, I take a sip of amber and swallow. A long time ago, I sat in a pale coffee-checked armchair on the fourth floor with my baby girl. She was inconsolable for hours at a time, twenty out of twenty-four, I wrote in my spidery script in the spiral notebook for the visiting nurse. I tallied the baby's jerks. Despite the twice daily injections, the baby jerked and now screamed. One, two, three, four, five, a slanted cross over upright sticks, hundreds of slanted crosses over upright sticks. Two years earlier -- or was it? -- I had walked with the small bald Vietnamese man, at the back of the crowd, his robed bent frame in front, twenty blocks, peace in every step. I knew to breathe and how to. Sitting in the coffee-checked armchair on the fourth floor with my baby girl, crying, I knew to breathe. Breathing in, I calm myself. Breathing out, I smile, I said in my head, under breath and through it. The small, bald man gleamed at the front of the line, before the baby, in my head as I sat in the chair with the baby, as I sat at the bar years after the baby, as I lifted my glass, the amber, the sunlight. Breathe and swallow.

Saturday Night West Coast Re-Post: Continuing the Dialogue about Mindfulness

So, today I drove to Santa Monica with my friend Shannon to listen to the great Buddhist psychotherapist, Dr. Mark Epstein. I imagine many of you know his books -- there's Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart and there's Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist Perspective, and also Thoughts Without a Thinker. His new book is called The Trauma of Everyday Life. After being introduced by the equally great Jack Kornfield, Epstein read many passages from his new book, told us stories and led us in a 10 minute sitting meditation that included turning ON our cell phones and then listening throughout those ten minutes. Mindful listening to the beeps and whirs and pings and rings from hundreds of people's cell phones was incredibly interesting and, at least for me, hilarious. It made me realize, again, that we are not our thoughts, that the values and judgments we impose on circumstances are just that: impositions. I'm not sure that I articulated that in the best way -- what struck me is that while we normally are highly irritated when we hear cell phones go off in quiet rooms, looking at them as intrusive, when instructed to do so, to just listen and almost welcome the sounds, the experience became light, easy, even funny.

So where's the re-post? I thought the following post from almost exactly a  year ago, that I found when I searched the blog for Mark Epstein, was perfect to post here, especially in light of the comment exchange that we had here the other day with a fellow blogger who wondered how some people "cope" better than others. I still maintain that "coping" -- particularly with trauma -- is not something done "well" or "better" than others, but that the practice of mindfulness meditation is profound and life-changing.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Mindfulness

What arises in our experience is much less important than how we relate to what arises in our experience.

                               Mark Epstein 

I'm not sure I've ever written about the first mindfulness meditation class that I took about fourteen years ago when Henry was a newborn baby and Sophie, a screaming for unknown reason three year old with uncontrolled seizures. I look back on many phases of my life since my children were born and wonder how in the hell I got through them, but here I am. Through them and sort of, kind of, prepared for the next phase.

One of the things that helped me most, that didn't just help me, actually, but transformed me was a class called Mindfulness Meditation for Stress Reduction. Each week, I traveled to the deep, dark San Fernando Valley for a three hour class with a group of people whose problems included chronic pain, depression, severe illness, trauma and post-traumatic stress syndrome. We were taught the basics of mindfulness meditation and the practice of sitting, as well as the benefits of utilizing the principles throughout one's daily life.

I'm not a master at meditation, but I know that the practice enables me to cope in far better ways than the frantic pleading and praying I did previously. For me, there had been so much dread in the practice of a religion with no resonance, and when I began to meditate, I finally found a bit of the peace and connection with divine love that I had only read about. More importantly, though, the practice of meditation helps me to deal with nearly everything difficult and challenging -- it doesn't make anything not difficult or challenging, but  somehow, almost by stealth, the seemingly impossible becomes possible.

Believe

Yosemite, 2009

I realized that perhaps the solution for me was not constant vigilance and action but instead a blend of thoughtful pursuit and deliberate inaction, with a complete trust that the universe will engage. 
For me, when things seem difficult and it feels like I am fighting the world, this is a reminder to me that I need to stop doing. I need to just "be" for awhile and allow the universe to help me. When I work with nature and allow my intellect a break from steering the ship, things always seem to get a little better. The solution always seems to come, surprisingly landing in my lap with no effort on my part.
My advice to you dear friend, for what it is worth, is to just stop for a moment. Begin a short period of complete inaction. Take a breath and ask the universe for help. Believe that it will come and it will.

Lisa Peters

I got the above comment on my post from the other day that chronicled a bit more of my fruitless efforts to find the proper medical marijuana for Sophie's seizures. It stopped me in my tracks, not by its novelty but as a reminder of what I know to be true, what I've experienced over and over and over again.

Thank you, Lisa, for the eloquent reminder.

 

We should be especially grateful for having to deal with annoying people and difficult situations, because without them we would have nothing to work with. Without them, how could we practice patience, exertion, mindfulness, loving-kindness or compassion? It is by dealing with such challenges that we grow and develop.

Judy Lief, via Tricycle Magazine

I Ching

Whenever things get dark and dirty or I'm stumped as to how to proceed in life, I throw the I Ching. I'm no Nancy Reagan (who evidently consulted it when advising her husband), but I've found that it utterly helps me to clarify whatever predicament I'm in and motivates me to sit with said problem without anxiety or fear. If you don't know about The Book of Changes, I suggest you read about it online because I'm hard-pressed for time today and just don't feel like typing out an explanation in addition to what I'm going to type out here.

I have the original Bollingen Series of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of The I Ching or Book of Changes with a remarkable forward about the book and synchronicity by the great C.G. Jung, but when I throw the coins, I use R.L. Wing's The I Ching Workbook. It's easier to understand, and I can keep a record of the outcomes I've gotten in its pages.

So, last night I asked a question -- which is particularly unbloggable -- threw my two ancient pennies and one Buddha charm -- and got a very satisfying answer -- an answer that enabled me to settle down in my bed and watch three episodes of Homeland on my Kindle Fire as I blew my nose and sipped tea (I have a nasty cold). Lest you think every hexagram/answer is as benign or gentle as the one I got below, I assure you that other times I've thrown the coins for guidance have resulted in very different answers, some with bold warnings and admonitions.

I know this is a cruel blog post in that I'm not divulging my question, but the answer was so perfect that I just felt like marking it:

Hexagram 52: Keeping Still; Meditation

There is a focus now upon your inner perspective. It is of particular importance at this time that you meditate upon the object of your inquiry. With this frame of mind you can realign yourself to the tao.

MEDITATION here refers to a state where your thoughts do not go beyond the situation at hand. It is not a single act but a frame of mind.  Once the mind is calm and the ego quelled, you will transcend your internal turmoil. Your inner stillness will bring enlightenment by objectifying your impressions. You can now make exceptional progress by acting in accordance with the cosmos. MEDITATION and inner calm will help to center you. Through objectivity, you will know when to act and when not to act. In this way you make no mistakes and suffer no consequences.

Because of the external complexities in worldy matters, it is of great importance to achieve an inner peace which will allow you to act in harmony with the times, rather than reacting with impulsiveness. Hold your thoughts to the present and attempt an unprejudiced view of the situation. Actions that spring from this attitude will be appropriate and well regarded.

Relationships can now benefit from internal stillness. By avoiding thoughts that project too far into the future, and dispelling illusions of what can or will be, you can overcome ego-generated difficulties. MEDITATION, as well, can prevent you from making regretful social errors.
MEDITATION, in general, can renew both mind and body. By pacifying stress that is based upon projection and fantasy, true relaxation can be attained. The instincts that spring forth will be in accordance with your real needs. Stop your thoughts now.

Stop your thoughts now! What a thought, no? It's back to the cushion and sitting, I believe -- my practice has been half-hearted, at best, but this gives me some impetus to circle back, as do these words of Lao Tzu, from the sixth century, B.C.:

He who knows does not speak.
He who speaks does not know.
Close the mouth.
Shut the door of desire.
Blunt the sharpness.
Untie the tangles.
Soften the light.
Become one with the dusty world.

Tree Pose on a Surfboard

photo: Leroy Grannis via Sixand5

I've written plenty of posts here about my obsession with surfing. No, I have never actually surfed but characteristically, I talk about surfing, my desire to surf and my wish that in my next life I come back as a surfer, a real surfer who does nothing but surf, perhaps earns her living working in a beach shack surf shop and doesn't think too much about anything other than waves and drag (is that a surfing term?), and maybe I'll smoke pot a lot and grow my own, just another plant in my little garden in the front yard of my little house down a side-street, painted pale yellow with a front porch where I'll sit when I'm not surfing and read books but not get carried away with the thinking about books and my friends will visit me and we'll just go surfing together.  I'll meditate, too, right on the beach, blanketed by morning haze and when the haze burns off and the sky blazes through, I'll surf.

Today, I watched this video of the great Jack Kornfield, one of the gurus of mindfulness meditation, and it made me happy so I'll share it with you.

Mindfulness

What arises in our experience is much less important than how we relate to what arises in our experience.

                               Mark Epstein 

I'm not sure I've ever written about the first mindfulness meditation class that I took about fourteen years ago when Henry was a newborn baby and Sophie, a screaming for unknown reason three year old with uncontrolled seizures. I look back on many phases of my life since my children were born and wonder how in the hell I got through them, but here I am. Through them and sort of, kind of, prepared for the next phase.

One of the things that helped me most, that didn't just help me, actually, but transformed me was a class called Mindfulness Meditation for Stress Reduction. Each week, I traveled to the deep, dark San Fernando Valley for a three hour class with a group of people whose problems included chronic pain, depression, severe illness, trauma and post-traumatic stress syndrome. We were taught the basics of mindfulness meditation and the practice of sitting, as well as the benefits of utilizing the principles throughout one's daily life.

I'm not a master at meditation, but I know that the practice enables me to cope in far better ways than the frantic pleading and praying I did previously. For me, there had been so much dread in the practice of a religion with no resonance, and when I began to meditate, I finally found a bit of the peace and connection with divine love that I had only read about. More importantly, though, the practice of meditation helps me to deal with nearly everything difficult and challenging -- it doesn't make anything not difficult or challenging, but  somehow, almost by stealth, the seemingly impossible becomes possible.

Wise Words

for everyone, but particularly for those caring for children with special needs or elderly parents or chronically ill partners.

Read HERE.

How do you define a moment?