We Walked Along the River and Found the Current Soothing.

We walked along the Stones River on the Greenway path. The current was fast but patient. Watched the water curl and swirl and eddy and flow. The river was soothing this morning. We looked at the trees and the bushes and heard all the creatures going about their day. Our walking pace was steady but not hurried. Time in no shortage this day.

As we crested a hill, we stopped to stretch and drink a bit of water. The air was cool but the sunshine warm and bright. We walked along. We talked about all the small things that often are left unsaid for busy schedules and pressing tasks. Out talk was of the small things, the daily things. Of friends and family, of life and living, of joys and sufferings.

We walked along the river and found the current soothing. Sycamores are every where along the river. Passing under a leaning branch, I noticed a herring bone pattern on the underside of the tree where rain had hit the smooth surface of sycamore and run along the underside of following gravity’s pull. The pattern was symmetrical and regular. I had never noticed before.

Every so often my wife would wince of exhale harshly, sometimes putting a hand to her belly which is very swollen with or baby son. She is incredible and I am in awe. I am sure she got tired of me asking if she was all right, if we need to stop or if she was having a contraction. She never seemed annoyed by me.

We talked a lot of family. Ours is soon to be expanded by son, due in the next weeks.  We talked about everything, so it seemed. We talked of art and beauty, of humor and pain. We talked over our preparations for our coming son, of the incredible little girl our daughter has become. We walked along the river and found the current soothing.

We talked and walked along the river and I got the clear and specific understanding that this is our life; walking together, sharing our time, no hurry, watching nature happen around us, breathing in, breathing out and walking along the river. There was nothing extraordinary about the morning. A sunny, beautiful, clear morning toward the end of a cold winter. We find our lives where we are at the moment, and that moment is ordinary and precious and golden.

I so love these times with my wife. I never imagined my life would take the turns and arrive at the place I am today. I could have never planning to be the man I am on this morning. Grateful and humble are not enough to describe my heart. We walked along the river and found the current soothing.

In Service

I sat in the backyard on a sunny midday just before the weather turns cool, beginning a march toward winter. I think on my last statement of protests and contempt in the unfolding of events. Little events are what I am talking about. The goings on in my small personal universe. I was angry about one door closing but very grateful another opened. I was frustrated about a situation but the wheel comes around and a situation becomes something positive that I did not expect.

Then, while watching the songbirds begin to eat on the newly refilled bird feeder, I think on big events. The goings on of the world. Population explosion, melting ice caps, scarcity of food or water, world hunger, climate change, pollution of the Earth and of the Spirit. All the calamities that our people are living in these days. And I feel a bridge in understanding. A bridge of thought realizing that no one knows what is for the best.

As a parent, I often fall to comparison between of Maker and parents of a child. A child does not understand. A child cannot comprehend being denied one thing because something much better may be waiting. A child cannot understand suffering and destruction so that something else may grow and flourish. I can’t understand suffering and destruction either.

I can surrender my misunderstanding and allow truth to take its place. It is not my lot to understand or control. I feel directed to act according to my nature. And to make an  effort to express the parts of my nature that heal and serve and help. I am not to understand, though I may try. I am to express my medicine and leave the plan to the Planner.

Thanks for reading.

The Anatomy of the Sink Hole

I pay attention to world events in a different way now. A few weeks ago, my wife took a trip to Germany. She was gone for almost two weeks. My attention and anxiety was constantly drawn to her. The smallest piece of news that could effect her drew my rapt attention. I am not a worrier but I had a raised baseline of concern for her and world events. Each night my prayer was for her safety and for her return to our home.

I found that stories that might not have raised much attention, now send me to the laptop or to the cable news in research of deeper coverage. I became more aware of concerning stories once I had a concerning interest, namely the safety of my beloved. Stories of danger in Europe have always been there. But danger on a global level has increased and now that my most precious is abroad I notice them more.

I listen to the daily news. I am aware that the news does not always report the full story. Media is not the source for all  information. The media is there to inform but also to get your attention and to entertain. Truth and value are too often victims of greed.

I try to listen to news with my heart. I listen for the story under the story. Look for what the source is not saying. In this way I look deeply into the story of the sink holes.

All around the world, sink holes are opening. Some are not unexpected in areas prone to them. But , many are completely unexpected. And there are so many. My heart tells me there are more because the Earth is suffering. Small things are beginning to collapse. Small collapses. Also, because we as humans are draining the Earth of oil and water and fracking the Earth at an alarming rate. We are drilling where we should not. We are blasting apart the very foundations of our Earth. We are draining and polluting our aquifers. We are learning that the parts of the Earth we believe are indestructible are in fact fragile.

My mind also tells me that there are more sink holes noticed because we humans now cover more of the globe than ever before. We are noticing the holes as the open because we were in more places. That is likely true.

Are there more sink holes or are we just noticing? The answer: We notice the rising number of sink holes because we cover more ground and because sink holes have increased in occurrence.

There are more Earthquakes and storms than anyone can remember, more weather anomalies than anyone can explain. Is this all because climate change, or better science or a global breakdown of systems once thought to be indestructible. The answer in my own heart is all yes. All of the above.

We collectively see disturbing news all around us. The number of deeply alarming events increases every day. And we are noticing these events more.

We pay more attention because we all have loved ones in harms way. No one seems safe. Sink holes can occur any where. And sink holes here are only a metaphor for awful, violent, horrific events that I will not to give energy to here.

No where is out of bounds, no one is immune. We find that things once thought safe are dangerous. Places once thought solid are really porous. Forces of nature are behaving unnaturally.

This is a time to pay attention. To stay awake and stay aware. Not only in the media but in every place we go. Pay attention to the outside world and pay attention to what your heart is telling you. Check with your guts and stay vigilant.

My wife is home. She is safe and we are grateful. But I find I am not relaxed now that she returns. I still listen to the stories of the world with concern. I try to look deeply at events. And I am trying to look deeply at my own feelings and reactions to the world. I try not to fear. I try not to worry. I put effort instead toward loving and compassion and understanding. That is my prayer tonight.

A Narrow Path

I was baptized on my birthday. For many months now I felt in my heart that this was something I wanted to do. I have read and meditated and researched. While I feel that the act if baptism is an outward sign of what had all ready inwardly taken place; the preparation has deepened my understanding of my reality.

The morning of my 33rd birthday, I walked the woods of Camp Marymount, a place I have long called home. I walked around the lake and through the hills. I drank from the spring and walked up to a former sweat lodge site. I continued wandering the forest till I came to the Outdoor Chapel where I was married many years ago. A creek runs along the forest floor and I followed it. I found a deep pool and sat down for a time. Later I found a fallen maple tree lying across the stream. I sat on the tree and prayed and breathed. After some time I wrote in my prayer journal.

I am prepared to walk this Narrow Path: Giving all my Love, all my life away for the love of my people and my family and Earth and Creator, for my reality and to the Spirit. A narrow path, of compassion and forgiveness, of faith, of generosity of commitment. To hold the moment, to live and remain in the moment. Don’t fall to fret or fear for the future, nor lose  power by dwelling in the past.

The Narrow Path: To look ever deeper for more full understanding of reality. The way of emptiness and clarity. To surrender to Spirit and pour out myself for others.

The Way of Christ, the Way of Zen, of Suzuki, of Hanh, of Stalking Wolf and Brown. A claim of my spiritual lineage.

The Narrow path is the way of compassion, of awareness, of openness, of love and always inclusive.

As it is written:  for wide is the path and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many will find it. But narrow is  the path and difficult is the way which leads to life, and  few will find it.

Early that afternoon, my Father and wife and child came out to meet me. It was a cold windy cloudy day. We walked down to the woods together. I carried the Bible that belonged to my mother. I carried a hollow bone of a deer leg and the underside bones of a turtle that I had found on my walk early in the day. Towels also we carried. It was cold.

Reaching the bank of the stream, we said a prayer, I read a Psalm. My wife said some wonderful words and my father read a few passages out of the new testament. I stripped to shorts and my father and I got in the water. I knelt, then sat, then Dad laid me back submerging me in the frigid stream. Cold but exhilarating. I will not share the words to describe how I felt afterwords. That afternoon will be with me always.

Dead Spaces

He did not see the show, he saw his phone. This photo is from the internet. I did not take his picture. That would be pretty funny if I had.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to see an old friend’s band play a show. There was a young man a few paces in front of me holding his phone in the filming pose. You know, phone eye level but off to one side. His eye shifting from the large screen to the stage and back every few seconds. My attention was drawn to the screen. I want to see the show with my eyes not through a phone screen between my eyes and the stage. “Put your phone down” I hollered at a low volume. A few voices behind me echoed the call. And he did.

While he watched his phone, he was not at the show. His attention was not around him. His energy was not with the people preforming. He did not see the band, he was looking at his phone!

While consumed with the smart phone, you are not involved in the world around you. Oblivious to your surrounding is a dangerous way to move though the world. Dangerous in many ways, not only to your body, to your spiritual, emotional awareness. Text while walking a city block. How many people passed you? How many men? How many women? Who made eye contact with you?

Look at your phone while riding up a few floors on an elevator. How many stops were made before yours? How many people got into the elevator? How many got off? What were they wearing? Where were they going?

Are these important questions? They are important if you are alive.

We stare at our smart phones as dumb mammals wrapped in  pockets of no attention, the absences of awareness surrounding people.

I train to see dead space. From the earliest lesson at survival school, there is talk of dead space. Dead space the the mostly physical (often emotional/spiritual) area that is devoid of attention and absent of concern. The vacuum of awareness. The places that go unlooked at, unnoticed, and unseen. Everyone has them. Even when we try to eliminate dead spaces, they remain.

Walk into a room and notice where your attention does not go. Especially in your home, your car, your normal routes and routines, dead spaces are the areas you nearly never look at, the corners that are rarely noticed. Dead spaces are more frequent in your normal ruts.

A tourist looks around and tries to see everything. Walk into a room or a scenic view for the first time with interest and concern, and dead spaces are few because the attention given to reality is so great.

But look at a person using their phone. Texting, surfing, streaming, sharing, whatever. There is a visible tube of awareness pouring out of their faces and pouring into the small rectangle in their hands. To me, the phone appears to be actually sucking the attention out of the face.

Don’t trade your eyes for the camera lens on the phones. Don’t sacrifice your hearing to the ear plugs and signals of a new message.

People die because they do not pay attention. They walk out into traffic. They drive off bridges. Likewise, animals fall victim to hunters because they did not pay attention.

It is becoming a familiar paradox. The more we are connected via text, email, internet and media, the less we connect to the person sharing a room, or a meal, or a train. We can move though the world and share tons of thoughts with thousands of people without using our voice, only our thumbs.

I am terrified of this reality.

I recently watched an old episode of West Wing. One of the character’s cell phones rang during a meeting. He appeared embarrassed. He excused himself and answered the call a little put off the person had called him at all. That was ten years ago. What a change. This day, his phone would silently alert that he has a text and he would respond while still sitting in a meeting. To my sensibility that is very rude.

I believe our species to be in crisis. Everything is a crisis these days. Climate crisis, financial crisis, political gridlock crisis, people all over the world in crisis. Our awareness is also in crisis. What is the tipping point of our ability to give attention to our real world? How far will this go?

The Veil Thins

This Advent season has been fast. I look for time each day to slow down, notice the air passing through my nostrils and the feel the moment.

Christmas is a season of teaching for these moments. In my heart I hold the moment to moment stillness of a Christmas night. The cold air makes each breath visible. Stillness also means quiet, as if the world speak in a whisper, the way we might whisper in a church, in the presence of the sacred.

And this is sacred. Christmas is a joining of Heaven and Earth. A joining of Creation and Created, of ether and earth. A time when The Star comes burning toward Earth. Comes close enough to glimpse behind the veil of creation.

In the cold, still, long darkness, anything is possible. Even evil can break through if a path is made. Christmas is no stranger to the slaughter of the innocent. A spark may ignite a into fire. Ice may break into flood. Great joy may be broken into deepest sorrow. Whispers seems as loud as thunder. The divine feels present. Like a secret being poorly kept. A Presence just behind the curtain.

And a joining is taking place. A celebration of light come to the darkness. A joining as in a marriage. The occas

ion of becoming both gift and given. And we celebrate the giving of what? Of our selves, of our love, of our attention and concern for each other. We become the gift, freely given and lovingly received. We are there for each other.

These long nights when we recognized and rejoice in the divine light we carry and share with one another. This is the good news and the Coming that brings us so much happiness. We long in excitement not for the material possessions but for the presence of Spirit.

My goal this Christmas, my intention in this night I spend awake: To deflect the cultural greed and selfishness that circulates among us and to shine back love and giving. Making my self the gift to the world. I aim to bring my most divine, my most infant, most innocent self to the world.

Rooted and On Fire

When I lived alone, I used to lie on the floor of my apartment. Quiet the noises and dim the lights. Breath deeply and relax and feel gravity pulling me against the surface of the floor. When I was really tired, I would feel the exhaustion pulling me to a stop like brakes against the wheels, like putting your foot on the pavement to stop your bicycle. Feeling that relief and release when all motion finally stops. 

Breath and feel the full and complete stop to all palpable motion. Next I would feel my spine. Perhaps tense my back enough to be conscious of the support the spine provides. Feel the spine extend all the way down to the tailbone and continue through the floor into the soil. Pushing like a tree root into the Earth. Spreading out in every direction as a tree or a plant sends it roots out every direction in search of nourishment. So too, feeling roots expand and expand, gripping the Earth and branching through soil, over stones, into sand and around other roots.

This is to be of the Earth. Sharing the same soil and same space as the trees you can see and smell and touch. You are rooted in the same Earth, drinking in the same water, exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide in the same air. Feel the spine rooted deep, deep in the Earth and relate to all things. This layer of Earth where everything begins, all potential is started and while not infinite, larger than our human comprehension. Feel rooted in the source of all things.

Now choose a single root and drive it deeper into the soil. Deeper through layer after layer of soil and silt and rock and shale. Deeper to the mantle, the foundations of the Earth. Deeper still to the warm liquid mama, the living, breathing, red, orange, hot, fired life blood of our planet. Feel that root at the core of the Earth. Feel rooted in the source of all things.

Allow that liquid fire to travel up the root. Bubbling, flowing up from the Core, up through the mantle following the root up the layers of shale and rock, up through layer after layer of silt and soil. Into the network of roots. Into the spine, up the spine in my back up to my neck and spilling like a fountain into my body, filling and over filling my form down into each finger and toe.

This is pure Earth energy. It is very powerful and very potent. Direct it to any wounds or pain.

I would lie on the floor of my apartment and feel rooted and nourished.