RAIN

 

Each Wednesday at noon, I attend—or try to attend—a twenty minute guided meditation session on Skype. It’s sponsored by the Ministry of Health and has been a huge help in getting me through the workweek while cooped up in my home office over the past year. Meditating has come more easily with practice, but I appreciate these weekly sessions because I generally learn something I can use in my semi-regular practice.

I say “semi-regular” because my routine depends on how tired I am at the end of the day. I used to think I suck at meditating because I almost always fall asleep; turns out it’s a handy trick for when I can’t fall asleep!

Anyway, I learned a new acronym the other day:

Recognize

Accept/Allow

Investigate

Nurture

The lesson that day was to teach how to manage difficult emotions. We tend to ignore or try to explain away our emotions; we rarely allow ourselves to experience them, especially the negative ones. It doesn’t have to be a huge big deal, either. There’s no judgment during these sessions, but as it turned out, I was having a bit of a challenge with something and it happened to coincide with RAIN.

So, here’s how it works:

Recognize the feeling. You might have to sift through a few layers, but with gentle persistence the culprit will reveal itself.

Accept that you’re feeling it or Allow yourself to feel it. And don’t judge yourself, either. Just observe the feeling and acknowledge it.

Investigate why you might be feeling it. Few emotions exist in and of themselves. Most stem from a deeper source that can be identified on closer inspection ... if we’re honest with ourselves. I was able to trace my challenge to something I was asked to do earlier in the week, that I had no idea how to accomplish but felt I should have been able to figure out unaided. Hence, increasing frustration and decreasing confidence.

Nurture yourself. Be compassionate. Understand that we are not our emotions. We have them, but they are not who we are. I still have to think that one through at times; if my frustration is not who I am, then why say “I am frustrated”? Well, I’m frustrated in the moment and moments do not last. Once I figure out what I need to feel better (the Nurture part of the acronym), I can take the steps and, presto! No more frustration! But Ru still exists and Ru is always wonderful.

So are you.

With love,

Sunday in the Park with Ru

 

This is my soul food. Sitting on a park bench, overlooking snow-capped mountains and a tranquil ocean, listening to birdsong on the breeze that stirs my hair, scenting the sea in each conscious breath. I am warm in the sun and caressed by the wind, connected at once to the earth and the divine, a tiny (but significant) part of a greater whole.

Sometimes I’m too restless to sit, so I walk among the trees. It’s a different kind of soul food in the forest. While the infinite horizon and big sky are cleansing, the forest is nurturing and intimate. Tender in a manner that eludes even a calm day by the water. I feel present and presence, as if the trees themselves are welcoming me into their company. Whether I’m by the ocean or in the woods, I always emerge from the park with a renewed sense of strength, hope and peace of mind.

It’s become a weekly ritual. Ter drops me on Sunday morning and I spend some time feeding my soul. It’s been sunny through most of May, but this morning I woke to clouds and a damp chill in the air. I’d planned to bring the Canon this week, so when Ter asked if I still wanted to go, I said why not? No rain was predicted and my camera has a “cloudy day” setting. I put on my hoodie and off we went.

I sat for a while by the water, marvelling at the mirror surface of an ocean that’s rarely so still. There was no wind to speak of, though the birds across the cove were almost hysterical in making such a racket that meditation was darned near impossible. I spied an eagle cruising close to their trees—didn’t get a photo, but concluded that warning shots were being fired in defence of offspring. Nature isn’t always benign and peaceful.

When the not-predicted rain started to sprinkle, I left the open ocean for the shelter of the wood. I have to say, the woods might be my favourite place on a damp day; the foliage is lush and the scent intoxicating, not to mention that wondrous sense of being alive within a living entity. It’s utterly remarkable. Anyway, I wandered the trails and took a bunch of photos, particularly fascinated by the tiny bursts of colour amid the omnipresent green, until my phone binked to advise that Ter was on her way. By then I had hiked around the park’s perimeter, even finding myself on the street when the trail I was on took me between residential properties.

“Did you have a good time?” Ter asked when I got into the car.

“Yep,” I replied. “Time for tea!”

Because the best thing about this cloudy chilly sprinkly Sunday in the park was knowing that a warm, dry home awaited when I was done.

With love and gratitude,

Born to be Alive

Life sometimes sucks. Lately I’ve thought it would be easier if other people weren’t involved.

On the other hand, life is often glorious, and the people in it make it easier.

Contrast, right?

But, you know, that’s the point. Life is meant to be lived. I don’t mean by extreme measures either, thrillseekers. Finding peace in everyday routine makes for a generally pleasant existence if I stop to appreciate one very simple fact:

I am able to breathe.

Joy will always be countered by despair. Grief will always be matched by delight. In no way am I advocating for a boring life—it won’t likely happen and if it did, we’d complain about it. I merely suggest that patience be employed in shadow and bright moments be seized because neither state is permanent. Life itself is temporary; at least, this life is.

That’s why we’re here. Sometime, somewhere, someone decided it would be fun to try mortality and everyone else agreed. We existed then and we’ll exist again, but we’re here right now.

I don’t know what happens next because I don’t need to. I’ll know as I go. I’ll figure it out and find my way and all will be well no matter how I choose to perceive it. In fact, all is already well. It’s always well even at its worst; trusting this universal truth gives me hope in my dark moments.

Yup, life is hard. It’s also a gift. So pause for this one second:

Take a deep breath in—and I mean deep—then let it out slowly, through your nose.

That’s how it feels to be alive.

Relish it. Treasure it. Above all, be grateful for it, because it will not last forever.

With love,

Cruising Altitude

How do you feel today, Ru?

Almost immediately, I answered. Misaligned.

Maybe it’s the encroaching full moon. Maybe it’s the mittful of black currant jelly babies I ate yesterday afternoon. Maybe I’m exhausted from slogging through last week’s work and weather. Maybe I’m preoccupied by The Blooding of Jack Absolute. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been lazy about my practice.

Instead of maintaining my nightly prayer and daily meditation, I let it slip to every other day and every second night. From there, it was easy to drop to a couple of times a week, and then to whenever I remember. It’s hard to be diligent for an extended period, not because I believe any less in the greater power of universal consciousness (or God, to keep it simple), but because I fall prey to the pitfalls of this mortal coil. I’m tired. I’m stressed. I’ve consumed too much sugar. Whatever the case, having achieved cruising altitude with prior due diligence, I coast while the coasting is clear.

Life, however, is meant to be turbulent. It sucks, but it’s true. Smooth sailing is a state of mind, certainly attainable but not sustainable without course correction when things get rough. The waves don’t have to be of epic proportion, either. Little ripples wear me down as easily as resuming my practice builds me up; it takes a few days for the cracks to show, but here’s the miracle:

I can regain my altitude almost immediately.

My mind is a terrible child. She lies in the weeds and waits to pounce when my back is turned. I can’t silence her completely, but I can, as one Middle Eastern sage suggests, know myself to be “the changeless witness of a changeful mind”.

Have you ever watched yourself flip out? You know it’s you pitching that fit, yet you’re remotely surprised at the same time. You may ask yourself later what that was all about – but do you ever answer the question? I confess to being mystified by my own behaviour, and there are often valid reasons for it, but my preferred state is to be that changeless witness, that objective observer who understands what’s happening but who also has the antidote.

This morning, I recognized my dip toward the cloud and caught myself before descent into mental chaos. I knew exactly what to do. Yoga, meditation, gratitude, in that order. My mind is still working, but she doesn’t own me as she tried to do on waking. In fact, she’s almost dopey, thus freeing me up to write this post and perhaps finish another story this afternoon. I wish I could say I nail it every time (even better if I remained at 30,000 feet without effort), but I’m only human ... some of the time.

With love,

Magic and Wonder

I spent some time at the beach this morning. My plan was to try my usual post-yoga meditation in the wild rather than in my living room, but it didn’t go as expected.

The surf was rougher and much too loud to enable a truly quiet contemplation. It did, however, drown out the traffic and jogger noise at my back; all I could hear was the wind and the water, and the ocean itself demanded all my attention. I took a bunch of pictures before I made myself set technology aside in favour of breathing.

Alas, mindful breathing did not happen. Trying the match the ocean’s rhythm was impossible. The waves were too inconsistent, playful with an untamed edge. Failing to connect with nature because I was distracted by nature proved ironic and a tad annoying—but here’s the weird thing: when I finally admitted defeat, the magic happened.

I noticed that the rising waves became translucent just before they struck the shore. The sun got caught in the curl and completely changed the water’s colour from steel blue to absinthe-green. One in particular stood out. It seemed to pause at its peak, meeting and holding my gaze for a heartbeat, then it moved on … but not before a curious thought came to mind:

We are one, you and I, born of the same source. We are energy in different forms, yet we are connected to each other.

This is true. Everything in our world is energy made matter at differing vibrational levels. Don’t ask me how the Universe does it. It just does. Rare moments occur when the obscure notion of connection between us and everything else is suddenly less obscure, which brings us to the Philosophy Question o’ the Day:

Whose thought was it on the beach this morning? Mine, or the ocean’s?

Be Wonderful

The Fixx recorded a song in the 80s called “Are We Ourselves?”

The short answer? “No.”

Another quote of mysterious origin (I heard it from Don Henley, but am pretty sure it’s not actually his) is, “The older we get, the more we become like ourselves.”

Well, life is a journey, right? We spend the first part of it trying to fit in, to become who we think we must become in order to be accepted by family, peers, superiors, and society as a whole. When we become detached or, worse, isolated; when we fear that we truly are alone and unloved, when we believe ourselves to be stupid or unworthy or useless, bad things happen.

Human things.

We must remember that we are here to be human, to experience contrast, to find our way back to ourselves, and return home with a sack full of lessons learned.

Ter was recently advised by someone who doesn’t know her very well that she is “a little unapproachable.” It wasn’t an accusation; it was more an FYI in case she wasn’t aware of the aura she projects, which is one of aloof reserve. She surprised the person by replying frankly. “I know,” she said. “It’s a weakness. I don’t like it, but I’ve accepted it.” She added that she is half-Scandinavian, which truly does make a difference, but refrained from mentioning her incredible shyness. She has struggled with it for as long as I’ve known her, because it’s not who she really is and, on some level, she knows it.

She is really wonderful.

So am I.

So are you.

Every one of us is wonderful. A lot of us have fallen out of touch with that wonder, but it’s still there. Seems I’ve spent a whole lot of years discovering who I truly am, but what I’m actually doing is rediscovering myself. I’ve had to release a bunch of learned behaviours and marginal ideas, but it turns out they were only holding me back, so who needs ’em?

This doesn’t mean I’ll be rich and/or famous one day. Genuine success isn’t measured in dollars and internet “hits”. It’s in discovering your true self and in being happy with who you really are.

Scary thought, eh? Imagine, spending time alone with no social media, family, series marathons or work issues to distract you from your own company. Yikes. How do you survive face time with a stranger?

Do something nice for yourself. Take a walk along the water. Buy yourself an ice cream on a cold day. Go to a movie that you, but no one you know, wants to see. Take a bubble bath by candlelight.

Most importantly, brook no internal criticism. When that snarky inside voice starts nagging you, tell it to shut up. You’ll never convince it that it’s wrong, so it’s better to ignore it. Better yet, beat it at its own game. When it says, “You’re an idiot”, counter with “Maybe, but I am also loved.” Eventually, you will drop the “Maybe” part because you won’t believe it anymore (and it was never true in the first place).

You are unique and magical and wonderful. I know it. The Universe knows it. Deep down, you know it, too. So just sit quietly for a moment. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out in equal measure. In, out, in, out. Your mind will jitter a little, but that’s okay. Pay it no attention. Focus on this instead:

I am loved.

I am safe.

I am wonderful.

Because you are.

With love,

Colour Me Gone

You might think that the term “adult colouring book” means extensive use of a flesh-coloured Crayola, but you’d be wrong.

What I think is a recent craze has actually been around for a while. My wee sister tells me that she had a grown-up colouring book when her kids were small. She still has it—unfinished, because the kids (now grown) made off with her coloured pencils.

Guess what I gave her for her birthday.

Colouring therapy goes even deeper into my history when I think about it. A Doodle Art poster of butterflies hung in the kitchen when I was a pre-teen; I would occasionally pause to fill in a wing or a flower, as would my sisters and maybe my younger older brother, though I never saw him doing it.

I’ve heard that colouring induces a mindset as close to meditating as one can get without actually meditating—good news for someone like me, who falls asleep when confronted by a lighted candle.

Truth is, I love to colour. It’s easier than writing. Way easier, in fact., though it can facilitate the process by giving me something to do while I mull over plot portents. I get completely lost in my Christmas cards each year. The hard part is the poetry; once the words are formed, the struggle ends and the joy begins—with colour.

It’s the perfect meditation. There are no rules, no time limits, no restrictions. You can even colour outside the lines if you want. How cool is that?

Ter gave me a book for my birthday. I love it, but like dessert, I have to eat my veggies before I can indulge, so I don’t spend as much time at it as I’d like. When I can no longer bear the wait, however, you’ll find me in the zone.

You Scream for Extreme

Then there is slacklining—the latest death defying “sport” to make the list of “Ways to Prove Darwin Right”. It’s walking a tightrope with some give in the tension … at an altitude of twenty metres … without a net.

I caught a clip on the news the other night: a beautiful young girl from California who’s come to compete with her peers in BC this weekend. She talked about how the practice is about finding your calm centre, overcoming fear and controlling the adrenaline “because too much adrenaline makes you shaky.”

Gee, you think???

Adrenaline is a natural response to potentially mortal peril; I’d say that tiptoeing along a clothesline strung across a chasm would justify a tremor or twelve, but not necessarily the cost of a body recovery.

I’ll seek my calm centre with green tea and yoga, thank you.

Chocolate Meditation

There are meditations for walking. There are meditations for driving. There are bedtime meditations, sunrise meditations, green tea meditations, cooking meditations, eating meditations, standing-in-line meditations, and even elevator meditations. There seems to be a meditation for every moment of every hour of every day, each designed to keep us focused on the present, to help us with intention and to further the quest for inner peace.

I have yet to happen on a meditation for chocolate, but I may have discovered why. Chocolate doesn’t need one. By its very nature, chocolate can stall time in its tracks.

Pop a piece of your favourite flavour and feel your cares melt away with the cocoa butter in your mouth. Inhale the sweet perfume as it rises from the back of your tongue. Lose yourself in the pure, unadulterated pleasure of becoming one with the gods who created this bliss. The real world fades into the wallpaper if the chocolate is properly enjoyed, and you emerge from the moment calmer and more serene than you were before it began.

(Breathe in) I smell heaven.

(Breathe out) I taste heaven.

(Breathe in) I feel heaven.

(Breathe out) I know heaven.

Once the clock resumes ticking, I guarantee you’ll be less stressed about it. So perhaps there’s a chocolate meditation after all.

And on the Seventh Day …

… they meditate.

The bears are adorable, but they’re also rowdy. On a given day, Moon Pie is liable to hang himself (by accident) on a purse strap or a bauble chain, Burl and Elliot are scrapping over the football, Rufus is in a snit about something, and Pumpkin is trying to survive amid the chaos by punching a hole in it. Gingersnap, Spirit Bear, and Gorden are milder in temperament than their feistier fellows, but even one of them will lose patience over the ongoing shenanigans once in a while. Either their energy was getting hairier or my aura has grown more sensitive to dissention because a few Sundays ago, I took away the football and gave them a group time out. I sat them in a circle, gave them a gazing ball, and told them they’d get to play tomorrow.

At first they were like, What is this? Definite grumbling and some puzzlement ensued. Moonie thought the gazing ball was a toy and tried to bat it over to Burl, but it’s an amethyst crystal that weighs more than he does, so it didn’t go very far. Not surprisingly, Spirit Bear was the first to grasp what I was trying to teach them, and in his quiet way, he got them to fall in line. When I checked on them a few hours later, they had settled into a peaceful groove and were far more relaxed at bedtime than if they’d been left to wreak their usual havoc throughout the day.

Now he’s the group guru. It’s taken some time, but since they’ve been spending Sundays in mindful and collaborative quiet, they seem calmer and less contrary during the rest of the week. Of course they still have their moments—you can’t alter their personalities completely and I wouldn’t want to—but I think they actually look forward to Sundays and their weekly “bear sangha”.

I know I do.

Inner Silence

My father asked me one day if I ever stop talking. He meant it literally, but I was lying when I replied, “Sometimes.” In truth, my internal chatter rarely shuts up and it’s starting to annoy me as much as my external chatter annoys Dad.

I’ve been anticipating the Easter weekend for many reasons, one of which is my intent to slow down and be quiet for an extended period of time. For weeks, my brain has been revving at an unhealthy pace as I try to keep up with office nonsense. On my spare days off, shutting it down has been almost impossible. Today is utterly, completely mine. I’ve planned to write solidly, nonstop except for tea and pee breaks, but do you think my mind has allowed me to focus on anything for more than a heartbeat at a time? A thousand other things, disguised as pleasurable alternatives, have popped up to distract me from my chosen path. Sifting through them has sucked up more time than doing any or all of them likely would.

So this morning, admittedly out of desperation, I tried an experiment. I picked up Ter’s copy of Your True Home—the Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh and sat with it for a minute. I laid the book on my knee, folded my hands atop it, closed my eyes, and pushed everything from thought but a single question: What do I need to know for today?

Eyes still closed, I tipped the book onto its spine and ran both thumbs across the edges of the pages. My left thumb “felt” louder, so I concentrated on the pages comprising the first half of the book. My thumb ran over and over until, finally, a break in the pages appeared. I opened the book, eyes still closed, and thought, Don’t look to the right. Look to the left. I turned my head, opened my eyes, and here is the wisdom that greeted me:

Inner Silence

Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn’t mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside, there is no talking inside. If you’re truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in, you can enjoy the silence. There are moments when you think you’re silent and all around you is silent, but talking is going on all the time inside your head. That’s not silence. The practice is to find silence in all the activities you do.

Did I need to hear that? You bet your sweet bippy I did. It’s the best advice I could be given, a Zen version of the paternally ubiquitous “Shut up, Ruth!” that has given me focus, something to remember as I move through my day. Achieving inner silence will help me to be here now, to find joy in each moment, and to follow my heart—at least until my hockey game starts at 4:00. After that, all bets are off.

Until then, however … silence.

Mindfulness

Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over and you have lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary. – Eckhart Tolle

This happened to me on Monday. Back at work after a three day weekend and I was a wreck by dinnertime. Admittedly, the cat-herding part of my job has lately been nuttier than usual, but in trying to stay ahead of the nuttery, I lost my mind.

By that I mean I lost my state of awareness, falling prey to the Demon of Mindless Munching and consuming enough sugar to cause a combustible crash at the checkered flag. By sundown, my inner purpose had been trumped by outer purpose and my world felt dark, cold and hollow. Pointles. Joyless. Never hopeless, but certainly less hopeful.

Yes, my diet that day was a factor, but I let the frenzied pace of the office drive me off track. Anxious to stay ahead of the stress (and failing, I may add), I paid no attention to what sort of fuel I put into my coping mechanism. When I start a day fully intending to focus on each moment and that day ends in a smoking pile of rubble, I know I’ve lost consciousness along the way.

The trick is how to get it back.

My good fortune lies in Ter, who, even in her bleakest moments, has the smarts to identify what’s happening. When she is unavailable, however, I have to do the work myself.

Breathe in (calm)

Breathe out (smile)

Breathe in (present moment)

Breathe out (wonderful moment).

Rinse and repeat.

My little voice has also begun asking me what the Sam Hill is going on, whereupon I sit back and go, “Yeah, what is going on?” Since learning the difference between mind and spirit, ego and heart, it’s becoming easier for me to look objectively at my reaction to a situation and figure out where said response originates. If I’m stressed and spooked, then “outer purpose” has invariably out-muscled “inner”. Managing the monster will be a significant challenge until being mindful becomes a habit and so far it’s taken conscious, ongoing effort.

It’s also been worth it.

Present Moment

I watched a guy on a street corner the other day. He got there as the “don’t walk” signal kicked in and while I thought he’d go for it anyway, he hesitated. In that brief pause, he missed his opportunity. The light turned red and north/south traffic began to flow. He stood for a sec, visibly twitching, then pivoted on his heel to cross in front of my car. Again, he waited too long and the light changed. Spinning, he was away like a thoroughbred at the races, but having observed his agitated behaviour, I thought, Are you kidding? You can’t wait for two minutes at a traffic light? What-is-the-big-rush?

Same goes for the driver of the big a** truck who changed lanes three times to reach the intersection no further ahead of me because the traffic was literally bumper-to-bumper—and this on a Saturday afternoon when you have to know that it’s gonna be nuts out there. But really, the pedestrian seeking the quickest way across the street puzzled me more. Admittedly, I get miffed if my rhythm is stalled by a mistimed crossing signal, but you know what? It’s fun to stand still for a minute and watch the world zoom by. It pulls me from mindless chaos to mindful presence. At least, with practice, I hope it will.

I learned a wonderful meditation last week, courtesy of Ter’s current philosophical mentor, the marvelously tranquil Thich Nhat Hanh. It’s short and simple, so I’ve remembered and am applying it when required:

(breathe in) Calm

(breathe out) Smile

(breathe in) Present Moment

(breathe out) Wonderful Moment

I can’t meditate in front of a candle—I fall asleep—but I can do it on a street corner. Whenever I feel myself taking off into orbit, I can slow myself down and proceed more peacefully.

Sometimes. Not always. But I’m getting there.