Simple Gifts

Sometimes you have to roll with the wave of your life. No matter where it goes, no matter how fast and furious, sometimes our job is to simply let go and see where it takes us. It isn't necessarily easy or peaceful or sane.

It just is what it is.

Sometimes, for better or worse, life moves that fast. Gratefully, it can't keep up the frenetic pace forever. Which is good, because neither can I.

For as much spirit as I mustered a week ago, by last Friday night, I was beyond exhausted. A "done" sort of exhausted. No spirit left whatsoever, just a deep painful desire to sleep, to heal and to rejuvenate.

"Survival" is a funny word. It speaks of Sisu -- that grim determination. It talks of stamina and will and tenacity. It talks of a fierce unwillingness to give up.

And yet somewhere in there, too, is the energy of surrender. The willingness to let go of what dances on the periphery of our lives, the things we think are important that we normally give so much attention and energy to, and focus single-mindedly on one thing -- what is required of us to get through to the other side.

It's hard not to put all our attention on the future...when will this all be over? It can be painful to be in the moment when it is wrought with intense effort and concentration and struggle. It can be hard to reconcile the thrill of success and pulling off the impossible, with the dire physical, mental -- and sometimes emotional -- costs of the prize.

One thing I was reminded of this past week was that sometimes resistance is just...plain...futile. Unless, of course, you enjoy banging your head against the wall. Which I did plenty of. As recently as this afternoon, as a matter of fact.

If you recall, I'm a bit of a stubborn fool.

I also took away the reminder that being in the present moment -- being in the truth of what is -- requires that we shift what we deem essential to our lives according to our circumstances.

I've written before about the importance of knowing what is essential to us in our lives and acting from that space in our day-to-day. When we slip into survival mode, when we no longer feel that we're even close to bringing the best of ourselves to our daily round, our list of what's essential must be pared back even more than before. Sometimes we're only truly able to focus on our most basic needs, namely food, water and sleep.

Sometimes surrender means letting it all go. Everything. Just for now. With the promise that we can pick up what we come to know really is essential when the time is right. And not one second before.

So that when we pick up the things we are absolutely certain we want and need in our lives, we can treat them with the utmost respect and honor, with a new dedication and commitment than we were able to offer before.

Who knew this place I'm stewing around in was essential??!?

The simple gift for all of us is to recognize that it is only from this most vulnerable place that we are able to really look at our lives and make a change.

The perfect holiday is a figment of my imagination. There, I said it. Whatever "perfect" means. But still, the truth for me is that I've chosen a profession whose busiest season is the busiest season...which just compounds the stress further.

So, what do I expect?

Still, I ask: Is there a way to get through the holidays feeling relatively sane (i.e., not lip-bumblingly-out-of-control)? I continue to hold out hope that this is possible, although I've finally come to realize it won't likely look the way I expect it should.

Hmm...it seems my expectations might just be part of the problem, no?

Certainly, my trying harder to control it will not tame the beast...this much I've learned.

For now, I must be satisfied with having asked the question. With knowing that it is likely less effort than more that will get me closer to solving this riddle. And with having another whole year to work it through.

Perhaps, the answer is in always creating the space to appreciate the true simple gifts in my life:

Good night!//

Week 2 - Expectations

Anytime you pursue a meditative practice, you are making a commitment to understand yourself more fully as a spiritual being. This takes time. Be patient with your practice. ~James van Praag


This past Saturday afternoon, I put my garden to bed for the season. It has served me so well for many months, producing a seemingly endless supply of whatever I planted, and I had the sense of wanting to nourish it and put my energy and love into it to tide it over until next Spring when I could do it again. I dug up the old spent plants, raked in a layer of manure to replenish the soil and had the neighbor kids help dump leaves by the armful over the fence for a good layer of insulation. As I finished spraying the garden with water to help it all soak in, I savored how good it felt to let go of the old and make room for the new.

As it is with gardens, the new can't and won't even be available until a whole winter of frigid days and nights from now. Nothing I can do can speed things along. I need to be patient and to wait. If I expect it any sooner than it arrives -- in its own time -- I will be frustrated, disappointed and angry.

After I cleaned up from my outdoor chores, I sat down to meditate. Even after a beautiful day of fresh air and hard work, I was restless. Thinking more about the garden, I was distracted by what I might plant next year. Back to the breath, I reminded myself. A nice slow in and out breath and my mind was off to the races again. Had I given the soil enough of what it needed for the winter? Back to the breath, I reminded again. Frustrated and antsy, a thought showed up that has dominated every meditation session since:

Am I wasting my time?

Hmmm. Good question. Am I?

Anything's possible. But come on, it's only been two weeks. As my grandma likes to tell me, it takes at least 21 days to get used to something new. I have abided by this wisdom so many times in my life to my benefit that it is clear I have to give this at least three weeks.

That aside, it occurs to me that as a product of my culture, I want to see results now. Not a week from now, not nine months from now, but NOW. I want to know that all this time and energy is worth it. Instant gratification is the name of the game. We expect it. And if what we're doing comes up short, forget it. It's not worth our time. We are justified in jumping right into the next thing that promises a quick fix and instant results. We figure, the problem has to be with what we're trying and not with our mindset going into it, right?

Nothing can be considered a waste of time unless we're measuring some outcome -- or lack thereof -- against some expectation and it fails to measure up. So doesn't it follows that the problem isn't with what is, but with the fact that it may be different than what we want it to be? If I deem this meditation project a waste then maybe the failure is with me. Not because I haven't tried hard enough or haven't shown up every day...but because I've neglected to open to the possibility of what could be if I would slow down, be patient and suspend my idea of how this all is "supposed" to turn out.

What would happen if I brought that same hurried mentality to the garden? I would have thrown out the shoots before they had a chance to flower and bear fruit...and would have bought my produce from the grocery store so I wouldn't have to wait. What fun is that?

That, to me, is the waste...to be in such a hurry that we can't appreciate the creative process that allows Nature -- and us -- to change and grow and unfold to reveal who we are meant to become. There's beauty in the surprise of not knowing what's next. I don't ever want to miss that. Ever. That's the Good Stuff.

No one said it would be easy. Or fast. This path is certainly not about the quick fix. But it will happen...if we have faith and allow what will be to arrive. In its own way. According to its own schedule. And it will be imbued with beauty and wonder all its own.

So if I need to endure some restlessness and distraction, if I need to suspend my expectations and ideas of what and when and how, so be it. Thanks for the reminder. We'll call it part of the process...and wait and see.//

Behold the Mystery

Spring has finally sprung, and with it, comes the desire to finally emerge. It's been a long, hard winter, even by Minnesota standards, and I couldn't help feeling over the past month, that we were due. Where was the warmer weather we so desperately deserved? Hadn't we been through enough? Funny, isn't it, how we try to control through our expectations, something as uncontrollable as the weather. Who can predict the wind?

I'm pretty sure Mother Nature wasn't making Spring's late arrival personal. And yet, at times, it can feel that way. Just as, now that it's here, it feels we've been rewarded -- personally. Temperatures teetering at 60 make below zero feel like a dream from the dark and distant past. I wonder, is it our compulsion to live in the past and the future that makes a "long, hard winter" long and hard? What if, we allowed each moment to be what it is?

It's easy to do when the days are gloriously sun-drenched and warm, with nights that are still and cool. When the birds outside my bedroom can't contain their joyful warbling much past 5:30am. When our evening walks at the park reveal so many new discoveries -- returning red-wingers, budding birch, sunning snakes -- that we are called back again and again just so we can be sure to take it all in.

But, doesn't each moment hold this kind of wonder if we simply open to it? Like the crocuses springing up from out of nowhere, can we live free from the encumbrances of the past, free from our expectations of the future and behold the mystery inherent in each moment as it is? Can we choose to move toward the light in any situation? At any time? For no other reason beyond that it's there and we're drawn to it?

Maybe it isn't even a choosing. Maybe it will happen naturally, like the coming of Spring, if we just allow it.//

Getting Out of the Way

I've been thinking a lot about my book project lately. It is out for an initial review and I have honestly no idea what the response will be. Strangely, for the large part, this feels OK. Will I be told it's crap? That it has potential? I don't know that it matters. There's something here that I fear is ambivalence which actually feels like freedom. As if I have some degree of non-attachment to the whole thing, which isn't because I don't care or don't want to finish a completed, polished manuscript or that I don't know the woman reviewing my work, therefore I'm not invested in her comments.

Is it a knowing, perhaps? That I'm on to something, even if I don't know exactly what it is? Or how it will turn out?

I recognize it now as my style to have pieced together my first draft, regardless of how shabby, to then be able to reshape and re-vision and spiff it up from there. Like roughing in the framing of a remodeled room, I can now sit back with the parameters set and imagine the possibilities. It's a, "what do I have to work with here" mentality that lends itself perhaps not to endless options, but to more options than I could ever want or need as long as I remain open to what's available.

It's a bit unnerving to be here, in this place I've never been. But exciting, too. Each successive step in the book-writing process is its own animal, yielding rewards and complications and wonders unique to the moment...that I will come to know each time, for the first time.

That's what living in the now is all about, isn't it? For evolutionary purposes, we have been designed to retain all our old information: what happened here or there, where are the potential pitfalls. We needed this to survive, to anticipate what would happen before it actually occurred. I would argue that in this age of relative ease and convenience, the same rules do not apply -- at least not in the same way. Suspending our preconceived ideas and expectations of what we think something will be or even should be allows us the freedom to imagine what they could be. Or at the very least, appreciate them for what they are.

All experience is just a microcosm informing something deeper -- our personal process for living our own lives. Experience is a tool by which we can witness how we view the world, either as another dragon to slay or as an unfolding of possibility, each moment flush with its own potential.

Working on this book project, for me, is such a tool. What I've recognized is: we are the now. Each of us is this present moment, ripe with the potential and possibility just waiting for us to get out of our own way to see what -- or who -- will arise.//

Let it Be

Winter in Minnesota can be a harsh and unforgiving time, devoid of optimism and promise. It goes on and on with no end in sight. Or so it feels. A writer friend told me yesterday that she wakes up day after day, looks out the window and it is still the frozen wasteland it was the day before. And yet, we choose to live here.

This year, I've been unusually affected by the cold, the stark. Of course it doesn't help that it has been below zero, or close to it, for a majority of the past month. Perhaps I feel it more this year because I am consciously focusing my attention to it and have recognized my unconscious attachment to wanting it to be different.

Feeling trapped in the house, I remind myself that my hiding away is a choice. I watch the arctic sunshine bathe the deck and dream of the day I can be out there writing in my willow chair, my dog basking in the warmth next to me. Even the dog gets confused and begs to go out to soak up the sun, expecting heat when there is none. I get resentful, in spite of myself.

What if I just let it be? In how many ways do we let our expectations interfere with what is? Just as this blog is a work in progress, a creative process in its own right, aren't the cycles of Nature as well? Aren't we? If we spend so much time investing in the outcome, what energy do we have for attentiveness -- for honoring things as they are? We are so conditioned to push ahead, to drive for the destination, that we forget to slow down and enjoy the scenery. We forget to let this moment be what it is, and to be present with it.

Yesterday, as I drove to an appointment, an Eagle crossed my path, soaring on invisible currents of frigid January air. He didn't mind the cold. Who knows? Arctic air may allow for a whole new way of flying. In Native American teachings, Eagle represents Spirit; freedom and feeding your soul. Attentiveness is about just that kind of nurturing. Had I been single-mindedly on my hurried way, expecting that it was just another cold, stark January day that I wished was behind me, I may have missed it -- the majestic magic of Eagle dancing on air.

Attentiveness, in my experience, is always rewarded. Be in the moment and the moment will reveal its treasures to you. Even if it's well below zero and you can scarcely see through the frosted windshield...//