Solitary Soul

“Porque para siempre es a traves  del tiempo,

y el corazón se debilita,

y el alma crece solitaria.”

I fought this statement.

I am not capable of destroying the vibrations of my heart!

But then..

It has occurred to me that this message was correct.

With the passage of time, my heart has grown

weaker, and my soul has grown lonelier…

I realized… He is the one to forget.

Desired soul mate

Belief he would neglect

To share my soul in Life dance

Belief he would reject.

Not believing my worth.

Took shortcuts.

As if… was remiss

In my search

Shortcuts purposeful

“wooden peg, can whittle you in.”

Painful

Truthfully He forgot.

searched not.

I also search no more.

Weaker hearted, lonely soul strong

So vision of dancing partnered soul

Braided  loving and blessing life

Exclusive use of energy wrong

Dance  Sola

Pinpoint light.

Bless this world,

Full use Life.

SOUL’S AFFAIR

Long journey July, major strides taken.

Started with distant love of a Poet

How much he has taught.

Now it is a love affair of the soul.

No direct sight

No physical touch

Prayer this morning:

whisper blessing to Poet became

May you be DRENCHED today in blessings

laughing

Drenching turned back at me

laughing

It is a love affair of the soul

THE POET’S HEART

I fell in love with the Poet.  I keep my distance.  I study his writings.  And with each poem I fall deeper and deeper in love.

I have no idea what he looks like, what he does for food/shelter/clothing, and whether he is just a mean curmudgeon in daily life.  I have no idea whether he has left a string of broken hearts, or if he is a man deeply committed in his core to one woman.

But I am amazed at his writing.  It is unfathomable that words so graphic and heart rending in one poem, can be captivating and enlightening in the next…all structured in a fashion that exposes the cleverness and fragility of his heart.  With each of his poems, I fall further in love with him.

So in my minds eye, he is a thoughtful, quiet, clever soul.

Is that Odd for me?  Not really.  I am a wordsmith by trade.  I intently listen to the choice of words, the structure of phrases, the rhythm of communication.  Words reflect the raw sacred material of  life.  He is an expert in his craft.  His phrases strike chords deep within me.  I am in love with the unknowable Poet.

Yes, but isn’t that … Odd?  OK yes it is odd… I have fallen in love with the unknowable Poet. It is his distance and unavailability that enhances this love.  For it seems, I am much better at loving from a distance as the unknown lover.

But..are you looking directly at the…Oddity?  Ahhh…..I understand….I am not that distanced.  The poet is pointing, and I am falling in love…. with  Source within …. me.

DANCE REUNION SWOOP

My Mentor pointed me in the direction of Authenticity.  The pointing resulted in learning to approach lfe’s moments as a blank legal pad. To choose full authenticity, use that legal pad as a doorway… swoop through…encounter.  My shorthand: Authenticity is Dancing the Swoop.  (This is a remarkable lesson for me.  I am very grateful to my Mentor.  The legal pad lesson analogy is fully his idea.  He just didn’t realize how close to home he struck)

I planned to attend my 25th graduate school reunion. I was … well hesitant is an understatement.

I remembered walking the halls of the school, carrying my stack of dog eared legal pads…I kept copious notes.  (Still do to this day.)  And I loved coffee: dark, lovingly brewed with just the right amount of heated creme, plenty of sugar… why it was a liquid dessert of sustenance.  So there I was in graduate school:  legal pads, coffee… and..

well I am a clutz.  Fine…I said it.  I cannot walk into a room of people without being so darn self-conscious I act like a “drunken sailor”  (Description not made up by me, but given to me by a nun in grade school as she advised my mother to put me in dance class.  I refused to go.  Perhaps I should have made a different choice) O.K….the point is, I always carried a stack of dog eared, coffee stained (as a result of tripping), copious fully noted legal pads throughout my days in graduate school.

And those legal pads carried my identity.  This is who I am as I study and endeavor to become just as clever as I perceived everyone else.  Could they see that I thought I was a … fraud?  Soon to be discovered and kicked out once the mistake of my admission was recognized?  I could not share those notes….for sharing meant that I was…discoverable.  I was amazed at how being quiet and sitting in the back of the room could lead to….longevity.  Suffice it to say…I opened and experienced just a very narrow, limited amount of encounter with others in graduate school.

Would my friends be there?  Well…flurry of emails exchanged… the whole class now conversing…. perhaps opportunity for encounter….

Several years have passed, I have no idea where I placed those legal pad.  I am..simply me.  I gained enough skill level to provide food/shelter/clothing.  I could approach this reunion … with a blank legal pad.  That is it!  I will walk in and just see what everyone else has accomplished.  Might be great location to pick up ideas about stories.  I am a great observer.  Blank legal pad and me, observing.  I can do this.

So I walked into the room with no agenda.  First shock:  I recognized very few faces…  It is amazing how hard it is to recognize people after just 25 years.  So now, I needed to walk up, put my hand out…and say… are you a classmate or a spouse?  It got to be fun.  I was not the only person in this predicament…in fact everyone was.  We had to go back to describe what we looked liked 25 years earlier… (trust me, there was a lot of wistfulness there).  And these encounters turned into fun….

Person by person, I was able to describe laughingly all of the bumps in the road after graduate school…..  So many of us had similar experiences, so many had remarkably laughing experiences..the ones where you say:  “man, better you than me.”

At one point with a jolt, I recognized that I had left behind the blank legal pad, I was no longer the observer, but I had stepped through the legal pad doorway… and was doing the Swoop…

I finally got those dance lessons.

Mentor…thank you.

Buber and Blogging

I appreciate Buddhism because here I discovered tools that allow me to “wrap my mind” around conversations with my favorite authors. (A book well read is a conversation). I am studying “Ich un Du”, Martin Buber. My analysis of Buber:

There is no “I” as such. There is always a type of experience: one with borders, one with relating. So first off, right off the bat, the separate identify is gone. When you say “you” the I is already included. When you say “It”, the I is already included. There is no separate identify.

Language does not set up the realm of experience for man. Sometimes we fall into the illusion that language describes accurately our reality. For example: We think that we (subject) -are acting (verb) – on an object. (I touch you.) And that is how reality is. Nope. Language is not the realm of experience. It is a tool…Only a tool.

So take a step back. What is the realm of man? Now this is where Buddhism has been a wonderful tool for me. It is through Buddhist guidance I have learned how to approach this study.

Buber says that either you step into the concept of “I and You” or into the concept of “I and It”. Now I know I don’t like dualism… the idea that there are only 2 opposite answers in the world for a question. But hey… let me use this dualistic paradigm for the moment. According to Kaufman’s introduction to Buber, we can assume a multitude of experiences under each basic concept.

AND do not assume that one is better than the other…don’t make this judgment. All I am working with right now is that there are two basic ways of describing man’s realm.

I am probably more conversant in the “I and It” realm. Remember this is my experience with reality where I experience borders:

“I perceive something

I feel something.

I imagine something

I want something

I sense something

I think something” (Kaufmans translation Buber, pg 54)

In my realm of (I + It), I am experiencing borders. There is my experience of borders with an “It” … whatever that “it” may be. (This includes how I perceive how well Fred keeps his garbage out of my yard.)

When I am in the realm of “I and you”, I do no not experience borders…I can’t touch or encapsulate something with a border. I am in “relating”. In a blogs here, I read about relating or “meshing” of two separate worlds in relationships.

Ahhh….so maybe this solves my concern about blogging. When I am blogging, I am experiencing the “I and It” realm. (I think something)

It is in my “non-electronic, gadget free three dimensional life” that I have the opportunity for relating.

OR am I attempting to relate when…. I ask you what you think?

WHY DO I THINK THIS WAY?

I read that each one of our senses is calibrated.  Interesting concept.  I am not a biologist… but I understand music.  Each note carries its own vibration.  If each of our senses is calibrated, then those energy waves I can discern from touch are different from the energy waves I can discern by sound.  And so it goes with each one of my senses.

I listened to Ken McLeod’s teaching on the Mahamudra.  If I understand him correctly, I can “mesh” these senses, add in awareness of thought, open my heart….. and I am present…to my life…Now.  I tried this.

I believe “faith” is how you act… Now.  I believe that spirituality cannot be an exclusively intellectual pursuit.  Who I am spiritually, whatever “ism” I identify with, must be of a nature where I place my bare feet, on my ground, in my life and actually walk in the faith of my “ism”…Now.

So I walk (barefooted so to speak) through my day… I come into contact with so many others… where I can reach out with all of my senses and discern their vibrational energy.  I try to perceive in the Now (rather than fixing this moment in my head)… and … best I can say is I am experiencing a learning curve (akin to being in school and learning how to read; or trying to order dinner in a country where I don’t know the language)

I know I have the benefit of guides, translators, mentors coming into my life, usually at just the critical moment I need them.

But I have this question:  why is it more comfortable for me to post these thoughts on a blog page… than to have this type of discussion with the Person sitting across the table from me?  Why do I think this way?  Is it spiritual practice to blog, to place these thoughts in an electronic format and hope for guidance?  Or is this just another method for me to … avoid…my life?

“All Actual Life is Encounter” Martin Buber

Blogs are unusual forum.  I suppose the concept is that there is conversation.  But can you have conversation without the usual cues, the ability to hear the tone of the words, the ability to see if you understand the communication, if the other understands you?

Written communication is not foreign  We are used to books, letters, emails.  Each involves exchange…. conversation.  As for books, a well read book is read as a conversation… but is there a chance for reply?  Letters…. time and space to read, think and then reply.  Emails… dangerous aren’t they…now EMOTION is captured in caps, and perhaps, before thinking, the response sent with broadcast copies to all.  In each of these methods…you know your author, you understand in advance the background cues, you have a potential of communicating.

But Blogs… very unusual.  There is not only the opportunity for conversation…but the opportunity to change the rules of engagement for conversation.   For example, how do you know that the author knows the subject content sufficiently to engage in conversation?  How do you understand the tenor of the conversation:  sarcastic v. introspective?  Blogging is anonymous.  Do you really know or have an understanding of who is the author?

All Actual Life is Encounter.  Is Blogging Actual Life?

Beginning Conversation

I am new to blogging.  Well, not so new….I like to surf blogs, listen to conversation.  I am new to communicating by blog.  I desire conversation. And so…I am taking a plunge right off of the cliff….and placing my thoughts out there…. in hopes of starting…conversation.

In the past weeks, I have been pelted by stress.  I chose the word “pelted” carefully… intentionally.  I have the desire to face life, to experience, wring out the sacredness, the learning of each moment in life.  And so, I turned to face the onslaught of life.

These recent weeks were rich with relationship struggles.  These relationships included those close to my heart, and those in my working community.  So I felt the “pelting” of those enveloped in my heart (and couldn’t say with a sigh, well at least you can’t take my favorite granddaughter from me).  And I also felt the “pelting” of those who are neutral to me, but I have to work with on a professional basis (or do I?…  I tend to be the person who grabs up my marbles and walks away from the marble game, defiantly stomping my feet).

I read in an  article about trees in the biosphere.  The trees are anchored, braced up.  Because they have not experienced stress, they are not strong enough to stand on their own.  Ahhh…… a lesson for me.

I struggle all right.  I was amazed at the intensity of the anger, outrage energy that burst (not bubbled…. more like BURST) from within me.  The relationship struggles have now smoothed.  In each realm (personal/community) I sense that I experienced a wave that overwhelmed me as the situations were pushed towards maturity.  I experienced this overwhelm of the push of life and the overwhelm of my BURST of energy as a “pelting”.

And now, in looking back, what I experienced was change…. change that lead to more mature depth, growth.  If I had chosen to release, to accept with openness, these conflicts, and had just watched with curiosity  …. then I sense I would have experienced change and not “pelting”.  I may have even experienced this stress as blessing rather than “pelting’.

My difficulty is this:  how do I release into life with curiosity and still engage and appropriately function in life?