The photo taken by Christine Valters Paintner is the reflection of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC in the shimmering glass of an adjacent office building.

I am a big fan of Christine over at Abbey of the Arts, the abbey without walls—a virtual one if you please.  The following poem is my submission for her 46th ‘Poetry Party’ on being a Monk in the World. Christine teaches many on-line classes related to living a spiritual life wherever and however we live.  She just finished a 7 day class on being a Monk in the World and had 300 people take the class—this topic obviously hits a nerve for many of us!

As I make love

   make salad

   make mischief

   make peace

I am always reminded

   by the little things

   the precious things

   that spring tears unbidden from my heart-eyes:

Life is short

And here’s the damn thing about it:

You’re gonna die, gonna die for sure.

And you can learn to live with love or without it

But there ain’t no cure.  --John Hiatt

Being in love in concept

is a far cry from being in love

‘for sure’.

Being in love with this world

   brings grief, a sense of deep brokenness and a longing for home.

Being a monk in this world, right here, right now

   brings a certain compassion

   that only swimming in these waters

Can produce.

The by-product

   the offspring of

being a monk in the world: 

spaciousness and crowdedness

fearlessness and terror

sitting and running

is compassion.

Being a monk in this world doesn’t take the place of home. 

But it gives us moments of the sense of it.

So if death is certain, and the time of death is uncertain, what’s important is this:

To live in the world with a *monk’s heart and an artist’s eye.

There just ain’t no cure for what ails us.

Only medicine.

‘Ferrari’ in the Leisurevan, acting as a GPS going through Moab canyon. Photo taken by Rita Clagett.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

*From Christine’s Monk in the World ‘Monk Manifesto’:

Monk: from the Greek monachos meaning single or solitary, a monk in the world does not live apart but immersed in the everyday with a single-hearted and undivided presence, always striving for greater wholeness and integrity

Manifesto: from the Latin for clear, means a public declaration of principles and intentions.

Monk Manifesto: A public expression of your commitment to live a compassionate, contemplative, and creative life.

1. I commit to finding moments each day for silence and solitude, to make space for another voice to be heard, and to resist a culture of noise and constant stimulation.

2. I commit to radical acts of hospitality by welcoming the stranger both without and within. I recognize that when I make space inside my heart for the unclaimed parts of myself, I cultivate compassion and the ability to accept those places in others.

3. I commit to cultivating community by finding kindred spirits along the path, soul friends with whom I can share my deepest longings, and mentors who can offer guidance and wisdom for the journey.

4. I commit to cultivating awareness of my kinship with creation and a healthy asceticism by discerning my use of energy and things, letting go of what does not help nature to flourish.

5. I commit to bringing myself fully present to the work I do, whether paid or unpaid, holding a heart of gratitude for the ability to express my gifts in the world in meaningful ways.

6. I commit to rhythms of rest and renewal through the regular practice of Sabbath and resist a culture of busyness that measures my worth by what I do.

7. I commit to a lifetime of ongoing conversion and transformation, recognizing that I am always on a journey with both gifts and limitations.

The judgment of my judgments

   is enough for my habituated mind

   to climb aboard the hamster wheel of 

   regrets, misdeeds and failings.

There is no way of getting off this carousel

   this prototypical Hotel California

   except for re-directing, with humor, loving-kindness and compassion.

Much like we do with young children.

More and more frequently

I observe my shenpa

   laden like a Grand Canyon mule

   with worry, fear, guilt, shame and most of all, judgment.  

And label that shenpa as a scamp, a scalawag, a mischief-maker

   but not as bad.

Learning to sit with my little, worried mind

And give it spaciousness and kindness

   is like giving real food to an 8 month old baby:

   ready for something to chew on and yet not ready to give up

   the bottle and the breast.

Would we call a baby that gets food all over their hair, face, Grandma-- bad?

Or just not yet skillful?

Minding my mind just takes patience and awareness.

Like allowing a beloved child to learn how to eat.

Lotus Ann, May 2010, 8 months old and ready for some food, already!

Minding the mind, part 1

Begin yet again

sweetest words spoken

by

mother

piano teacher

biology professor

watercolor instructor

writing coach

spiritual mentors.

Always available

The next fresh moment.

Lotus Ann—10 month old and a true master of beginning yet again.  Here pictured with her Grandma Beth, who is a novice at what Lotus knows instinctively how to do. Denver, Colorado, July 30, 2010

Sharing some blue spirea time with the bees as my teachers, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico.  August 7, 2010.  

This post seems to want to become the first in a series about 'minding my mind'.  We'll see what else comes!

Here's part 2 of Minding My Mind...

Submission for One Single Impression prompt: beginner.   Crawl on over there and start anew.

Love the way these 9th generation Maine family dairy farmers are showing a way of hope—how to nurture and respect all life, run a solid business and teach it all to their children.

Encourage borders, outskirts, and temporary isolation where the voltage of difference can spark the new….By definition a network is one huge edge. It has no fixed center. As the network grows it holds increasing opportunities for protected backwaters where innovations can hatch, out of view but plugged in. Once fine-tuned, the innovation can replicate wildly. The global dimensions of the network economy means that an advance can be spread quickly and completely through the globe. The World Wide Web itself was created this way. The first software for the web was written in the relative obscurity of an academic research station in Geneva, Switzerland. Once it was up and running in their own labs in 1991, it spread within six months to computers all around the world.  ---New Rules for the New Economy  Highlights mine.

I’ve been thinking about fringe elements lately.  When I read Kate Fitzpatrick’s amazing first post, Ecotones, on her new blog on the Virtual Tea House, I started reflecting more deeply about transition points and how much potential is stored in those places: intra-personal, intra-family, inter-disciplinary,  inter-community or intra-communities.

Someone has said that among the things that a culture can be judged by, such as how we treat our criminals, our elderly, our insane and our young, is another barometer point.  It’s how we treat our ‘fringe element’.  The nearly crazy artists who bring us such truth from across the veil of sanity that we can barely look at their work.  Those who live in such unconventional ways that we have to struggle with our life-long judgments (for instance, polygamy or for some, polyamory).  Ex-patriots who tell their truth about what they see in our culture, in harsh words (Joe Bageant for instance).  

How do we treat these voices from the edge?  These are not postcards from some place outside of us, but real people living lives of extraordinary truth and an odd grace.  These voices are us if we choose to welcome them in and have tea.

The person who talked to me the most deeply about being a fringe element later spent 18 months in a federal pen for growing marijuana in large quantities in the Northwest USA.  He is one of the gentlest of souls, with  an amazing connection to all plants, and most especially to that connector plant.  He was living on an island off the coast of the US, saying that the US has pushed all who think truly differently out to the fringes.  And that a culture that has no places where the fringe can live and thrive will eventually wither away from being too unilateral, too conventional, too un-friendly to soul.

When I read the post today on KK about innovation excerpted above, I was thinking about how the concept of fringe element works in business.  It’s no different than in any other aspect of human existence.  If a corporation or organization does not know how to cherish, nourish and reward its fringes, it will eventually die from in-breeding of ideas and suffocation of regulation. 

I believe our culture  is in dire need of redefining our center as un-fixed, un-legislated and everywhere. Please do take the time to read Joe Bageant’s most recent post Live from Planet Norte.  

Becoming center and fringe at the same time is no small feat.  However, if we don’t listen to the edge, draw it in, seek it like a mysterious stranger that has inflamed our senses, roll around in its wisdom we are not going to have any fun at all  to say nothing of surviving.  And the center will stay elusive, other and outside of us.

Today has felt like a fringe day for me.  I am not so aware of being ‘a center’,  but I am in touch with knowing that it is only in living in groundedness, working constantly towards the fringe that I experience the grace of my being.  What a crazy mixed up metaphor.  It fits somehow though.

Just so we don’t get too serious about fringes and centers….

For those of you who pray or meditate on how to help the planet, specifically the Gulf Coast, The Council of Indigenous Grandmothers* has sent the following request (emphases mine):

We ask you to cast, anchor, and hold the Net of Light steady for the Gulf
of Mexico . This crisis is affecting the entire world, and humanity is
asleep. Wake up! Animals are dying, plants are dying, and your Mother is
writhing in agony.

If you hold the Net of Light steady at this time you will help stave off further catastrophe.
 
You have been lulled into a false sleep, told that others (eg BP) will take  care of this problem.

This is not so. And this is not the time for you to
fall into oblivion. Determine now to stay awake, and once you have made
that commitment, think of, cast, and hold the Net of Light. Hold it deep
and hold it wide. Amplify its reach to penetrate the waters of the Gulf and
dive deep beneath the crust of Mother Earth. Anchor it at the earth's core
and as you hold it there, ask it to unify with the mineral kingdom of this
planet. It will do this and will harmonize with all the solid and liquid
mineral states on earth-including oil and gas. The Net of Light will call
these minerals back into harmony.
 
Whatever human beings have damaged, human beings must correct. This is the
law. We repeat: This is the law. You cannot sit back and ask God to fix the
mess humanity has created. Each of you must throw your shoulders to the
wheel and work. We are asking for your help. Several years ago we gave you
the Net of Light so you would be able to help the earth at times like this.
Step forward now. This is the Net of Light that will hold the earth during
the times of change that are upon you.
 
First move into your heart and call on us. We will meet you there. The Net
of Light is lit by the jewel of your heart, so move into this lighted place
within you and open to the Net of which you are a part. Bask in its calming
presence. It holds you at the same time that you hold it. Now think of
magnifying your union with us. We, the Great Council of the Grandmothers,
are with you now, and all those who work with the Net of Light are also
with you.

There are thousands, even millions now connected in light. Along
with this union, call forth the power of the sacred places on earth. These
will amplify the potency of our joint effort. Then call on the sacred
beings that have come to prevent the catastrophe that threatens to
overwhelm your planet. We will work together.

Think of, cast and magnify the presence of the Net of Light in the Gulf of
Mexico. See, imagine or think of it holding the waters, holding the land,
the plants, the sea life, and the people, holding them all! The Net of
Light is holding them steady; it is returning them to balance. Let the love
within your lighted heart keep pouring into the Net of Light and hold,
hold, hold. Calmly and reverently watch as the light from your heart flows
along the strands of the Net. It will follow your command and continuously
move forth. As soon as you think of it, it will happen. We ask you to
practice this for only a few minutes at a time, but to repeat it throughout
the day and night.
 
We promise that this work with the Net of Light will do untold good. We are
calling you to service now. You are needed. Do not miss this opportunity.

We thank you and bless you.
 

*On October 11, 2004, 13 Indigenous Grandmothers from all over the world—the Alaskan Tundra, North, South and Central America, Africa, and Asia—arrived at Tibet House's Menla Mountain Retreat amidst 340 acres of forests, fields and streams in upstate New York. Within a few days of convening, the grandmothers agreed to form a global alliance; to work together to serve both their common goals and their specific local concerns.

The first council gathering was a time of hope and inspiration. The grandmothers are both women of prayer and women of action. Their traditional ways link them with the forces of the earth. Their solidarity with one another creates a web to rebalance the injustices wrought from an imbalanced world; a world disconnected from the fundamental laws of nature and the original teachings based on a respect for all of life.

Click here to learn more about the work of the Grandmothers or to help them in their vital work. 

 

From: The Freedom to Do Nothing — on Dave Pollard’s blog ‘how to save the world’

When you begin to get free, you will get depressed. It works like this: When you were three years old, if your parents weren’t too bad, you knew how to play spontaneously. Then you had to go to school, where everything you did was required. The worst thing is that even the fun activities, like singing songs and playing games, were commanded under threat of punishment. So even play got tied up in your mind with a control structure, and severed from the life inside you. If you were “rebellious”, you preserved the life inside you by connecting it to forbidden activities, which are usually forbidden for good reasons, and when your rebellion ended in suffering and failure, you figured the life inside you was not to be trusted. If you were “obedient”, you simply crushed the life inside you almost to death.

Freedom means you’re not punished for saying no. The most fundamental freedom is the freedom to do nothing. But when you get this freedom, after many years of activities that were forced, nothing is all you want to do. You might start projects that seem like the kind of thing you’re supposed to love doing, music or writing or art, and not finish because nobody is forcing you to finish and it’s not really what you want to do. It could take months, if you’re lucky, or more likely years, before you can build up the life inside you to an intensity where it can drive projects that you actually enjoy and finish, and then it will take more time before you build up enough skill that other people recognize your actions as valuable.  --quote from  Ran Prieur  as part of Dave Pollard’s post on this topic.  Highlights are mine.

Last evening in a study group on the Feminine Face of God, we got into an interesting debate about distraction.  It’s my experience that most of my so-called life is a distraction.  Distraction from seeing myself for who I really am.  AND a distraction from looking at the void that is huge in my psyche.  On my good days, the void is spaciousness and openness.  On my darker days, the void is terrifying and ruthless, threatening me with the chains and suffering of Prometheus.  Not that I embody Prometheus’ intelligence, courage or ethics, just his ever-living liver.

 
Prometheus having his liver eaten out by an eagle.       
Painting by Jacob Jordaens, c. 1640

The debate in the group was around the darkness of my saying that I feel most of my life is a distraction while waiting to have small openings, small moments of light and understanding.  While I do not wish to project my angst others, I do acknowledge the part pf me, and I can only assume part of others, that does not want to give the Void the time of day. 

It is my experience that the Void is omnipresent and universal in the human experience.

What does a-voiding the Void have to do with doing nothing and Prometheus’s everlasting liver?

Freedom to do nothing has always terrified me, and put me on the edge of the Void.  My life has been coalesced around being busy, productive, useful, part of community.  None of that is bad, in fact it is all good.  But my ability to do nothing, to be, has not been developed.  It’s like a miniature appendage to my soul-self that has not grown with the rest of me.  Doing nothing makes me antsy, anxious, perturbed.  It makes me want to start a project, form an organization, start a revolution. 

But the doing-ness of it all is starting to feel like Prometheus’s suffering. Will I ever be free?  What is it all for?  What if it is all a distraction?  Would the moments of enlightenment that seem to be the rewards for years of distraction come more easily AND more quickly without all the distraction-doing? 

My hope comes observing friends and elders who are making their way towards freedom, from watching my own internal formation and from Ran Prieur’s quote: It could take… years, before you can build up the life inside you to an intensity where it can drive projects that you actually enjoy and finish, and then it will take more time before you build up enough skill that other people recognize your actions as valuable.  

And with all the spaciousness in front of me, I do know that being valuable is a good thing, even if it’s not the best thing and for sure it’s not the only thing.  What I need is a good Heraculean miracle: one that would intercede with Zeus on my behalf and say something like, ‘She’s done enough.  Unchain her.’ 

Maybe, then, I could also embody the epitaph hurled against Prometheus for befriending bloody humanity and stealing Fire to give to them, basically saying ‘no’ to the Gods' embargo:  “Prometheus gives humanity blind hope.”*

Meanwhile, my ‘Being Appendage’ is growing.  I want to embody blind hope.  I need do nothing as I prepare that gift.

*And then again, maybe it's the struggle to be free that is my legacy: maybe the struggle gives the blind hope.  I have to admit that I'm clueless, except for knowing that my Liver is about shot.

So today I went to make carrot ginger soup for a summer solstice gathering this evening…and I found a huge bag of organic carrots in the back of the refrigerator vegetable drawer.  They were hairy, if you know what I mean.  I was horrified at my lack of awareness of their being there and being in such a sad state. 

Along with some squash, an apple and some onions, I used several of the neglected carrots for the soup, doing the detested peeling.  Detested because so many of the nutrients are found near the skin of the vegetables, not because of the peeling process, which I actually like to do.  And then I realized there were about 10 pounds of carrots still left in the bag.  Dismayed, I ruminated about what to do with these bastions of stored energy.  And then I remembered: my juicer!

I haven’t used the juicer since I moved into my home five years ago.  It was stuck away in the back of an upper cupboard only reached with a step-stool.  I got it out, dusted it off and decided to make some carrot juice.  I scrubbed the carrots but didn't peel them.  Chopped off the ends and bad spots, put these pieces in the composter and started to stuff the carrots in the juicer.  The motor complained from rheumatism,  but it got warmed up.  Got through all the carrots and made a quart of beautifully colored frothy carrot juice.  And then I looked at the waste product of the juicing---about 9.5 lbs of mangled carrot offal. 

Fifteen years ago or so when I bought the juicer this amount of carrot by-product wouldn’t have bothered me at all and I would have dumped it in the trash without a thought.  Now it does bother me.  What to do with it, what to do with it.  I know, I’ll make carrot bread and muffins.  I’m trying to go gluten free.  Do I have the necessary spelt and rice flour?  YES! Do I have coconut oil, raisins, agave sweetener? YES!   I looked up gluten free carrot bread on one of my favorite sites: Gluten-a-go-go.  It was too complicated and didn’t use enough of the carrot mash.  So I just started making up a recipe. 

Those of you who know me won’t be surprised at this.  It’s my M.O.  Can’t usually stick to a recipe for the life of me.  And by now I was determined to use every piece of those carrots—just for the practice of it.

As I write this I’m eating one of the delicious muffins warm out of the oven with melted ghee.  So I guess it’s safe to put this recipe, if you can call it that, out on the ‘net.

Oven at 375 or 400, whichever works for you.

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl

• 2 cups of spelt flour 
• 1.5 cups of rice flour
• 2 T of baking powder
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 T of good quality salt
• 1 T of cinnamon
• 1 tsp of ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp of nutmeg
• 1/2 cup of dried (not sweetened) coconut flakes
• 1 cup of organic raisins or craisins 
• And the crowning glory: 3 cups of carrot mash!

Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl

• 1 cup of agave sweetener or local honey
• 5 local eggs from chickens that you know and love
• 2 T of coconut oil
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup of soy, rice or goat milk (cow if you need to)

Ok, now the fun part: put the two ingredient mixtures together, insert your hands and mix! (It will be hard to mix with anything but your hands, plus it feels great!) Add a little milk if you need to, or a little flour if it’s too soupy.  Taste the batter for sweetness.  Prepare the baking pans with coconut oil.  This batch made 2 loaves plus 6 large muffins.  I am cooking the loaves in a pan of water as honey mixtures sometimes burn easily.  Cooked the muffins for about 25 minutes on 375.  I’m not sure how long the loaves will need, but I’m checking them every 10 minutes. 

I feel good that I wasted nothing about these carrots but their ends and they actually went in the compost and will be food for the red worms. I have a quart of carrot juice in my fridge that I’ll drink in small doses over the next few days.  I have carrot ginger coconut soup cooking in the crock pot to share with my sweet community.  The carrot muffins are heavenly, and I'm sure the bread will be as well.  I think the carrots enjoyed my honoring of their gift of life, or at least I imagine that they do.  This afternoon's cooking, intersperced with gardening and a nap, felt like a very powerful prayer.  Or...maybe I'm just feeling righteous.  Maybe it's both.

Don’t know why I wrote this all down.  Maybe you do?