Meditations on a Silent Retreat

The Yoga Teacher Training program ended the last weekend of July with a silent retreat less than an hour away from home.  The following Monday I thought I would carry on as usual and work on my thesis, but sitting in front of my computer I still felt the need to officially recognize my experience.  I wrote a letter with the e-mail subject “To My Friends and Family.”  At first I thought I would send this e-mail to my closest circle, but that circle kept expanding and expanding to my extended family until even past co-workers were on the list.  My sense of self has expanded this same way in these past few months and is symbolic of this decision to share with as many as I could.

About to click the “send” button, I asked myself what my purpose was in sharing my vulnerabilities and this deep part of myself that I would not usually share otherwise.  It wasn’t to “show off” or “boast” about my experience.  To say that I was “better” than “you” because I have found peace and realizations.  It was simply to share.  The letter would also function to bring awareness to others in my life, whether we have talked with each other lightly about the weather or deeply about the workings of the universe, that it’s okay to show our vulnerabilities.

I believe one of my purposes in this world is to show my own vulnerabilities to others, something I have always naturally done, helping others see that we all have similar fears and desires.  Sharing these fears and desires perhaps is one way to transcend them.  Now I am sharing these vulnerabilities with you…

Dear Family and Friends,

This past weekend I took part in a silent retreat at the Capuchin Retreat Center which backs up to Stoney Creek.  Through the silence I connected deeply to the world around me.  I also connected to the essence within me and I wanted to relate this connection to the essence within you.

At about 8:30 p.m. on Friday night, my yoga and spiritual teacher chimed the bell that brought the thirty-five souls in the room into silence.  From that moment until about 10:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, we dwelled in our silence on the ten acres of gardens,trees, benches, hammock, and walking paths at the retreat center.  We walked silently, we bowed our eyes to avoid eye contact with each other, we ate consciously and silently, with nowhere to be or go but in the place we were at that moment.

In this place, time was lost.  But there was a schedule to follow.  So there was reference to my watch to be sure I was in the shade of the trees when we practiced Tibetan Heart Yoga where we sent our love to a person in our lives as we meditated and practiced.  I paid attention to the hours so I could arrive to the dining room with enough time to slowly eat my meals, bite by bite, breath by breath in silence.  I made sure to lie down in the room with the rest of us in the late evenings, quietly on our mats supported by pillows and covered with blankets, as we listed to our teacher play Tibetan bowls and gong for at least thirty minutes.  Some of us would be lulled to sleep.  Others would surrender quietly to the vibrations as we lay still but awake.

In the times between our meals and yoga and meditation practices, each of us made decisions on the moments we would create alone.  There was no schedule in these periods of time.  And this is especially when time was lost.  With the earth supporting me from below and shade of a tree protecting me from above, I drew, read, and listened to the sounds that nature delivered. The fountain in the pond drew me in closer through the days and I visited it often.  The sounds of bees buzzing were larger than ever, and they drew me to the plants as I watched them float from flower to flower, gathering what they needed at that moment, what the plant was ready to give, and then moving on.  The walking path that centers the grounds took me through the path that Jesus took in his last human experience of pain and suffering.  On these wood canvases with images of white paint were sounds of pain, but also of love and joy.

It was on these walks that I felt a presence within me.  The devotion, compassion, and solitude of our Great Aunties, Sisters Diana and Margaret, flowed within me.  There I imagined their lives and in my heart I bowed to their chosen journeys and their departed souls.  As I came to the painting of Jesus, bearing his cross, and his mother Mary, I felt Milan’s presence within me. I cried for his soul’s departure. And I thanked him for saving my life, the way that perhaps Jesus saved his mother Mary.  I cried for mother and son.  And I thanked our angels, our saviors, this Salvador within all of us.

There were times, hours after silence began when the chatter in my mind finally faded away, that I wasn’t sure if I was alive.  I thought perhaps my body was dead.  I wasn’t sure if all of this was really happening.  I wasn’t sure if the silence was manmade or heaven-made.  I wasn’t sure if this group of people chose to be silent or if our true nature was silence.

As human silence and nature’s sounds supported me, certain thoughts washed away as more meaningful thoughts floated in.  And when silence broke on Sunday morning with the chimes of the bell, the silence within me remained.  Perhaps the stillness wasn’t as strong because at some point I was forced to move my vocal chords.  But the idea that the silence could remain, even as I drove home, even as I embraced my family again, even as I carried on with the routines of daily life after my return, teaches me that this force, whatever it is, is within me as I believe it is within you.  All I hope to do for the remainder of my life, amidst the challenges and unexpected surprises, is to embrace it.

Thank you for being in my life, in whatever way you are.

In love and peace,

Sandy

 

July/August Horoscope

Image via Wikipedia

“The Journey: A Mind, Body, and Soul Connection” magazine sits atop the cluttered fireplace at Bean and Leaf.  I open to the Horoscope page.  I haven’t read my horoscope in years.  It says:

SCORPIO

July – New job opportunities are on the horizon.  Go into your heart and ask yourself what feels right for you.  Then, just do it.  Remember that the more you move forward in your life the happier you will be.

August- People become more honest with their feelings about you.  This allows you to be more honest about your feelings toward them.  People really do want to know what you have to say.  Now is the time to come forward and express yourself.

Fitting.  During these two months I’ll be testing for my yoga teaching certification and finishing a master’s thesis.

 

Silence, PLEASE! Life Lesson #10

Image via Wikipedia

Complaining doesn’t usually serve us, but today I’m going to complain.  And then maybe I’ll do something about it.

Noise.  Noise.  Noise.  There is so much noise everywhere I go.  At home, even while the house is still, the refrigerator is buzzing, the de-humidifier in the basement is rattling, the cars from the nearby road are swishing.  And then I go to the coffee shop to work because the library and the bookstore don’t open until 10 a.m.  The dessert cooler is vibrating all inanimate objects around me.  People are chattering.  Music is sounding overhead, music that is not conducive to concentration.  Then I take myself to the library.  No one is in the quiet study room so there is no human clattering but the sounds of my bare feet softly cushioned on carpet.  Outside the wall sized window is a courtyard fountain enveloped by the well-kept landscaping, a calm scene with unheard passerbys.  But then I hear the air conditioning running, and then the furnace to offset the mechanical problems of the air conditioner that shoots outrageously frigid air.  My computer won’t stop humming.  The scrolling button on my mouse clickety-clickety-clickety as I move down the page.

I’m not complaining that I am blessed with the sense of hearing.  I’m complaining that the overstimulation is becoming unbearable.  I am noticing all the different sounds around me that are intrusive.  Would I ever complain about birds chirping?  No, unless they echoed the parrot that lived in a nearby apartment when I briefly lived in Puerto Vallarta, screaming “agua fresca! agua fresca! helado! helado! hiiiielo! hiiielo!”  I no longer crave any kind of food but I do crave quiet.  In the last weekend of July, I will soak myself in the stillness of the silent retreat where yoga and meditation become the center of the universe.

Life Lesson #10:  Find more silence.  This racket is not something to adapt to.  NOISE POLLUTION.  Noise Pollution.  noise pollution.  go away.  don’t come back another day.

Related articles

• Do you make time for silence in your life? (postworksavvy.com)
• Silence Speaks (thinkloud65.wordpress.com)

 

On Choice: Life Lessons #8-9

Pick One

My teacher explained to us that when we are trying to make a decision between two choices, we must realize that there is always another option.  It’s taken me thirty-one years to realize something so simple and when he put it into words it hit me:  I am teaching my three-year-old son that he usually only has two choices.  “Do you want to shut the TV off or do you want me to do it?”  And that’s how I usually get him to shut the TV off, for example.  He wants to do it and he does it with the threat that I would be the one to “press the button,” but I know he didn’t want the fun to end.  He must decide between one of the choices that I give him, and if he picks a third choice I didn’t offer which doesn’t accomplish my goal, I was taught that this is the moment where I am supposed to get frustrated.

I am passing onto him an understanding of limited choices, choices that originate from authority figures.  This is a technique to get little ones to comply, as in the TV example.  It works often and I have used it in desperate measures, like getting him to stop throwing a tantrum that he doesn’t want to hold my hand while we’re crossing the street, and not so desperate ones, like deterring Spiderman cartoons meant for 7-year-olds.  This is also a sales technique as my teacher pointed out, one that I’m sure I’ve used.  His example:  “Would you like to meet at 1 p.m. tomorrow or 5:30 this evening?”  Only two choices – pick one.  And when it happens, ring the bell, we just made a sale!

I didn’t come from a free-spirited home where we were encouraged to be wildly imaginative.  We learned, like most people, rules.  When we abided by the rules we got positive reinforcement.  That’s why I washed the dishes and pushed a massive vacuum twice the size of me at four-years-old.  Not because I wanted to clean.  It was the reward after cleaning; the pat on the back, the “thank you” for helping, the labeling of me as a “helper” and the “clean one” in the family.  After recently reading “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, I felt this enormous sense of confusion:  How am I going to raise a human being to not follow these rigid rules, or accept the “agreements” that I’ve followed all these years?  How am I going to teach him that he doesn’t need anyone’s acceptance but his own and there are always creative solutions to problems,  when here I am relying on giving limited choices and leaning on positive reinforcement to get the behavior I  want as a mother.  How selfish of me to feel the need to control his behavior to my liking so I can accomplish daily chores and get some “me time” in during his nap.  But then again, how else will I teach him to eat healthy or socialize him to go to school if I weren’t controlling his behavior?   It’s a dilemma I haven’t solved.  But next on my reading list is the topic of mindful parenting.  I’m sure to find answers there.

Life Lesson #8:  If there is a world of choices, there are other alternatives to raising an obedient and rigid child.  When my son takes choice number three that I didn’t offer to begin with, I should celebrate his creative problem solving (I think) and realize he’s giving me the opportunity to rethink the limitations I place on myself and those around me.

Life Lesson #9:  One Choice, Two Choices, Three Choiceseses.  If I choose to see my child as my teacher, possibilities become infinite.

 

A Place for Everything: Lesson 6-7

Now and then, when “stuff” starts taking over our home, I have to ask myself:  “Does everything here have a home of its own?”  When the answer is no, I make new homes for the stuff that stays.  The rest of it has to go.  This is not to say I should impress you, because I don’t do this often enough.

A couple of months after I took to gluten-free and vegan baking, I noticed that all the different flours, starches, and natural sweeteners I had bought were homeless, which was obvious after they started overtaking another piece of my home.  They would be thrown into a paper grocery bag after each baking session.  There they’d hide, making clutter in the next room right into my meditation space.   Baking became the activity that I romanticized but when it came to it, I’d be swearing up a storm in the act, trying to scoop into and out of flour and starch bags that were original packages to each product.

Enough was enough.  I invested in Snapware.  Not the best but not the worst.  I bought the box of 38 pieces and went to town, building homes for all my pretty flours and starches.   I gave my light brown sugar a castle that holds twenty-four cups.  Yes, I buy the big bag and use it well.  I bought aluminum scoops which work magnificently; spoons just don’t cut it anymore.  I found new homes for things I couldn’t put into containers, like my Agave sweetener and Spectrum shortening.  To baptize their new homes in my kitchen after I was done building them, I baked.  A scoop into the flour, and sweetly into the measuring cup.  A teaspoon gliding in and out of the xanthan gum and voila, into the mixing bowl.  If I knew baking could be so easy, I would’ve built new homes a long time ago.

Lesson 6:  Everything has a place once I make it. 

Lesson 7:  Once I make the place, rejoice when I get invited in.

Snapware = Bringer of Peace and Harmony

Related Articles

• gluten-free scones (glutenfreegirl.com)
• My “Are you sure these are gluten free, Mom?” Pancake Recipe (acornsandoaks.wordpress.com)
• Gluten-Free Trend Doesn’t Have to be Less Nutritious, Higher in Carbohydrates Says the USCP (prweb.com)
• Xanthan & guar gum are used extensively as a Gluten replacement in many foods-Guest author (glutenfreedomgirl.wordpress.com)
• Gluten Free Ratio Rally: Chocolate Chip Mocha Quick Bread (glutenfree.wordpress.com)

 

Everything Comes From Me: Life Lessons 4-5

I am in a unique situation that is forcing me to see things differently.  The situation is an opportunity.  In this opportunity, learning to be a yoga teacher, I am learning about the idea of emptiness, the idea that grounds Buddhism and yoga philosophy.  Once I finally allowed this idea of emptiness to be planted in my mind, I realized that with each moment of life that I was misinterpreting, I had the responsibility to reinterpret the moment for what it was, empty of its own nature.  This is a difficult yet life-giving task.

A brief explanation of emptiness:  Emptiness is the notion that nothing has its own nature - our perceptions are nothing but perceptions.  Our minds work in ways to make us believe that everything has its own true essence, so that the computer I’m typing on is, well, a computer.  The end.  When we apply the idea of emptiness, reality changes.  Without my twisted mind getting in the way to call see this thing as a computer in and of itself, this is a thing made up of a bunch of little squares with shapes on them, connected to a rectangle connected to a rectangle and all these other little microrectangles that function as a computer.  One day this rectangle of a rectangle will not function anymore.  And while it may function as a mechanism of productivity for me, it may function as a toy for my son.  It may function as a warm (and hard) bed for a kitty cat.  So, I see this computer as a computer because of my own perceptions of it.  The way I see things comes from ME, not from the things I am saying. 

It’s expected, in the beginning of “getting” emptiness, that one goes back and forth, forgetting that things come from us and not to us and then coming back to emptiness.  Even in the atmosphere where I can express all of the yoga teachings to the fullest at teacher training school, I am noticing that I am reverting to my old conceptions. 

For example, in my attempts to constantly censor myself, I’ve noticed that when people seek to know about my life, I tend to act superficially until I know that (1) I am not burdening them in whatever way with knowledge about me (2) They are genuine in their concern (3) I have nothing to prove.  Though I know my yoga teacher is genuine in his concern, I feel that I burden him if I share or explain my pain and then suddenly I have something to prove:  that I am strong.  And then I become overanalytical, judging everything I say, judging everything my teacher says to me, wondering if I offended my teacher or a peer, UNTIL I remember emptiness. 

STOP!  STOP!  STOP!  Stop apologizing, stop wondering how others are perceiving me, stop doing all this nonsense, I have to say to my self.  See the situation for what it is.  When I am in pain, sometimes I am not genuine with others.  Sometimes I don’t speak meaningfully and truthfully.  Sometimes I engage in meaningless chatter because I am afraid to say that I’m in pain.  Sometimes I want to feel like I’m not in pain so I put on a smile and try to make others feel comfortable and good about themselves, and I agree with them when I really don’t or don’t even have an opinion about what they’re saying. 

Life Lesson 4:  Everything comes from me.       

Life Lesson 5:  I can change everything.

Related Articles

• 438) Whether I know Bhakti yoga is imperishable! Taught by Srila Prabhupada! (pmdasa.wordpress.com)
• Yoga Teaching Increasingly Popular as Second Career (money.usnews.com)
• Bhante G Retreat: Day 2 (4/23/11) (meditationmania.wordpress.com)
• We are all different (chrysalisjourney.wordpress.com)

 

How the Local Health Food Store Won Me Over: Life Lessons 1-3

Image via Wikipedia

A few months ago I transitioned to a gluten-free diet.  That’s when Whole Foods entered the picture, moving me up from a part-time shopper to a seriously full-time, once, twice or thrice a week shopper who brings her own bags to save the planet.  Whole Foods had the organic produce I was always too stingy to buy.  But my priorities changed.  It became important that I invest in the one body I have and feed it nutritious stuff free of man-made sh-tuf.  My friends laugh at me for it, but they’ll get it soon enough. 

Life Lesson 1: I laughed at my sister who said organic eggs TASTE better.  But she was right, and I am a convert. 

But, Whole Foods, I haven’t visited you lately, have I?  While I was busy getting nourished with the yummy goodness you offer, you stole my wallet!  You see, I started writing down the cost of my purchases and comparing to the local nutrition store just a 7 minute walk from my very own home.  The health food store won on many, though not all, of the products.  And even when Whole Foods offers the lower price, the gas I would waste alone to get there would make up for the difference.  Plus, in addition to the cheaper alternative, walking to the local store would be the healthier alternative that gets the body moving, the more social alternative greeting passerbys, the environmentally responsible alternative that leaves less carbon footprints, the support local business alternative that pays rent in the downtown area keeping it lively, and also offers the feeling of a slow down, take one step at a time and enjoy your life kinda lifestyle.  I like it.    

Life Lesson 2:  Realizing my priorities helps me make decisions.  Making decisions I believe in can lead to unintended delights. 

Life Lesson 3:  Tend your own garden first.

Happy Friday  

Related Articles

• 4 Top Reasons to Shop at your Local Health Food Store (mamainthekitchen.com)
• Many popular herbal remedies are in danger of being removed from shelves next month. (politics.ie)
• Here’s Looking At You Kid… (wstedeford.wordpress.com)
• Vegan on the Run (vegontherun.wordpress.com)

 

Feel Good Cakes

I’ve always felt a pull towards creating stuff.  And I’m learning that creativity isn’t necessarily a reflection of the deepest darkest pits of our imagination.  Yah, pits.  Each thing I make, even the gluten-free vegan vanilla brownies or the silly flower pens, gives me a feeling of connection to myself and to the potential for human creativity.  So, for Amado’s birthday this year, I wanted to go further than my homemade Thomas train cake from last year’s second birthday.  This year’s theme was Cars the movie.  He had two birthday celebrations.

First we celebrated with his dad’s side and my mom and stepdad.  We mad a chocolate and yellow cake with buttercream frosting  in the shape of a car modeled after Chick Hicks, the antagonist in the movie.  Amado likes antagonists.

Although this car looks nothing like Chick Hicks, Amado made the connection and that’s the most important thing, right?

The following week, I made a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting for my dad’s side of the family.  The aunts thought it looked cute but they really loved the taste.  It wasn’t sweet like other chocolate cakes.  I forgot to tell them it was an organic box cake and not homemade   I still feel guilty.   A simple free-hand drawing took much less effort than engineering a cake in the shape of a car.  Amado requested Doc Hudson, and so it was.

And though I’m gluten-free, I did have to take a taste for good measure.

 

Little L.A.

Image via Wikipedia

I was living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a few months when one day I decided to take a healthy walk by myself along a dried up river.  I could hardly hear the nearby traffic, which the birds did a beautiful job of drowning out.  The patch of earth was a desolate spot even though it was so close to the cobblestone street that kind of marked the edge of town for me.  It was near the same little bridge where I once watched a horse break loose from its owner, cross the street despite the traffic, and laugh at the man he escaped, who was desperately trying to get ahold of him again.  

The sun was melting my face off and the humidity was 200% with no rain when I realized I wasn’t alone.  Approaching me, I could see from a distance, was a largely built and very fit runner.  He was wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses.  His red sleeveless shirt, drenched in sweat, made his muscles gorge out of his arms.  It was disgusting, but it was a perfect place for a famous person, like myself, or a really disgusting sweaty person, like the man in red, to go walking or running.  He zipped right by me, ignoring my existence.  In that instant, just as he swept away, I turned around to see if I had indeed been star struck.  Was that Sylvester Stallone?  He was healthy enough to go running, I’m sure.   This is a town that supposedly attracts “stars.”  It must have been him.  I told all my friends that day and I am still convinced that I had a silent encounter with Stallone.

But I don’t care.  Famous people are just people, you know.  What am I supposed to do?  Scream?  Rip my shirt off?  Pa-lease.  So when we were walking around the farmer’s market this past weekend and my husband told me, in Spanish mind you, to look at the man exactly to the left of me so that if I even turned left I would have wacked him in the eye, I’m thinking, “Oh man, not again.  Now who could it be?”  I don’t know who it would have to be for me to get excited.  Not even Johnny Depp or Salma Hayek would make me break the code of normalcy.  So who was it?  It was Jack Kevorkian.  Of course it was!  My husband took pictures of him on his phone a couple of years ago when they were both standing at a computer at the public library, which was a year after he got out on parole.  In prison for eight years serving a 10-25 year sentence while in his 70′s, he should be about 82-years-old.  It’s like living in Little L.A.

 

How “Fifteen Minutes a Day” of Writing Really Works

Imagine how much we can accomplish in just fifteen minutes a day...

Years ago I read Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis by Joan Bolker, Ed.D.  I was beginning a Master’s Thesis in 2003 while working full-time.  I struggled for years to bring my thesis to the forefront of my life, but life’s happenings usually beat me.  As my life perspective has changed and continues to change, and as I come to finally seeing my thesis as a final product, I’ve come to the realization on my own how “fifteen minutes a day” really works.

Making time to write is like making time for my new morning meditation ritual.  For weeks and even months I thought about wanting to meditate regularly.  Each day I would put it off until later until the day got away and I would never realize that moment of reflection.  Once I realized that the only feasible time to meditate was when I was the only one stirring in the house, I began waking up earlier.  I consciously carved a time out in my day to meditate.  And each time I meditate, I reinforce how powerful the act is, making me more and more committed to seeing through the next morning’s meditation.  Meditating in the wee early morning while the house is still silent has replaced my caffeine intake.  I have cut coffee and black tea completely and drink green tea as a treat.  I now look to meditation to get my brain going in the morning so that I am alert to the subtleties in the data I’m studying.  I feel prepared to deal with the challenges of the day and to recognize each moment, and challenge, as precious.  There is a level of commitment to this act, and even reliance on it. 

Writing “fifteen minutes a day” has taken on a similar role.  There are days where I literally only get fifteen minutes to write.  After getting ready in the morning, the short meditation of 8-12 minutes, making my tea and writing in my production journal, I may be working for only 15 minutes when my son has unexpectedly started his day before 7:30 a.m.  The teaser sample makes me want more.  I can’t wait, I look forward to, I rely on being able to write again.  But when I’m not writing, I don’t need to think about how I’m not getting anything done (though I do have those moments, they are not pervasive), because I trust that all the other moments of joy will only help me the next day when I write again. 

It is the simple act of carving out 15 minutes of my time daily to something I love that makes the 15 minutes so potent.  Making the time, the act itself, is how 15 minutes really works.  It’s like growing a plant.  When you give yourself to those things you love, they grow.  And the relationship is circular.  When I give time to my writing, I am giving time to myself, and we grow together.  If my goal is growth, how could I stop protecting this ritual that gives me fifteen minutes to two hours a day if I’m so lucky?  The real progress that is happening, even when one writing session is only filled with thinking, is too powerful to ignore.  Yet with the other elements that make up my life, this level of committment can be fragile.  And this is another way that “fifteen minutes a day” works.  “Fifteen minutes a day,” that’s all it takes to show your love, and it will grow all on its own.

I’d like to know: What makes you committed to your passion?  What are your daily rituals that help you stay connected to the different elements in your life? 

Related Articles

• Physical and Spiritual Benefits of Meditation (lizzieprost.wordpress.com)
• Filmmaker David Lynch Promotes Meditation in Schools (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)