I Can't Do This!
Women Speaking
Sandra reminds us of the gift of awareness and presence that enables us to, in a seemingly mysterious way, find skillful ways to manage when we are “being squeezed” and there is nowhere else to go. Here’s another one…
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Joan's Story
Women Speaking
is an Alexander Technique teacher in New York. See also Jessica Wolf's The Technique, gently and inclusively taught, offers a way through even the most difficult situations. Hence this story at this time.
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The Beginning of Understanding
Women Speaking
Sandra speaks of Grandpa Zent's wisdom and kind guidance: "When you get lost (which you will), follow the brook home": Yes. When I get lost in confusion, my teachers similarly tell me: "pause, relax, and follow the breath home." “Confusion, I was taught, is the beginning of understanding, the first stage of letting go of the neuronal gossip that used to keep you chained to very specific ideas about who you are and what you’re capable of.” Mingyur Rinpoche
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Grandpa Zent
Women Speaking
After listening to Sharon's most recent posting, I find myself here. Family. Generational trauma. Root beer under the sofa. and Yes ~ ~ ~ delight.
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Nothing Special; Just Delight
Women Speaking
Sandra speaks of differences and of cultivating the capacity to approach what is other with curiosity and love and acceptance. It reminds me of a lesson I learned … “Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.” George Washington Carver
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A Woman Speaks
Women Speaking
A WOMAN SPEAKS Dear Friends, I've been letting your question percolate for two weeks. My experience living in a family of men is that what you mention rings true. I have no- ticed, and continue to notice, that when I am with my husband and my sons they tend to listen to each other more than they listen to me. Sometimes this happens as a simple omission: we are walking on a trail, or through a city, all talking together, and suddenly they are in step ahead of me, three abreast, talking to each oth- er. This dynamic, a mild sense of alienation, began with the boys' puberty, and I have...
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They Say There's a Radish in There
Women Speaking
Like "the man who packed his pants," I get it; on the surface, practicing mindful awareness makes no sense at all. How can mindful attention to everyday moments help when the roof leaks and the contractors don't show up and a nephew is struggling with addictions and the politicians are endlessly wrangling and there are floods in Texas, and bombings in Gaza and I need to drop everything because my aging cat needs to go to the vet yet again? Don't I need to focus attention - first - to DO something? To fix all that is wrong?? One of my teachers reminds me: “The...
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The Man Who Packed His Pants
Women Speaking
Silliness, then transgression, then redemption. It all works.
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Small Things That Really Aren't
Women Speaking
So often, what is truly meaningful is such a small thing, maybe something that words can’t even capture. Sandra speaks of a tender moment with an old woman in a foreign bath, Japanese signs that make no sense, a turtle shell, a splash in a puddle with a beloved father…it reminds me of my first visit to China.... “When the eyes and the ears are open, The Indian mystic Kabir says, “even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the scriptures.” Kabir
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Momiji
Women Speaking
Another walk, another dawn opens a window from the Appalachian mountains to Japan, to Charleston, SC and back. For my Father on Fathers' Day and the anniversary of his death.
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WALKING AT DAWN
Ten (天) means sky, and jin (神) means god or deity.
Because of a sniffle. That might be the virus.
Social distancing. Self-quarantine. Safer at home. The most populous county in the US, and tests in short supply. Fourteen days from two days ago in a tiny house with dog and husband, who from the living room sends his latest haiku:
Sound of a wife
under stay at home orders
sharpening a knife
This morning the dog and I are heading for the sky, toward pink clouds fluffed by the rising sun. City sunrise is tricky. We stick to the wide roads that open to the east, along the face of the San Gabriels, out toward the San Bernadinos, slicing down palm- or live oak-lined streets that stitch one wide avenue to the next. Then break east again.
Yesterday and the day before we roam south to the garden of olive trees where Tenjin reads forever, seated sidewise on his bronze buffalo. I stand by the ceramic fountain, let the fluted catchment drop its blessing on my forehead, and send it north to our dying friend. The drops that aren’t ours to keep become the wall of water shining yellow, blue, green Spanish tiles.
Two dreams. The first three days before Crimson plays Red Bank, July, 2017. Bill and I walk toward each other and fall into each other’s arms, sobbing. Because he is sick. And won’t get better.
On the sidewalk in Red Bank, walking the dog with my husband (same dog, same husband) before the show, here comes Bill, walking our way. We fall into each other’s arms, a long tight hug. The hug in the dream, minus the sobbing. Our corporeal good bye.
Three days ago the second dream. This time three hugs, with dances between. Bill not clothed in, but subtracted to, filaments of light. The fourth movement toward him my feet stop, still as stone.
I let go, breaking the threads of worry and care, that he may fly freely away.
I pick a pink camellia and slip it behind the water buffalo’s ear.