Deer Teaching

      Just back from our travels, Joanie and I resumed our tradition of a morning jog in the woods near our home.  Typically, along the trail, we'll stir up some deer – often a mom with a couple fawns – who scatter at our approach.

       Yesterday, we came upon a couple of larger bucks, whose 8 or 10 point antlers were still fuzzy with newness.  Instead of scampering, they backed off the trail 20 yards or so, turned toward us and watched.  There was a calm alertness to them, perhaps even a curiosity.  They didn't seem anxious.

       What a wonderful teaching about mindfulness.  Disengage from the swirl of activity, step back and observe.  No stories, no judgment, a readiness to respond as needed. 

       A great way, I thought, to approach the helter-skelter of what goes on around me and within me, especially now as I re-enter the busy-ness of everyday life.

       Thanks, deer. 

       Niels Bohr, one of many leading-edge quantum physicists who also speak metaphysically, has concluded that there are two kinds of truth – small truth and great truth.  He said, “You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood.  The opposite of a great truth is another truth.”  I’ve come to agree that great truth is paradoxical in nature.  It exists in the realm of mystery and is so big that, while it may be apprehended in the heart, it cannot be captured conceptually.  Words fail us here.  At best, they convey only part of the story.

       As someone who writes in areas spiritual, I roam not so much in the realm of facts, where truth can be separated from falsehood, but more often in the murky waters of mystery, where truths intertwine.  Awhile back, I shared a story I'd written ten years ago about the cosmos.  Here’s another cosmological tale, written around that same time and tweaked for this posting – a partial truth perhaps – addressing that perennial big question:  Who are we?

Softening to Mystery:

A Story of Us

        Softening to mystery means saying “yes” to apparently contradictory things, accepting paradox, living with ambiguity.  Softening to mystery means opening to darkness and light, the infinite and the infinitesimal.  We humans are part of the mystery.  We cannot be easily sized or sized up.  

       In this story, we exist in three levels:  Personality, Individual Soul and God Soul.

        The level of personality includes the material body with all its physical attributes and bio-chemical quirks, the mind with its habits and patterns, and the ego identity with all its stories and attachments.  Even at the level of personality, where we are the most obvious and observable, we are quite the mystery.  Biological and social scientists spend their lives trying to make sense of us at this all-too-human level, where we are a mass of contradictions.  With all our weirdness and goofiness here, our capacity for the heroic and horrific, there is one constant:  we are finite beings.  Ego is going to die with the body – and it knows it.

        While the personality is unique and temporary, the individual soul is timeless.  It's the unique consciousness in us that transcends time.  For those who believe in reincarnation, this is the part of us that survives, evolving and deepening over lifetimes.  God speaks creation in the eternal now.  Each of us can be viewed as a word in God’s vocabulary – all interconnected, part of one lexicon, each distinct.  At the level of individual soul, we are unique, eternal, and many.

        There is only one God Soul, and we all share it.  At this core level of being, we are one with God.  Mystics in every spiritual tradition speak of this oneness – the mystery of all mysteries. Here, we are infinite, divine, and one.

       In this story, each level of being is true of us.  Each has its unique reality.  And all three are woven together in seamless wholeness.  There is oneness in this three-ness.

        While we have some choice about what parts of ourselves we notice and nurture, we don’t have choice about what parts of us exist.  For example, at the level of personality, we are wired to react quickly to fight and flee.  That reactivity is built into our nervous systems.  Likely, long ago, it had survival value.  Nowadays, our fearful and cantankerous tendencies usually do more harm than good.  We can work constructively and respectfully with this wiring, but we can't force it to be different, pretend it's not there or wish it away.

        We can’t eliminate the divine part of us either.  We can forget about it or choose not to see it in ourselves and others, but we can’t make it disappear.  In this story, God is unavoidable – eternally and inextricably woven into the fabric of who we are. 

         There’s an often-told Zen story about a monastery that was floundering.  Membership was dwindling in a climate of bitterness and back-biting.  Somehow, a rumor began spreading that one of the monks was Buddha reincarnated.  There was much speculation about who that person might be.  Soon, the monks started treating each other with new gentleness and care.  After all, no one wanted mistreat the Buddha.   The monastery grew to be a center of joy.  It flourished, attracting new members from miles away.

        I remember being taught in grammar school that we are children of God.  Many religious traditions and spiritual practices invite us to cultivate an awareness of our divine origin and connection.  As we open to this aspect of the mystery, a reverence for ourselves and others grows quite naturally.  We may even remember that, at the level of soul, we are deeply in love with each other – always have been and always will be.

        In this story, no matter how hatefully we behave, we still have a divine spark.  No matter how holy and evolved we become, we’re still goofy.  In us, both the sublime and the ridiculous find a home.  Softening to the mystery of the human condition invites inner spaciousness – compassion and appreciation, humility, humor and awe.

        As I soften to mystery, I savor this story – along with many others – even though I don't know for sure how true it is or how it ends.

       I'm leaving soon for an extended vacation, mostly in wilderness.  It's likely a few weeks will pass before I post again.  Till then, may summer sunshine warm you inside and out.

Awkward/Graceful Dance

Sometimes I walk with grace

Sure-footed, serene.

Path seems effortless.

Wise actions flow naturally.

Difficulties melt.

Complexities simplify.

Sometimes I struggle to steer

Clumsy, vacillating, unsure

Two left feet

Tripping and stumbling

Hands all-thumbs

Groping and fumbling.

Sometimes, when life is hard,

I bow to its syncopation.

No judgment.

Sometimes I make hard harder.

Stories turn life's heartbeat

Into heartbreak.

Sometimes I mire in muck.

Sometimes I float above.

And sometimes I'm just present

Observing inside and out -

A tender witness to

The awkward/graceful dance.

       Ten years ago, in a former lifetime, I wrote this short essay.  As I re-read it, I'm struck by how old challenges recycle and how familiar themes repeat in my experience of self, nation and globe. The piece feels as relevant to me now as it did then.

Joining the Giants

        Spring break, second week of March, I’ve just returned from a short family vacation to Giant’s Ridge, where downhill and cross country skiing gracefully share a small mountain in northern Minnesota. 

        I’ve been challenged lately.  World events weigh heavy.  Old personal (and perhaps transpersonal) stories of fear and not-good-enoughness are grabbing my inner headlines, blaring at times.  The impulse to scream bloody murder competes with the wish to burrow down in some safe hideaway, where I can retreat from it all.  Both impulses, I recognize, originate in younger parts of me.

        On our second day out, I found a couple hours for a solitary cross country ski.  Conditions were perfect:  bright blue sky and cold, crisp air.  As sunset neared, I arrived at a spot where the energy was palpable.  It felt like a sacred place.  The area was densely populated by young poplars, ten-to-twelve-footers.  To my immediate left was a tall granite ridge, around which grew a stand of stately Norway pines.  These trees were grown ups.  They’d been around a while.  As a community, they were quietly making their presence felt.  I basked in the positive energy of the place and softened to being nurtured by this gathering of elders. 

        Further ahead, and still on the left, a huge, ancient white pine towered over the landscape – alone.  This was clearly a grandparent, perhaps a sole survivor, in robust health.  I felt a beckoning.  As I drew closer, the beckoning became a message: Join the giants.  There was a shift in my belly.  My whole body felt the “rightness” of this request.

        This was not an appeal to ego.  I was not asked to stand above others.  I was invited to fellowship with the earth and its creatures, to soul connection, to deep rootedness, to quiet presence.  I was invited to stop apologizing for myself, retreating, hiding and playing small.  I was invited to let go of drama, outrage and judgment – to stop warring with myself and my nation, with others and other nations.

        Perhaps, all of us are called at this time to show up in a big way – strongly, safely, serenely in partnership with the universe.  Joining the giants has little to do with physical prowess, brilliant intellect, charismatic personality or positions of power and prestige.  It is a connecting to source, a tapping of ancient inner wisdom, a softening to love. 

        I believe we’re at a crossroads.  Our planet needs us – right now – to attend to what’s important, to access our larger selves, to join the giants who have been around for a long time.

       Attempting to rise above the gender in which I reside and say something about a "between-ness" I see leaves me a tad uneasy.  While research in the area regularly reports that there are more differences within genders than there are between them and while no pattern holds true for all couples, I believe there are some themes worth noting about the gender-related collisions of everyday relational life.  

Gender Fender Benders

       "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it … am I still wrong?"  Six guys in the boundary waters howled, hearing Steve's quip during one of our regular conversations in the woods about the hazards of relationship.

       "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."  Quoting this bumper-sticker, 30-some years ago, my colleague Michele laughed merrily and assured me that the women she knows consider it to be quite the hoot.

       There's truth in the hoots and howls – and an edge to the stories we carry about relationship.  I recall these jokes and wonder about residue buried within us – not just from our personal histories, but also from centuries of gender-related experience – old stories, old wounds.

       Centuries of oppression have left women with a residue of indignation – rightfully so – and, perhaps with that, a sense of righteousness.  That same history can leave men vulnerable to a shame about being bad or wrong.  I remember an old nursery rhyme declaring that boys are made of "snakes and snails and puppy dog tails", while girls are "sugar and spice and everything nice".

       Centuries of masculine privilege have left a residue in men that we deserve to be advantaged in the rules of engagement – that somehow we matter more and should be catered to.  I wonder about a corresponding vulnerability in women about being expected to serve, about not mattering, not being important.

       Collisions are inevitable as these vulnerabilities encounter each other, as stories of "I'm not important" meet stories of "I'm wrong".  Complaints, defenses, attacks and counter-attacks fly, as each partner fights for legitimacy.  Each fights for the dreaded story not to be true – especially for it not to be true in this most important of relationships.

       Collisions are painfully repeated, but eventually they teach us compassion – for ourselves, for each other, and for the wounds we carry.  Over time, in conscious relationships, collisions become gentler and fewer – humbling reminders, perhaps, of old routines and the stories that fuel them – common stories, uniquely expressed.

       I'm reminded of the somber narration ending each episode of a 1960's TV show about New York:  "There are eight million stories in the naked city.  This has been one of them."

Self Request

I don't ask myself

to be fully present

in every life's moment –

just in this one.

I don't ask

that I love

all the time –

just this time.

The horizon

is huge

when now

is enough.

Vast

self

here

now

.

Self Protection

       As I experience my own love life and witness the love lives of individuals and couples who come to see me, I'm often struck by how counter-productive are our strategies for self-protection, how often these strategies lead to disconnection from ourselves and from those we love.

       We hide our vulnerability, as if we're dealing with an adversary who would take advantage of our weakness.  We attack, defend, withdraw – hoping for emotional safety at the same time we desire closeness – often winding up with something that's neither safe nor close.

       We hide, for example, by focusing on the other – diagnosing, analyzing, projecting, interrogating:  "What's wrong?"  "Why aren't you…?"  "You seem…"  "Why are you so…?"  

       An alternative is to attend more deeply to ourselves, to listen to our bodies' signals, to gently inquire within:  "What am I feeling?"  "What am I feeling under that?"  "What kind of story am I telling myself?"  "What's my vulnerability here?" "What am I looking for?"  "What do I want?"  "What's important to me here?"  This is not self-analysis; it's self-awareness.  It's not mental; it's mindful.

       This level of listening allows us to reveal ourselves.  The inner connection invites relational connection.  I don't start a battle, I start a conversation.  I start by discarding weapons, dropping armor, disrobing. 

      To be safe with an adversary, wear a suit of armor.  To be safe with a lover, get naked.  

Twin Truths

       During a recent week with Richard Moss in Ojai, CA, we learned a practice that I find especially helpful when a personal relationship or my relationship with life has some complexity to it – helpful, especially, since most of my important relationships are complex in some way. 

       Take, for example, my relationship to money and power.  I fear having a lot of money and, at the same time, I buy lottery tickets.  Underneath my longstanding mistrust of power and reluctance to exercise it, I discover in shadow realms a desire for power and control. 

       Darkness allows us to know light.  Only if we're able to say "no" can we really say "yes".

       Imbedded in one truth is its opposite.  In his most recent book, Inside-Out Healing, Richard says:  "Concepts always exist as pairs of opposites: up and down, good and bad, left and right …"  (p. 79).  If one story within us is true, chances are the opposite is true as well.  Richard offers, in his book, an excellent exercise to help us feel our way into these opposing stories, along with some imagery to help us release them. 

       One night in Ojai, I experimented with an abbreviated version of this exercise, using eight permutations of a "me-you" story about a relationship in my life.  Lying in bed, face up, I let each of the eight truths sink into my bones, one pair at a time.

I like Bob.  (pseudonym)

I don't like Bob.

                        Bob likes me.

                        Bob doesn't like me.

                        I like me.

                        I don't like me.

                        Bob likes Bob.

                        Bob doesn't like Bob.

       I stayed with the first pair, alternating back and forth, until I felt embodied in both truths, with no resistance to either.  I fully accepted that both stories were present in me, then moved on to the next pair – and continued in this way with each pair until I'd finished the last one.

       Moments later, I noticed a remarkable stillness inside, a quiet peacefulness.  With no conscious effort on my part to make them go away, all eight stories had simply dissolved. 

       Embracing them all released them all. 

Note:  Check Inside-Out Healing for a more complete description of this practice.

Automatic Niceness

       I'm a nice person.   As I'm mindful of this quality in myself, I see a genuinely kind James, living in love.  I also see a younger James, sunny on the outside, who chose niceness as a way of protecting himself from the unpredictability of early relational life.

       A wise and adaptive choice at the time, niceness became automatic.  Originally intended to protect relationship, it now interferes with authentic, loving connection. 

       Consciousness work offers an opportunity to interrupt the automatic – to slow down and be more fully present with ourselves and each other, to relate from a stance of integration and embodiment.

       Automatic niceness conceals more than it reveals.  Turns out, it's not so nice.

Cosmos and Growth:  A Story

        I have a serious soft spot for cosmological stories.  I don't need them to be totally factual to be true.  Here’s a story I wrote ten years ago about the universe and how we evolve in it. 

Cosmos

        In the beginning, there is no-thing, the silence of God.  The void is fertile.  The emptiness is full.  In an attempt to name this silence that cannot be named, physicists use the term “singularity.”

        From the fertile void, there flares forth a great blossoming, an explosion of love (the energy of God). This ecstatic expansion of love manifests as light and heat.  Creativity and destruction dance passionately together, as love gives birth, gives death, gives birth again.

        Time and space are born.  As the original burst of energy slows and cools (at precisely the right rate), it becomes the universe we see – the stars and planets, the rocks and trees, the animals and humans, like you and me.

        The universe is growing and alive.  It’s intelligent and wise.  Because its essence is love, it is not neutral and, definitely, not malevolent.

        In this story, love and everything in the universe is trinitarian in nature.  Uniqueness, oneness and relatedness are woven into the fabric of all that is.  Every person and every blade of grass is one of a kind (unique and individual), one with the universe (all originating in the singularity of sacred emptiness) and forever connected in a web of relationship with everything else (the ultimate internet). 

        Relationship is a never-ending dance of uniqueness and oneness.  We are one and we are two.  Whether we care to or not, we're all dancing with the paradoxical mystery of oneness in two-ness and two-ness in oneness.  We dance in partnership with everyone and everything. 

        So, in this story, Pure Being (Nameless No-Thing) becomes love, which then becomes the beloved.  All creation, including each of us, is the offspring of love.

Growth

        Human growth mirrors, in reverse image, the path of the universe – with three stages, each wonderful in its own way.  And naturally, since it’s human, our growth path is not particularly tidy or orderly.  We move back and forth among the stages, willy-nilly, true to our nature. 

        The stages are really tasks.  The first task is softening to love – letting ourselves be loved.  When we soften and open to the ever-present energy of love, we are healed and made whole.  Like daisies basking in sunshine, we blossom, each in our own unique way.  For a long time, as a psychotherapist, I thought this was the whole story. 

        The next stage is the movement from being loved to being love.  While the first stage heals the wounded ego, the second stage expresses soul.  It’s not about “me” anymore.  It’s about becoming light – shining, radiating, warming.  Naturally and effortlessly, a healed presence becomes a healing presence.  The light of love flickers at first, then grows more steady.

        Surely, I thought, this must be the end of the story.  It can’t get any better than this.  But no, like in the late night commercial, there’s more!

        The third growth movement is toward the experience of pure being, a movement from being love to being no-thing.  Mystical traditions in all religions speak of a silence, a sacred emptiness, where separation from God ceases.  All attachment and ego identity disappear.  Every thing is gone, and all things are possible.  The universe blossomed from this profound peace.  It’s where all miracles originate.

        At first, during times of meditation, I had only glimpses of this quiet place.  At some point, I can’t pinpoint just when, glimpses became visits.  Never boring, visits now are irregular and unpredictable, and usually don’t last long.

        We are the visited, not the visitor.  More than we seek, we are sought.  Sacred silence finds us, and we remember.  We never return from such encounters unchanged.  We may seem the same, but we’re not.

        Some people spend a lot of time in no-time, unself-consciously one with God in the silence of pure being.   It’s become home for them.  Eventually, in this story, it becomes home for all of us.

        Alpha meets Omega.  The end and the beginning are one.