My Dog

It is interesting how one ties ones life to another creature. I have had a dog for thirteen years. She is dying of bone cancer and my heart is breaking. This is not a grief that one can share with others as if your child or your parent were dying. No she is not a child, but she is a spirit which I have shared my life with for many years. We know each other well, as with anything you live with for some time.

She has had a good dog life. She has never had a fence, never been chained, always allowed to sleep on the bed...in return she has given me so much...I will miss her. Just how much is something that only our family can understand.

The brain and the mind

I have decided that I have a quiet mind. The loud noisy instrument inside my head is actually my brain. My mind is what I use to listen with...whether it be literally listening to someones voice or listening to what is behind their voice. I am good at listening sometimes.

I am not good at listening when my brain is loud. There are many many times when I feel like I cannot THINK because my brain is busy with the mundane details of life OR cluttered up with emotions that feel out of my control. Sometimes I think if I could harness my brain I could expand my life 10 fold.


The mind seeks; the brain processes what the mind finds...

Quietness
Rumi
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You are covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

The difference a year can make.

I was looking back over the posts I've written because I've been plagued by a feeling that last year was so much better than this year. Silly, but I remember feeling an upwelling of physical and spiritual energy at this time last year. I couldn't do enough Tai chi and I felt the green, sap energy of the earth flowing in my veins. This year I am tired...so very tired.

I am searching for a reason for this difference and it eludes me. I keep seeking that earth energy, it too is eluding me. I am frustrated. I am doing Tai Chi more often than I have been of late, but it is not helping. Perhaps I am trying too hard. Maybe it is time to stop looking and sit back and just let it come. I hope so as that is the only plan I have left.

Last year Spring time was pure joy for me, this year it feel dusty and brown and depressing. I think maybe I need to spend some time out in the sun and the wind...just saying that I could feel a glimmer on the edge of my soul of something MORE...

A community

Today the day began with an interesting couple who had just escaped from Lubbock Texas. They themselves declared that they had escaped, they were doing some political work and felt like they had just escaped with their lives. They were so relieved to be in Vermont.

Later in the day my partner came by to visit and some neighbors. We were just talking and two customers, one regular and one person I didn't know, just jumped in and joined the conversation. It was lovely. Although I noticed that people feel helpless and there is a lot of anger directed at people who are not "enlightened" to the situation our world faces.

It was good that I was able to say to one woman that I think what is important to notice is that we still have the privilege and the opportunity to connect as human beings on a one to one basis. We can set aside political boundaries and beliefs and just be together. That is the glory of community.

It is good to belong to the human community in all it's glory and angst.

Some time has passed...

and I haven't written. I read something today and decided to just write and not wait for some kind of brilliant inspiration. Perhaps if I write I will be inspired. Is this writing something for myself or is it for you to read?? It should be for me only, but then why the public posting. Why do I crave public approval? Why do I see a moment of grace and feel the need to capture it in a photo to share, I always think I should absorb it and be satisfied. Maybe it is just another facet of longing for connection, linkage to other human beings, sharing moments of grace.

I hope so.

Language

I was thinking about language and stories today. I think we want our stories heard, we want other people and sometimes language gets in the way. I am never as eloquent on this blog as I am in my head when I'm thinking about what I want to say.

Sometimes in group situations it is like I am sitting outside of myself watching. Watching the people in the group maneuver around each other, almost warily. I often just want to command the situation and say everyone relax, let go, but that almost always backfires.

Arrrgghh this is not what I want to say. I'll try again tomorrow.

Today

Today has been a really good day. I went to my former school for Thanksgiving dinner with all the folks. It is good to see people and touch base with the young people, but really the best part of the day was saying Goodbye to a few people and just striding out the door with no regrets. It's been a long time coming, this guilt free feeling.

The store has been bustling with folks, some just dropping in to shake my hand and say, "Happy Thanksgiving." Lots of people have told me they are thankful that GMB is here and thriving. I try to tell them all with sincerity that I am thankful for them.

Here is some more JC (um...that would be Joseph Campbell not Jesus Christ!)

"To take a righteous attitude toward anything
is to denigrate it.

Awe is what moves us forward.

Eternity
is a dimension
of here and now.

The divine lies within you.

Live from your own center."

um...

There have been a few people harping, simply harping on me to write something. (This is about my sister Tai Chi friend, not you, you don't harp.)

Friday night I attended two events, this is a big night out for me these days. The first was the VFW fund raising Meat Raffle. Yep, here in the NEK of VT we raffle meat and hey, I won a ham, had a couple of drinks and caroused with the hunters in from deer camp. This isn't just any Meat Raffle either, this is competitive meat raffling there are two teams who go every year and compete against each other. It was fun; loud, noisy grown-ups hooting and hollering, giving each other a hard time and yet obviously really caring about each other. Even in this wild environment people were on the look out for each other, holding the door, cautiously navigating around the woman on crutches and helping her, checking in with each other. On one level it was about meat and on another it was about unity.

Second event a house party. It started after the meat raffle with a whole different crew of people. Mostly couples who have young children. There were a lot of musicians and a great band. It was sad and interesting to watch all of these parents really work to battle sexism. The men wanted to stay and play music and hang out, the women wanted to stay and play music and hang out...the children needed to go home and go to bed. As sexism requires it mostly fell to the women to take care of the children and the men stayed behind. Ouch for everyone involved.

I overheard one young father and musician talking about it. He mentioned that his girlfriend had left with the children and was angry. He seemed so hopeless about figuring out how to do it. Then he said, "But I'm living it, this is it. This is life and I'm in it. I've got to play music." And I went directly to Joseph Campbell:

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are...

The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning. The warrior's approach is to say "yes" to life: "yea" to all of it. Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

Opportunities to find deeper power within ourselves come when life seems most challenging"

The young musician is right.

Be it meat raffles or band party's, this is it live within it in joy.

Proud

There is nothing to say execpt that I am proud to be an American today.

It is the first time in at least eight years that I can say that.

Change has arrived.

Pleased

This is a picture of me, in the scudgy bookstore mirror hence the spotage, being incredibly pleased. I left my camera in a friends tool trailer, of course this was accidental. The camera wasn't tied down, it was actually sitting on a shelf. When he found it it was on the floor surrounded by heavy pieces of steel tools...completely unharmed. I didn't find out if it was okay for several days.

I am pleased.

However, I am pleased for several reasons. The most obvious is that my camera was returned intact. The more profound reason is that I had given up all hope and it didn't really matter. I actually achieved un-attachment to something that in general is very important to me. The first evening I hardly slept worrying about it. By the time I got to where I was meeting with my friend I forgot to ask him about it...until he mentioned it. An interesting journey from point a to point b.

I feel like I won twice here. I got to come to terms with my own materialism and I got to get back what I lost.

I am thankful for both the lesson and the outcome.

Debate

Tonight after Tai Chi class I am going to watch the Vice Presidential debate at Parker Pie in West Glover Vermont.

Parker Pie is in the back of an old country store. Some local young people returned to W. Glover after finishing college and decided to start a pizza place. They have three booths and three tables, a bar that seats two, free Internet access, awesome pizza, great beer, and it is generally jam packed with folks every night, young, the very young, old, the very old and middle aged folks. I love it there and I think that watching this debate there is really the only thing to do it. I think to watch this debate we should be amid a crowd of like-thinking people, we should definitely have beer handy and pizza with gourmet toppings doesn't hurt either.

It is difficult for me to watch a woman like the candidate. She is really giving women in America a bad name. Women in general a bad name. There are many ways in which I want to see her lose this debate, but it is definitely a torn feeling. Women are equal to men, can think as well as men, can debate as well as men, but I don't think this particular woman can...

There was so much excitement about Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama for the dems. We tossed the stereotypes out the window and stepped into the 21st Century. I think the Republican party made a mockery of that achievement by nominating this woman and thinking that she in any way is a peer of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Enough said. I am glad I will be among friends.

The path of least resistance to pure existance

A customer, and might I say friend, came in yesterday. He is truly working to achieve enlightenment and is forging his path through studying, meditation, yoga etc. His young son recently went off to college and he is now alone. He feels concentrated on his objective. I pointed out to him that he doesn't have much contact with other folks, but he says he does. Visiting in the post office and bookstore, etc.

He is very clear.

I, however, am not. Yes, I am caught up in judgement, this election is terrifying to me, but I do think that pure existence must include some kind of love of others. I can tell that I don't actually need other people, I could exist without them and probably be relatively happy. But I want connection, I yearn toward it, I really like other people. Each of us need to find our way to enlightenment individually I guess, what works for one is not always so for another. In many ways I long for less attachment, but I think of those attachments as being to material things not humans.

I keep thinking about "enlightenment" which isn't even defined here. What is it actually? Can we achieve true enlightenment by isolation? Is that real? There are so many questions.

The Fall of the Year

As some of you may know during September and October droves of people come to Vermont for "leaf peeping". With good reason.

I had to drive out to East Burke today to buy some books from their library...

Tangent:
I had one of those moments that the universe gives me to let me know I am connected and tuned in to something. Yesterday as I puttered around the shop I noticed that the perpetual stack of "Model Railroading Magazine" was no longer so unending, the bottom of the pile was visible! I thought where the heck am I going to come across more of those. I immediately saw the potential for something else on that shelf. Today at the library sale the librarian said, "Do you want some old railroading magazines?" I thought must be something similar but cannot be, but Yes oh yes more "Model Railroading"! Boxes of them in fact. The library folks were tickled that I wanted them and I was tickled that there they were just when I needed them.
Ah...coincidence.

Back to my original post:
on the drive to the library I noticed the trees. They are changing again, the fog was heavy this morning and the maples just blaze against it. There is something so tangibly real about the flaming glory of death in autumn. Walking down the street to the bank and post office I noticed the maple in the park, the trees you know don't just turn orange or yellow or red, they slowly one leaf at a time change, so they become a whirlwind of all these colors, including every shade of green, all blended into one individual oil painting of a tree in autumn. They are so perfect I ache.

As I pulled back into town from my drive "It's a beautiful morning" came on the radio. It was good to drive through town and notice so many folks out on the streets, an elderly gentleman out walking in shirt sleeves and his hunting vest, the real estate guy poking his head out of the door to holler at the guy who does the recycling. Someone wending their way down the hill, a woman walking her dog in the park...it was/is a beautiful morning.

All Politics is Personal

The election is fast approaching.

I, and many people I know, am terrified. I don't know how we will continue in this country if we don't have a big change. I don't want to preach my political views here, I just want to write about how I am feeling, which in a nutshell is scared.

A very good friend feels differently about this situation and it has been hard for me to take. We have decided to "agree to disagree" but this too is very hard for me. I feel like some education is needed (I'm sure she feels the same way). I don't want to force my opinion on her, but I don't understand how an educated intelligent woman can feel the way she does. It is frustrating and inevitably leads to more of those scary feelings.

The one and only answer that I can devise is that we as Americans and as humans need each other. We need to share with each other despite our differences. We need to hold each other, laugh together, notice each other, cry together. Men, women, black, white, able, disabled, old, young, Catholics, Jews, Muslums, Christians...the list goes on and on....mostly just humans. There is so much we can do united, and so much holding us apart.

There is no way I would let a difference of opinions shape the way I feel about my friend. We are close and will continue to be so. We need to overcome fear and isolation if any change is going to happen. The divisiveness of this election is the opposite of the direction we should head in.

This much I know is true.

The Ocean

A couple of weeks back I went to Maine to visit friends.

We took the ferry out to Peak's Island. There is something about the salt water that moves me. I stood on the boat in the deep fog and felt ancient, as if I had at one time inhabited someone else's bones. Someone who lived on the water. Someone with brown salt crusted skin, eyes half opened, seamed faced. Someone who was me or not....

I am not a great believer in things unseen...but I was moved.

Recapturing an old thought

(Self-portrait?)

John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you are making plans."

A customer quoted this to me the other day and I've taken it to heart. I am a tried and true planner, it is a pattern developed in childhood for security, I think. I've decided to abandon it somewhat. I'm trying to focus on the here and now and truly appreciate it. I mean sure I can plan what I want for dinner or what I am going to do this weekend, but I am choosing not to live longing for that time to come. So far I think I am somewhat successful, although I find that money really gets in the way of this kind of thinking. Money takes planning for me.

I took these pictures this last weekend. A prime example of trying not to plan too much...I really wanted to be spontaneous and free this weekend. Things go so much better if I'm not attached to what I think I need. I had a really good time, just being me. I played a little, talked a little, spent time living. It's all I really want out of every day.

City Energy

It has been a while but my recent trip to Boston has inspired some thoughts.

There is something about the energy of the city that makes me feel alive in a way that I never do in the woods. It is a wild and woolly feeling..amid the rushing crowds I feel connected and oh so human. I don't think I would have this feeling if I lived there all of the time. It is an awesome feeling, literally I am awe inspired by the works of man, the mass of mankind perched together, teeming, on the edge of an ocean. As a part of that mass I feel much larger than I do in the woods. There I am aware of how infinitesimally small I really am. And against all odds I feel connected. I walk the streets making contact with others, I talk to them, especially those who are marginalized. I am aware because it is so unusual for me.

I love the architecture, it is as beautiful as the mountain ranges and pointed firs reaching skyward, a reflection really. And I love the age especially of Boston. There you can really see the decades of history, it is a real march through time and space...the cathedrals jammed in next to an all glass building, next to an iron bridge...man's thought processes all juxtaposed...

Beginning

(These pictures are unrelated to the following information. I just wanted to put them up.)



I think I found a way to begin changing the world. On July 19th I backed into someone while parallel parking. I scratched the bumper of the Saab behind me. I left a note, which someone told me not to...said it was setting myself up for a world of trouble (hey I'm paraphrasing okay?). I left the note. The guy called, I gave him the information. He was nice, I was nice. Actually I really like him and we got to talking for quite some time...what he does what I do, small business owners chit chat.

I got a call from the insurance company today. I explained what happened. The guy at the insurance company said I was a good person for leaving the note. He said if someone hit him at work no one would leave a note...

Then it happened I changed the world.

I said "Would you leave a note?"

He paused..."um..."

Maybe now he will think twice and leave the note. Maybe he will notice that the owner of the car he hit is a person. A living breathing entity, with thoughts, and FEELINGS. That we live in a world filled with people, not problems. Maybe he will get to talk to the person he hits, exchange life notes, make a connection. Similar to the connection I made with him.

I thought today I would write about community. About how important it is to me. I didn't think it would be about the car accident. In the course of rereading I realize I did write about community.

Interesting that.

What is Wrong with Today

I was on the phone with the phone company for over an hour this morning. As I was calling from my business phone, this did not please me. I know I missed book business calls. Due to an error I made combining two bills the company has overcharged me. I did not hang up, I did not harangue the people I was talking to (even though I was transferred 3 times and had to explain the situation every time!), I kept a smile in my voice for them. They have hard jobs.

The final outcome is that I got a fax...which upon reading I realized I had to send back in five days time with proof of payment...if not the whole issue would be dropped and I would be back to square one. No one on the phone told me this information, not that I would be receiving a fax or that I would have to send it back.

I feel fortunate in the fact that I am a reader, I own a small business and every penny counts I am not paying that extra money, but I think of people out in the world who don't necessarily have the same resources that I have...this is what burns my cookies. Recently a similar issue happened with my partner. He was supposed to get Workman's compensation for an injury at work. He was denied, but we were lucky in that my Mom is a Workman's compensation claim rep. so we had the inside track. We appealed and won the appeal, but if my Mother hadn't been there telling me what hoops to jump through we would be paying bills that we weren't responsible for.

I guess the point of this rant is that so often people get screwed because of red tape. They don't know how to handle the situation, don't have access to resources to help them, don't have the stamina or the time to stay on the phone for an hour and a half. Our society is not people friendly...how do we change that? How do we stay focused on the positive, notice that those are PEOPLE on the other end of the phone line? Help each other solve our problems? Companies are wary because people are trying to get out of paying their bills all the time. What happened to honesty?

I think major things could be changed here, but where do I begin?

Disaster

Disaster struck a dear friend of mine.

A mini tornado or micro-burst hit his house in Waterville Vermont last Friday. He lost about 250 trees 80 of which were in his not very long driveway. The trees looked like pixie sticks tossed down at the whim of the wind. He lost his garage which was picked up and hurled into the side of his house, a large tree fell on his house, another fell nearby and uprooted his deck. In the long run he was not injured, his house wasn't badly damaged and neither of the cars in the garage were injured. Be thankful for the blessing we have.

I spent the day with him on Sunday trying to be helpful. We cleaned up about five downed trees in the backyard. Including a huge old willow, it felt completely futile. I worked hard in the pouring rain all day, soaked through to the skin, we made giant burn piles out of the trees, when we were done the yard was cleared, completely futile in the face of what was there.

When I got home I could not shake the feeling of shock. It was difficult to leave him there alone, although my partner went back the next day. I have been having a difficult time finding the words to explain the feeling...being involved so emotionally and physically and then just coming back into work and being here with everyone who hasn't experienced such a thing. It is an odd displaced feeling.

He has power again and phones and eventually all will be well. Again I am thankful for the blessings.