Month: July 2019

Done.

I like to be done. My whole life it seems I have been seeking a state of doneness. It took me a long time to figure out that no such state exists. At least not anywhere in the realm of relativity. Really I have to admit to being a bit slow in this department. Not that the realization has immediately stopped me from seeking it. Old habits die hard. So it’s an almost daily practice to remind myself not to seek for something that I can never have. We all get that to do so is a painful experience. But stopping ourselves from hopeless seeking is one of the great challenges of being human, so a little forgiveness of our stubbornness is in order as well.

Let me give you an example to make this real. An easy one is, say, how I (and most architects) practice architecture. As an architect my job is to create buildings and places. I have to conceive it, develop it, work out every detail (or at least try to), manage a whole lot of other people who have to design parts and pieces to make the building work, and then see it through to completion as it was intended to be. Completion is the operative word in all of that. The whole object is to be done. Doneness in this case means that a building has been manifested into reality. My job requires me to be done. I don’t get paid if I don’t get done. Then there’s that. In today’s world we have to move much faster than we should. The pressure to deliver in ungodly timeframes is high. Based on all of this I am quite forgiving of myself for being so done-oriented.

But the sucky thing about all of it is that, you know what, minus all of that pressure I actually really love the process. The pressure, however, tends to cloud my joy. It’s a mind-blowing thing to manifest something as big as a building. I’m not going to lie. It’s a complete head trip. But standing there in awe looking at a completed building that started as nothing more than a tiny little seed in your head only lasts for all of five seconds. O.K. that might be a slight exaggeration, but it truly is a minuscule amount of time relative to the amount of time that was put into it. We are talking a day, a week, a month maybe relative to years. Years of your life that you can’t get back. Trust me, there are a lot of days in there that you just really want to be done. It’s tedious work. If we aren’t careful, these days can easily overshadow the joyful ones. Ah, you are with me now. We can all relate. We all just want to be done. Done with the dishes. Done with cooking dinner. Done with the laundry. Done with the cleaning. Done with paying the bills. Done with each and every chore. Done, done, DONE! Just let me be done!

Another way of saying that I am done-oriented is to say that I am goal-oriented. Sorry. That’s completely counter-achiever, I know. Again, I’m so sorry to have to break that to you. Our whole lives we have been trained to set goals- particularly if you are an athlete. I mean what in the hell are we supposed to do if we don’t have goals??? We would all be lost and directionless. Right? I’ve had some big goals throughout my life and I’ve accomplished a whole lot of them. Who would I be if I hadn’t??? Yikes. And that’s the thing. Setting and chasing goals can very easily be a fear-based strategy concocted to minimize uncertainty and shield us from nothingness. As I’ve said before, it has been my security blanket. As I’ve also said, I am finally secure enough in my being to let go of that blanket. And you know what, it doesn’t feel that scary after all.

But just because I am taking this step doesn’t mean that all of those old habits are just going to drop off the face of the earth. No simple snap of the fingers is going to do this trick. This is going to take some practice with a whole lot of attention and mindfulness. With it has to be the recognition that it is related to every other survival strategy that I have employed over the course of my life. And all of them originate in one single place- in my inner wounded child. I’ve made mention of her quite a bit, but today I’d like to give you a bit of an inner look at my internal work surrounding this. I hope that it proves helpful to you.

Let me start by saying that there are endless modalities to assist us with acknowledging and healing our inner wounded child. Um, yes, you have one. We all do. It’s inescapable. If you aren’t aware of this as of yet, I would like to as gently as I can say something that might not be comfortable news to hear: she/he is running your life. Wait. Forget gentleness. I’m talking to your adult, you can handle this. A child is running your life! A child!!! And you know what really stinks, she does not want to be running your life. She’s just a kid! She is in no way equipped to handle your adult responsibilities. Yet it is 100% guaranteed that if you haven’t taken the time and energy to heal her, that is exactly what is happening. And this is exactly why our culture is so immature. Now before you go off feeling shamed…. stop. This is a cultural problem. It’s not your fault. We are all in this together. I’ve placed my attention squarely on it, and I’m calling our attention to it, because I believe that it is absolutely critical to our survival as a species. That is to say that I believe that at this moment in time the most important thing that we each need to do is to heal our inner child. No matter what else is on your to do list to save the world, if this one isn’t at the top of your list we are highly likely to miss our mark.

So if you are game, there are a million and one ways to do this work: psychotherapy, wisdom traditions, spiritual practice, self help, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), twelve step programs, shamanistic soul retrieval, sound therapy, reiki… there are way too many to list with multiple varieties within each. Try any or all of them if necessary. Just please remember that whatever you do, it’s your job to heal your inner child. It’s nobody else’s- not your therapist, not your spiritual guru, not your self help expert, not your shaman, not any master, not your friends, not your family, and certainly not your life partner if you have one. Nope. It’s up to you.

I personally was introduced to this work first through psychotherapy. That is where it was first brought to my attention that I have an inner wounded child. That was about seven years ago. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of my own story, it’s more that I wasn’t aware of the fact that there was a breaking point at which my inner child shut and locked everyone out of her room. This is to say that there was a moment of separation between my innocent self and the one who was presented to the world thereafter. And guess who was deciding who this person was who interacted with the world at large. Yes, that hurt child was commanding the whole show from the safety of her bedroom. A regular old armchair warrior!

And war is the correct framing here. Survival is inherently a war-based mentality. To think that we need to survive is to think that the world is out to destroy us. Now I can hardly blame myself for believing that this was the case. I was conceived into a “war” between my blood and my mother’s blood. That means that for me I will ultimately have to go all the way back into the womb to heal my wounded child. I’m not quite there yet, but what I notice is that over the course of my adult life I have been slowly walking myself back there, dealing with wounds from adulthood, then early adulthood, back to high school, then early teens, then late childhood, etc. Healing of some life stages have taken longer than others. And of course they are all also interconnected, such that the process is inherently iterative (repetitive). Patience is key. We must be gentle with ourselves and trust the process.

These days I am utilizing a combination of healing practices that come from an overlap of wisdom, spiritual, and self-help realms. Specifically, Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Reconciliation, Healing the Inner Child is helpful including the mindfulness practices that he offers. I am also working through a course on DailyOM called “Re-Parent Your Inner Child.” The photo above is my journal where I do this work through that course, where I bridge between my adult self and my five year old self. Just to give a sample of the work, on a daily basis I visit with my wounded inner five year old. On one day I’ll ask, “What do you love?” The next I’ll ask, “What are you afraid of?” I’m just there to listen. On the things that bring her joy, I can relate and we smile and bask in it together. On the things that she is afraid of, I let her know that she is safe now because I’ve got it. To repeat, the adult in the room has got it. The adult in the room no longer leaves it up to that child to handle life’s challenges.

Let me end by giving you a clear example. Yesterday Shannon and I had a full day planned that included going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get our Vermont licenses and register our car. Having to go to the DMV is enough to give any of us nightmares, right??? This has been on our to do list since we arrived in Vermont. Yes, I just said “to do list”. Now you might imagine that I don’t like things lingering on my to do list for very long. I don’t! Just get done already!!! But we hadn’t managed to get this one done yet. We were both tired, so we didn’t wake up when our alarm went off. We have been starting our day by going running. Two hours later we decided to go running anyway. In that decision I wasn’t really thinking about the timing of the rest of the day. Then, right as we were about to walk out the door Shannon says, “You do realize that we are choosing to go running and that may mean that we might not be able to check the DMV off of our list?” Screeeeeeeeeeeeeech! WHAT???? This realization stopped me dead in my tracks. Deer. In. Headlights. This is what we call being “triggered.” And boy was I! What it means is that our inner wounded child has just taken the wheel. She’s scared, and she is not about to let you go put her in any kind of danger.

Now because I have been working on this, I recognized that I was being presented with an opportunity to really do this work in the present moment. That doesn’t relieve the uncomfortableness of it, but it does open the door. And I knew if I didn’t walk through that door my child was about to usurp my whole day from me. I was therefore able to reluctantly walk out the door to go running anyway, recognizing that that was the healthy choice for me. That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t panicking the entire ride over to the park where we run. I was. How can I be o.k. with not getting this item done?! There was no easy answer.

Yet by the time we got to the park, I had done a few important things. First of all, I acknowledged the presence of my inner child. “Good morning, Love. How are you doing? Ah, not well I see. Well that’s o.k. It’s o.k. for you to feel that way.” The next thing that I did was acknowledge the presence of the emotion. “Good morning, Anxiety. You are welcome here.” And then I invited one more person into the room. I invited my Self (witness consciousness, mindfulness, soul, not to be confused with the relative self who was doing all of the inviting). “Good morning, Self. We would like you to come sit with us. Scratch that. Let’s all go running together.” They all agreed.

As I ran through the forest, the meadow, and looked to the mountains beyond, we all said good morning to them, presented ourselves, and asked for their insights. Forest’s insight was “we are all in this together.” Meadow’s insight was “I just give in to whatever is. Some days it’s rain, some shine, some snow. Whatever needs to get done always seems to get done in its own good time.” Mountain’s insight was “I’ve been here for a very, very, very long time. I came to realize a long time ago that I’ll never be done. You can’t perceive my movement, but in fact I am in a constant state of change that will never finish.” I just listened and held space for all of them. It was a lovely and loving conversation.

As we were heading home after the run I asked my five year old, “Is there something in your experience that you felt had to get done or you wouldn’t survive?” There is no easy answer because I am now reaching back into a time in which our self consciousness is very weak. This is to say it’s hard to remember. It will therefore be an ongoing conversation that will require modes of communication other than language. My child was able to tell me immediately that she was concerned about not being able to speak correctly. If learning to speak correctly didn’t get “done,” then survival was questionable. I acknowledged her fear, assured her that it all worked out, and that I am quite capable of speaking up for us. There is more there, I know. But this is where the patience comes in. Relationships take time to build the trust that enables us to be vulnerable with one another. This immediately led me to realize that if I can’t do this with myself, if I can’t embrace these wounded parts of myself and tough emotions without judgement, then there is no way in heck that I can do that for another human being. Hence, I do the work.

By the way, we did manage to make it to the DMV. We filled out the forms and waited our turn. Then in five seconds flat the DMV lady- you know the one, the one who always seems to have the bad news- tells us that we are missing documents that we need to do any of the things that we needed to do. That’s right… it didn’t get done! But you know what? It didn’t ruin my day. That isn’t to say that Shannon and I both weren’t irritated…o.k., angry… as all get out for a good hour or so. But we were able to acknowledge it, express it, embrace it, and then.. let it go.

49 1/2

My birthday has traditionally been a bit of a doggy downer for me. Maybe it’s because in some unconscious way it reminds me of the trauma of my birth (for a recount read my post “The Gift”), the origin of the deep feeling of having been banned to a hopeless state of separation. What I can say for sure is that my birthday has most always felt like a disappointment. I’m serious about the unconscious connection to the original event. I mean, honestly, imagine being in a fight for survival just wishing for it to end only to be birthed into another fight for survival equally as intense as the one before. Oh, you get it. We all get it.

I’m not sure when my chest collapsed in to protect my heart, but I’m going to guess I was born this way. My shoulders roll deeply forward, creating this hollow wall in front of my heart. It’s been called to my attention in various ways throughout my life. I don’t have flexibility in my shoulders and that was always a struggle in gymnastics. It is point of contention in yoga, this effort to roll my shoulders back to give my heart space. When my Reiki master first worked on me she said the vision that she got was that I have a picket fence around my heart. And then there is my tai chi master who would give me hugging lessons to try relax this physical wall that is encoded into my body. Yes, our traumas get encoded into our bodies.

Then there is breathing. Just ugh. I have a love-hate but mostly hate relationship with breathing. Honestly, do I have to? You want me to actually breathe as I move?? Why??? My breath runs shallow. I used to near pass out at the end of a floor routine because I hardly took a breath the whole time I was doing it. When I am sleeping you might not think that I am breathing at all. Seriously, people have checked to see if I am. When it comes to energy, I don’t connect in the yogic sense, through prana. That requires breathing. Just like heat flows through convection, conduction and radiation, I would say that it is the same with our own energy flows. You can move energy in and out through breathing (convection), through your chakras and energy meridians (conduction), or through your general aura (radiation). These are just metaphorical equivalencies. I tend toward conduction. In the meantime, I keep my aura pretty tight to my body and as for breathing- just no. I don’t get it.

Aerobic stuff, especially running (and partly because of a bum knee), are not fun. But these days I am doing it. Running that is. I decided last summer to figure this whole thing out, so I started trail running to see if my knee could handle it (pavement is out of the question). So far, so good on the knee front. Then there is the breathing. Of course running forces me to breathe deeply. Because my shoulders cave in so much, my arms have always pumped side to side across my body rather than front to back. I decided last week to experiment with that by forcing the issue (making my arms swing front to back) the entire time I was running. A funny thing happened. It opened up my chest. And guest what? I could breathe. I am almost fifty years old with a lifetime full of athletics and nobody has ever made that connection for me. I could breathe. And you know what else? I felt my heart chakra open up. As it did, these words immediately entered my head: “Lead with your heart.” You see it really is all just one thing- body, mind, heart, spirit. Just one thing. Adjust any one of them and the others change. They have to.

So five years ago I decided to start taking this birthday matter into my own hands. Rather than just sit around dreading the disappointment that was sure to come (unconsciously, that is), I decided to start planning fun things to do for my birthday. One year it was a trip to New York City including a party with my NYC peeps. The next year it was LA, the following Mexico City, and then Stockholm. That has worked beautifully! One of the things that has been so great about it is that it has given my wife a framework to plug into rather than having to approach it through a minefield that she didn’t even know was there until she stepped on one. And trust me, she has stepped on a few!

So this is a big year for me. I will be turning the big 5-0 in December. First things first, I don’t mind. It’s not the age that bothers me. It’s the separation. So I’ve been thinking about how to celebrate this one with varying thoughts, but no concrete plans as of yet. We are still in the midst of getting ourselves settled in Vermont, so it’s not at the forefront of my mind even. It especially wasn’t at the forefront of my mind last Saturday.

There is no polite way to say it, last Saturday was a shit show! Literally. All I wanted to do was sleep in, relax, unwind, etc. after my trip to DC. I was exhausted, having left at 3:30 AM one day only to return at 3:30 AM 48 hours later. The next thing I knew Shannon had come up to report that we can’t use the toilet- again. It’s not flushing. It had been acting up for a couple of weeks. And did I mention it was Saturday? Overtime plumber fees will kill your weekend for sure. Of course it also kills their weekend too. So our friend Jean came over from across the lake to crawl under the house with Shannon to see if they could tell if there was anything wrong with the pipe, as has been the case before. No dice. Mind you, I still haven’t gotten out of bed because I am cranky, tired as all get out, and I have to pee like a racehorse. I would not have been any help in that state of being.

I heard Shannon and Jean back in the house working on the toilet to see what parts might not be working. They came upstairs to borrow some parts off of the upstairs toilet, which hasn’t been working for awhile either. That’s right, we had no working toilet. Not a one. I have to hand it to those two- they were determined! Of course one is a native Vermonter and the other is the first female to have reached full retirement from the carpenter’s union in Boston (and both hockey players, of course). They were not about to get beaten by a stupid toilet. Finally, they figured out that there was no fixing the toilet. We needed a new one. Worse yet, there was no guarantee that the toilet was the root of the problem. Shannon came upstairs to give me the report.

Now, let me just say here that when I am in the aforementioned state of being, I’m not the kindest person in the world. There. I said it. In fact, I can be downright ornery (verbally speaking). Shannon, who had gently and mindfully let me continue to sleep while trying to deal with this ordeal, was prepared to go to the store to buy a new toilet and Jean was going to go with her. She knew, however, that her architect wife was going to have an opinion about the toilet. This wasn’t a short term purchase. It’s one we knew we would be making anyway, and it’s hopefully going to be our toilet for life. So, yes, I knew I had to have an opinion. I had to get up and accompany Shannon to the store. I knew I had to because Shannon is frugal (which is often a good thing), and what we were needing was going to cost way more than she was going to be comfortable with. Now it would have been nice if I had communicated that all to her in a loving, appreciative, and kind way. I did not. Let’s just leave it at that.

While I got up and put some clothes on, Shannon told Jean to run for her life! She’d call her when we got back. Then, rather than going defensive and then offensive on me, she so gently just stayed quiet and calm (on the outside anyway) on our drive into town, giving me a nonjudgemental space to calm down in. And I did. The toilet shopping was tense, but she trusted my judgment. It cost twice as much as she was anticipating, but she didn’t fight me. She trusted me.

I am telling you this in part to give testament to the amount of personal work that Shannon has done in the twelve years that we have been together. It is truly inspiring. I’m not sure I would have been as graceful if the roles had been reversed. As fierce competitors, our MO has been to get into standoffs that could last for days, weeks, months. But instead of going there, Shannon pulled the perfect tai chi master move. She didn’t resist. It allowed all of my negative energy and the underlying fears to dissipate. With the tension of purchasing the toilet behind us, I was able to say and truly mean those magic words, “I am sorry.” It needed a little more punch than that, so I added “I was a complete asshole.”

We went to lunch to give ourselves a breather before heading home to continue with the shit show. That’s when she broke it to me:

“So, I had this great idea. I’ve been working on it for two months now. Turning 50 is a big deal so I wanted to surprise you by throwing you a surprise 49 1/2 birthday party. I got in touch with some of your closest friends to see if they could fly into Vermont for a long weekend.”

Micki was of course first and then she rattled off all of the friends she had contacted, at least one of whom she had never even met or talked to before. A ton of planning had gone into it and the long birthday bash weekend was supposed to be starting on the coming Wednesday (now this past Wednesday) night. She went on:

“Everyone was so excited and trying to figure out how to swing it, but one by one something got in the way and the list kept shrinking. I kept telling myself it would still be great as each person regretfully declined. Then it was down to just Micki. I still thought it would be great. Then, this morning, about an hour into the toilet debacle, she called and left a message. She can’t make it because her daughter, Haley (also one of my former players), looks like she is going to give birth earlier than anticipated and she can’t risk it.”

I was stunned. I had zero inkling of an idea that she had been working on all of this behind the scenes. I could see the sheer defeat in her face. I was stunned. Did I say that? Hearing her tell this story literally took my breath away. In that moment, I felt so incredibly connected. I felt connected to her, for sure. But I also felt connected to every friend that she had contacted as she told me how excited each one was and how hard each one had tried to make it happen. She has done some super-sweet things for me in our time together, but this one might be the topper. And it’s because she knows me. So much knowingness went into this whole thing. To all of the friends who tried so hard to make it happen, thank you, thank you, thank you! Please know that I feel your love. As for you, Shannon, thank you for knowing me. That’s really the best thing that you can ever give me. Oh, and, did I mention that I’m sorry about the whole toilet thing??? By the way, we have a rocketship of a toilet now and the shit has been cleaned out of our (septic) system, so feel free to visit! All puns intended.

Presence

I just returned from a speaking gig at the US Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Summit in Washington DC. I was invited to speak on diversifying the energy efficiency workforce based on my experience in developing and implementing relative curriculum at Prairie View A&M University, an HBCU (historically black university). Let me just start off by saying that this work has been absolutely sacred to me. It has been an honor, a privilege, and a life altering experience to get to know and to work with all of the students that I have over the last five years. It has broadened my perspective. It has changed me.

Now for a bit of truth telling. When the DOE asked me to speak at this conference a couple of months ago my gut reaction was “no.” I thought that I probably had important insights to share, but the truth is that I’ve been feeling burn out and I just had no energy surrounding it. But “no” is not what came out of my mouth. Nope. I tend to be a bit too much of a yes person, so the word that came out was “sure.” Saying no to the DOE just didn’t seem like a very good idea even though that is very much what I wanted to say. I should also mention here that I have developed many great connections and friends at the DOE over the past five years. I value all that they are doing in the world, and I certainly didn’t want to let them down. So I signed on.

Flash forward to three days ago. It’s Tuesday, the day before the start of the conference. My presentation was already done the week before and had been easy enough to put together. It had been informative for me, and I knew it would be for others as well. So I wasn’t stressed about the presentation. Monday and Tuesday were a busy two days for me as I had two separate architectural assignments that I had to get done before I left. This is to say that I had to be a little more focused than I have been since arriving in Vermont.

I finished working around 6PM and still needed to pack and think through all of my travel logistics. I had a very early flight the next morning in order to arrive for the start of the conference. My family, in the meantime, had made plans to go to The Wheel for dinner as it was our nephew’s best friend’s last night visiting us. I knew in my gut that I shouldn’t go with them. I needed to pack and get to bed. Inside my being was saying “no.” But that’s not what I said out loud. I said “yes.” So off to dinner we went. We had a great conversation, so no regrets… except for maybe the loaded fries or perhaps the mac & cheese.

But two hours later stress had collapsed in on me as my body was crying to get to bed and I still had to pack. Packing did not go well. Instead of a seasoned, nearly fifty year old traveler packing, imagine a petulant five year old who was up way past her bedtime trying to pack while throwing a temper tantrum. Yup, that was me. As each second ticked by I knew it meant one less second of precious sleep and my decision making faculties just tanked more and more. I was packing for two days. It should not have been that hard. I finally got my head to the pillow by 10:30 PM. My alarm was set for 2:30 AM.

I had planned out each step I needed to take when I got up so as to get out of the door on schedule. I had to do this because I knew I would be so tired that I wouldn’t be functioning well. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a morning person, and that is a slight understatement. I followed my steps like a champ, though, and as I was ready to walk out the door I made sure to kiss my half awake wife goodbye. I turned to go and was halfway to the steps when Shannon gently called out “Shelly.” I turned around. She simply said, “you are getting on a plane and will be away for two days.” This immediately pulled me into the moment. I had been running on autopilot, right up to kissing my wife goodbye. I walked back over and kissed her like I meant it.

There are things that happen in our lives that plant seeds deep within us. We may be aware of the planting when it occurs, or we may not. Either way, we have no idea when it will blossom or what it will look like. About seven years ago as Shannon and I were beginning to think about how we would next fulfill our purpose in and vision for life, we discovered this amazing place in Vermont called the Metta Earth Institute in Lincoln. When I say discovered, I mean we found it online. On a visit to Vermont, we decided one day to go check it out. We just figured somehow that it would be o.k. to just drop in, or maybe we had actually reached out to the founders Gillian and Russel and they had invited us to just stop by whenever. So we did. Unannounced. It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. I mean we knew it had a farm as an integral part of being a “center for contemplative ecology”, but I mean it was like a farm.

Do you know how hard it is to keep up with a farm on a daily basis??? They had veggies, chickens, and a cow across over a hundred acres. When we arrived we were lucky to find Russel. He was the only one there and was in the middle of his daily chores, which basically take from sunrise until past sunset. And here these strangers just showed up on his doorstep wanting to know the meaning of life, essentially. Russel is a tall man with long dreads. His being is rough and gentle at the same time, worn by nature in a beautiful way because he is fully surrendered to it. When we introduced ourselves there was a split second of “what is this???” in his eyes immediately followed by the aforementioned surrender. He could have easily said, “um, I really don’t have time for this today. Maybe you could come back some other time?” In other words, he could have said “no.” But without hesitation, he shifted his entire day with an open hearted, no regrets, no question about it: “YES!” Then he proceeded to take us on a long, slow tour of their place while telling us the entire journey of how it came into being. And, yes, all while contemplating the ways of Life. It was exactly what we needed to hear in that moment as we wondered about creating our own place to do this work in the world. Incidentally, this place is worth checking out:

https://www.mettaearth.org

But there was something more important that Russel shared with us that day. Shannon and I both felt it palpably and even noted it to each other out loud after the fact and have many times since. It felt profound, but in ways that we knew we couldn’t fully comprehend or inhabit in that moment. The gift that Russel truly gave us that day was presence. We of course quickly understood that we were disrupting his entire day and that it would have repercussions. It’s not like the chores could remain undone. We apologized for this profusely, but Russel stopped us dead in our tracks, looked us both in the eye, and made it perfectly clear that, “there is nothing more important than this right now.” And he meant it.

The years that have ensued got busy. Things have happened for us in much the way that they had happened for Russel and Gillian- by divine intervention. Or if that makes you uncomfortable, let’s say with the help of the Consciousness that is the connective tissue between us, that knows All, and therefore knows much better than each of us individually the best route forward. The place in the world that we were looking for came to us a mere two years later. It is forty acres of forest in the Green Mountains two gaps down from Metta Earth. We could get to them by hiking the Long Trail. No way should we have been able to afford forty acres. In so many ways it was more of a pipe dream, but one we were hell bent on. We have since added the Shittin’ Shanty, the Tiny Drop (our tiny house), a tent platform, a meditation platform, a solar array, a spring-fed water system, and of course the moon gate to the clearing. It is a completely off-grid haven surrounded by national forest. We love it. We will be expressing our love for it for the rest of our lives as we tend this place into a healthy ecosystem inclusive of human visitors who desperately need to relearn that we are meant to be here, that we belong here, and that we have value to add to the very nature that supports us.

In the meantime, I got another assignment. Perhaps it was my dues for my dream having come true. Yet I have never thought of it that way. I think more so that teaching at PVAMU has been part of my continued preparation in how to help realize the greater dream of inhabiting a healthy social-ecological system, which is what our mountain property is all about. What I know for sure is that it was another divine intervention, and certainly not a detour even though it did delay our move to Vermont. But, man, it got busy. So busy. I am at the end of a five year whirlwind of activity and accomplishments that should have taken twenty. I guess we didn’t have time for that. The learning has to come quickly now.

This brings me back to 3:45 AM on Wednesday, July 10, 2019. I am not quite as tired as I had anticipated. Shannon just called me to presence as I walked out the door. I am driving up Route 30 with not another car in sight. The view is absolutely gorgeous on this route with the Green Mountains to the right, the Adirondacks to the left, and quintessential rolling Vermont farms in the foreground. Only not now, because it is pitch black. I am watching for deer and other critters and sinking into the moment as I do so. Then it hits me. That seed that Russel planted so long ago comes bursting forth from the darkness. It comes as a thought. “I have nothing else to do today.” All of the tension that I felt the night before, pent up from the moment that I said “yes” to this whole thing, melted right out of me. “I have nothing better to do today.” This is exactly where I am supposed to be and I don’t have to do anything but show up and be present to the moment.

I proceeded with that sense of calm and everything went so incredibly smoothly in my travels. I arrived at the hotel, was able to check in early, drop my stuff, and walk down to the opening keynote right on time. It was magical. And then something else hit me… like a ton of bricks. The opening keynote speaker was Rick Perry. I literally felt like I had just arrived in the Twilight Zone! I hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to the details of this conference. What I knew for sure was that it was going to be a bit of a different crowd than I am used to running in. It is more geared toward the owners of big building stocks- the Hiltons and L’Oreals of the world- rather than architects and engineers. I found his speech to be utterly disturbing. I desperately searched the room to see if others were as disturbed as I was (hard to tell) or to see if I could spot any familiar faces from the DOE. No relief in sight. So I drew from my earlier realization with the thought, “there is nowhere else I am supposed to be.”

To cut to the chase, I eventually found my friends. Some of them I knew and some were new to me. My session was well-received, sparked a meaningful discussion, and created new connections. I am certain that every connection that I made throughout the conference was significant in ways that I may never know. Life works like that. That is worth repeating- life works. Life is brilliant, in fact. There is nothing more important at this very moment than to just be present to it all. Sometimes that means saying yes and sometimes that means saying no. I think the secret is to trust whichever choice you make and to be present with whatever it brings. Life will figure you out.

Independence

Have I mentioned that life is a paradox? That is to say that both this and its polar opposite that are true at one and the same time. I generally refer to this as the both/and of life. It’s one of the things about life that drives us all nuts. Here’s an example:

Independence enslaves us. 

Oh now you want me to explain myself. O.K. Here is another way of saying it:

What we resist persists.

Or how about this- it’s like studying martial arts your entire life only to finally realize that what the masters have mastered is not the art of fighting, but the art of non-fighting.

In honor of the birth of the United States of America, let’s talk independence. Now if you are an American worth your salt, when you hear independence you automatically think “freedom.” And when we hear freedom we generally think freedom from oppression, or in other words the freedom to do as we damn well please. Sounds nice, if not a bit juvenile (sorry, that was judgy and I’m working on that). I think at a deeper level what we are all (and by all I do mean all humans) seeking is the space, the ability, and the opportunity to self-actualize- to become who we truly are, to live into our full being and potential. I want that. I absolutely want that. And I want that for you too.

Now let’s get real about it. Let me just say upfront that I am an independence expert. I have pointed this out before, but let me reiterate. I learned to be independent at a very young age. Want to know my secret? Fine. All I had to do was isolate myself. If you can’t touch me, you can’t tell me what to do much less hurt me. That makes me free to be me. I don’t need any of you! I mean what on earth could be more free than that??!!

You’re not buying it, are you? Well what if I told you that my stark independence allowed me to, say, go to the college of my choosing (against my father’s wishes), change my degree track from a Bachelor of Science in Engineering to a Bachelor of Arts (without my parents’ knowledge), and switch my varsity sport (again in spite of the fact that my father thought I was a nut job)? Are you impressed now? Yes, I am also hard headed to boot. My parents didn’t have much of a choice other than to put their hands up in the air lest they be run over. I was going to do what I was going to do. Three cheers for independence!

Now you are probably savvy enough to realize that, well, I didn’t actually do all of that and then some entirely by myself. Not even close. If my parents didn’t necessarily agree with all of my choices, they didn’t rip the rug out from under me either. That’s to say nothing of all of the pomp and circumstance into which I was born and which has provided the context for my life. Time to double down on the real. I was born into an upper middle class white family in the United States of America. And it is largely because of THAT, that I have been able to live out this sense (or illusion as the case may be) of independence. Change any one of those variables, and you get an entirely different story. Granted, I am female and I am gay and those two variables come with obstacles, but still… I’m privileged.

Irony of all ironies, there is a tradition here in Vermont (one of the whitest states in the country) to read Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” the week of the 4th. As it turns out, Vermont’s whiteness is not an innocent circumstance. The state discouraged blacks from moving here through curfew laws and sterilization programs. Sorry to throw you under the bus, Vermont, but the truth shall set you free. Which, to your credit, is why in just about every Vermont town, small and large, folks get together to reconsider what exactly we are celebrating on Independence Day. We kicked off our July 4th weekend by attending the reading in nearby Castleton on the 3rd. As people from the town began to arrive the hosts asked each person if he/she would like to read. Silly me thought I was showing up to a passive listening event. 

Um, heck no, I will not be reading! I apparently forgot to wear my introvert button. Shannon too. Not that that is a valid excuse really because I speak publicly A LOT. Part of my defense, if I do have one, is that when I speak publicly I never actually read. That doesn’t work well for me because, more truth be told, I have a speech impediment and one of the surest ways to find that out is to ask me to read aloud. So I don’t read aloud. I just speak. That works better. But I digress. The bigger reason I was not about to read at this event was because even though I embarrassingly had never read the speech before, I knew there was no way in heck that I would be able to do so without getting choked up if not outright cry. And I was right about that. There was a collective oration of the end of the speech and I couldn’t even get through four words of that before I simply had to stop. Do yourself a favor and read it for yourself:

https://www.vermonthumanities.org/programs/public-programs/reading-frederick-douglass/before-your-event/speech-transcripts/

But let me get to my big thing these days. Independence, by any means, doesn’t necessarily lead to freedom. That was a sacrilegious statement, I know. But if we equate freedom with the ability to fully self-actualize, then the writing is on the wall. Why? Because we are our relationships, yet independence inherently seeks to make us free from that pesky little reality. I thought/ we think that being free from our outside conditions (relations) is the key to freedom. It simply isn’t so. Where we find ourselves is not in isolation from “others,” but by delving into them so deeply that we can no longer differentiate me from you and them from us. To arrive in that place is to realize that in fact I am ALL OF IT.  To get to that place, I am learning, requires primarily that we relinquish judgement of both ourselves and of others. Shannon and I are taking Charles Eisenstein’s mini-course called “Unlearning for Change Agents” at the moment. You can find it on his website:

https://charleseisenstein.org/programs/#courses

The course involves a series of fasts. We are on the third fast, which is a fast from self-judgement. It’s tricky. What is clear to me at this point is that even to judge myself as good (I do believe that I am a good person) only keeps me locked in separation. But we want to be good, right???? As it turns out, no, no we don’t. It hurts your head, doesn’t it? Yet the message is being reiterated loud and clear, shouted if you will, in my ear these days. I just finished the year long A Course in Miracles. Same thing. In short, it is through the relinquishment of all judgement that we are healed (self-actualized) into our full divine nature. In Zen Buddhism this is the principle of equanimity, which is simply that you can’t see all people as equal as long as judgement is a part of your M.O. Rumi said it like this: 

“Beyond the rightness or wrongness of things there is a field, I’ll meet you there.”

Notice he didn’t just call out the wrong stuff. Oh, and I thought the object was to be good. Nope. Apparently the object is to just plain be. So much unlearning to do, so little time! 

So what to finally make of independence? How about we just start with a triple dose of reality: we’re not. The end. And it will be the end if we don’t realize that we are not independent very, very soon. We all want to be free from oppression. We all want to self-actualize. That simply cannot happen as long as we continue to pretend that I can get there without each and every one of you also getting there alongside of me. Screw independence. I think that what we will ultimately find is that we will never achieve freedom (non-oppression) by resisting oppression. The only way to get there is to not participate in oppression in the first place. As Rumi pointed out, there is something beyond judgement, beyond oppression, that is much more than the negation of those things. What I want is out there in Rumi’s field. What I want is all of me. To get there requires nothing short of joining a collective interbeing. How is that for a paradox? And of course, paradoxes being paradoxes, the reverse is also true- I can’t achieve interbeing without being fully me any more than I can achieve me without fully interbeing. Have fun with that!

Speaking of fun, I had a truly amazing 4th of July weekend. Following our initiation on the 3rd, we spent our traditional long, slow day with family and friends on the 4th. There is something nice about the tradition of it. It reminds us of our collective belonging. For us that tradition starts early with a drive over the Green Mountains to Sandy’s Bakery in Rochester for breakfast and coffee. The people who work there know us and we are always happy to see each other. On this day the woman who made my coffee is an artist who I bought a painting from last year. She knows my patterns so well that she knew to track me down on my way to the bathroom to break the news to me that they were out of peanut butter for my bagel. So sweet.

Then we headed up the spectacularly scenic Route 100 to the parade in Warren. Besides the sheer whackiness of it, one of the things I love most about the Warren parade is the buddy system. Everyone purchases stickers with numbers on it with the object of finding your match, your buddy, in the crowd. People search feverishly before the parade to try to find their buddies. It’s great fun and a great way to orchestrate a huge collective sense of belonging amongst a crowd of seemingly not quite strangers anymore… even if, as it often does, your buddies remain hidden to you. You know they are out there somewhere nonetheless.

Crowd fills in

From there it is a hop back over the mountain to Carol’s family & friends picnic on their farm. Great friends, good conversations, wonderful food, a refreshing dip in the river, and the not to be missed fresh strawberry shortcake! Finally, it’s back to Lake Hortonia for our fireworks. Mind you, there aren’t any official fireworks on Lake Hortonia. Rather, there are a whole lot of pyrotechnician-wanna-be’s who get better and better every year. As the various “shows” go off around the lake it’s like watching fireworks with 3D glasses on. There isn’t a bad seat in the house, although the view was pretty spectacular this year from Jean’s place as they stepped up their game (watch out overachievers across the lake… your competition is already scheming for next year!). So having said all of that, maybe you have gathered that what made my day so special wasn’t so much independence, but community.

Friday Shannon and I started with breakfast at The Wheel Inn, which, let’s be honest, is practically like eating at home for us these days! Much tender loving care from our waitress, as usual. Then we napped before driving over the mountain again to try out The Wild Fern pizza joint in Stockbridge. We were immediately met with warmth by the owner, Heather. As we sat and slowly got around to ordering, we basically got to hear her life story, the story of her place (she’s a musician and essentially the pizza joint gives her a place to play), and just generally connect. Again, community. Connection. When you go to listen to music at a knockabout joint on the side of the road in the middle of the mountains in Vermont, I guarantee what you will witness and experience is community (love) in action.

Saturday was a lazy day at home watching a massive rainstorm come through, but wouldn’t you know, Jean and Carol coerced us into going to dinner with them at, you guessed it, The Wheel. Yes, they had to twist our arms. Not. It wasn’t until we met them there that we realized that Jean really, really needed the break and just some down time with friends. She has been building her house for the last year, had worked like mad to get it to a point that she could host her family for the 4th, only to come home yesterday from running errands to a thoroughly soaked house because not only had she left the windows open, but her front doors swung open too. Ugh. Bummer. But you know what makes it all better? Friends. And, yes, of course The Wheel!

Hubbardton Battle

That brings us to today. This morning Shannon and I went over to watch the reenactment of the Hubbardton Battle in the Revolutionary War. We watched from the adjacent Taconic Mountains Ramble State Park, one of our favorites. This is where we go to run every morning. Well, o.k., most every morning. I mean if you could go running here, wouldn’t you run (almost) every day???:

One of the great things about this park is the Zen garden that the previous owners created. So think of us passing through a Zen garden on a trail to the top of the cliffs to watch the battle from a distance. Surreal. From our perch we watched as the citizen-soldiers in homespun uniforms fought valiantly against the Redcoats, ultimately losing the battle while helping to win the war. Honestly, I didn’t know what my experience of this whole affair was going to be. First off, it did make this whole independence thing a little more real for me. I watched in reverence. Yet as I looked out over the beautiful mountains that surround this one time, memorialized for all time battlefield, all I could wonder is, “What do the mountains think?” I could almost hear them whispering, “They are at it again. Will they ever learn?”

That’s the battlefield in the distance.

Now it is very tempting to leave it there, but I have to say one last thing. After watching that battle, we went to watch a real live battle only this time on a TV, at a bar. You guessed it: USA Women’s Soccer vs. the Netherlands. Well, what else can I say, except… Go USA!

LYON, FRANCE – JULY 07: Megan Rapinoe and USA players celebrate as they lift the trophy during the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup France Final match between The United States of America and The Netherlands at Stade de Lyon on July 7, 2019 in Lyon, France. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)