Shelly

Earth

This was one of those rare years in which Easter and Earth Day kissed each other at midnight. Did you notice? I felt it. I went from writing about and celebrating our eternal nature with my family on Sunday to honoring the precariousness and preciousness of our place in this world at work on Monday. But rather than this feeling like two contradictory days, for me it felt like one long 48 hour celebration of our humanity. It was an opportunity to abide in the Both/And. Yes, we are eternal… and yes, we may well be extinct tomorrow. Somehow, these two realities- the absolute and the relative- are deeply connected. I suspect that the secret to unlocking one lies in the other. We are not accustomed to thinking about it in this way. We tend to think we have to escape the relative (embodied life on earth) to attain the absolute (heaven or a pure state of spirit). But what if the only way to truly know and experience the absolute is through relative experience? Then what?

This article by Thich Nhat Hanh, the originator of the idea of interbeing, beautifully and succinctly captures possibly everything we need to know at this moment in time. I posted this in my FB feed on Earth Day. If you read it, it’s worth a second read. I think I have read it a few times now. If you didn’t get to it, this is your chance! For all others, enjoy!!

https://upliftconnect.com/falling-in-love-with-mother-earth/

My Earth Day started with this article first thing in the morning. It was the perfect centering for a day that I knew was going to be filled with a celebration of the work that our team at Prairie View A&M has been up to over my five years here. We have been working on affordable, net zero energy, resilient infill housing solutions for low-income, minority communities in Houston. The culmination of this work is The Fly Flat project. On Earth Day, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects announced that our team won an AIA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Student Design Award. The student competition mirrors the COTE Top Ten awards for architect’s built projects. It is the highest honor in sustainable design in our profession in this country. I am humbled by the power of this work and the impact that it is having in the world.

Yet there is a misconception floating around out there about me among those who don’t understand what I am up to. I usually just let this stuff go, but I am learning that sometimes it is helpful to be forthcoming about my intentions and to set the record straight. The misconception is that I am all about the win. It’s easy enough to deduce based on the fact that my students and I have won national competitions for the past five years in a row. The explanation is that I am “competitive” and “ambitious.” Well, sort of, but not really.

I am an athlete, so I most certainly have learned how to compete to win. I have also racked up more than enough wins for one lifetime. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that winning is or has been my overarching reality. I have way more losses in my pocket than wins. It would be an even bigger mistake to think that winning is what motivates me. Win over what??? In my worldview there is only me, myself and I…. extended out to infinity. There is no winning. There is only evolving. And we either evolve together or we devolve together. That’s it.

Yesterday we had a great speaker at our PVAMU Awards Ceremony. Marlon Hall is an anthropologist and artist who talked about the most important thing behind everything that we do in life. And that is- the why. If you know me well enough or have been one of my students I have no doubt tortured you with the 5 why’s game. It’s quite easy if you’d like to try it for yourself. It goes like this. If you want to get to the bottom of something- an emotion, a pattern, a thought, an action, a turn of events, etc.- start with a simple question. Why? Answer the question with whatever knee-jerk reaction that pops up. Then invoke your inner 5 year old to ask why of your why. Repeat 5 times.

Example: 1) Why do you go to work? I go to work in order to get paid. 2) Why do you need to get paid? I need to get paid in order to put a roof over my head and food in my belly. 3) Why do you need a roof over your head and food in your belly? I will die if I don’t have a roof over my head and food to eat! 4) Why will you die? I will die because I will be exposed to the elements, nobody else is going to house me or feed me, and nobody is going to take care of me! 5) Why do you think nobody will take care of you? Because we live in a society that doesn’t believe in taking care of each other. BONUS question 6) Why doesn’t society believe in taking care of each other? Because there isn’t enough to go around and so it’s every man for himself! Survival of the fittest rules the day!!

The 5 why’s gets us to the root cause. For the most part, we continue to play into a society that doesn’t fit our values because we were taught and believe that survival of the fittest is the law of the land. It isn’t. Nature doesn’t actually work that way. Nature cooperates. But I digress. We’ll come back to that at a later date. What I want to uncover here is my why. Why do I show up in the way that I do? Marlon taught us another trick to help us to get to our why. The trick is to come up with a life motto rooted in your why. Your motto should be formatted like this:

Verb

Noun

Preposition

Noun

Before I tell you my motto, let me tell you this. I am here on assignment. We are all here on assignment. That assignment has little to do with winning and everything to do with evolving. I am consciously aware of this in everything that I do. Like Marlon, I encourage everyone I encounter to gain awareness of their own unique why. I believe that your why (yes, YOURS!) is the key to the Universe. So, you want to know why I have won so many competitions over the past five years? It isn’t because I was trying to win. I have much bigger fish to fry. It is because I am trying to save the world. I have always been trying to save the world. Most would think this naive. But I know that I won’t save it alone and that it won’t be saved without me. So I take my assignments seriously and do the absolute best that I can. Now as for that why, here you go:

Hold

Space

For

Oneness

When you see that this is what I am doing, you will understand how I do it. Easter and Earth Day won’t kiss again until 2030. That is the year by which it is believed we need to have fully adjusted the course of humanity, if not sooner. Will we? Will we by then understand enough to know that Easter and Earth Day are two sides of the same coin? If so, there is some chance that we will live to experience them as one day. That day will come in the year 2057. I hope I live to experience that day. I will be 88 years old. What is your why? Let’s go, Earthlings!

Rebirth

Tis the season, no? I certainly feel that way. I have this sense of old patterns being released, opening the door for new possibilities. Pure potential is limitless. Anything can happen. Rebirth feels like that. It’s a blank page on which any story can be written. Rebirth is embedded in life. It’s in every major life transition- change of job, home, partner, social circle, etc. It’s in the midlife crisis. It’s in the realization of a new potential. It’s in the introduction to a new perspective. It’s in a new understanding. As I close this chapter of my life, I find myself staring at a blank page and I feel free. My experience is one of, wait a minute, I am bigger than all of this that I am leaving behind. There is so much more to me. There is more to discover, explore, and throw out into the world just to see what bites. These little rebirths help us to know that things are not set in stone so much as we tend to think they are. Rebirth is the upside of change.

Of course, that implies that there is a downside to change. We call that death. Death is also embedded in life. It’s in every little loss that precedes the rebirth- the loss of your former job, former home, former partner, former social circle, former life as you knew it, former ideas about reality. I’m feeling all of that loss too. I’m not gonna lie- I’m an emotional roller coaster right now. Yet there is something so alive about being in the threshold between old and new. The intensity of the feelings on both sides of the coin are the gift of life itself. In so many ways, just to experience that is what we are here for.

Actually, death is what makes life as we know it possible. In order for life to work, it has to keep moving. Life by definition is constantly metabolizing, which is to say taking in the stuff of life (nutrients, air, water, light, heat, energy, ideas, etc.), chewing it up, incorporating it as it sees fit into itself, and giving the rest back in a form we call death (which in reality is just another name for birth). We are each a pattern of life that persists in spite of these continual interchanges. Every so often, we shift our pattern just enough to feel a rebirth. Then when we are completely done with the pattern that we chose, we give it all back. Emily Levine gave one of the best explanations that I have heard of this before she died, and in part because she is so dang funny. This is worth your time:

In large part I agree with Emily’s worldview. I certainly agree with her grace, gratitude, and sheer awe regarding the cycle of life. I also agree with her willingness to let go and give herself up to the larger forces of life, to what I would call the collective All That Is. I think we cling to self too tightly. That is what this blog is all about, after all. Where I might differ, and I don’t know because she doesn’t address this directly in this TED Talk, is that I also believe that life is fundamentally formed by Consciousness. In other words, I believe that Consciousness exists a priori matter. That is to say that matter (the material world) emerges out of Consciousness- it is a conscious decision. The alternative view is that consciousness only arises out of matter. In this worldview, your consciousness (what you identify as you) only arises out of the pattern of matter (your body) that supports you. When the latter disperses, the former goes too. I would therefore argue that determining which is a priori – matter or consciousness- is the most fundamental choice we each have to make as we try to determine what reality is. Incidentally, neither side has been proven to date. It is therefore up to each of us to decide what we believe, and therefore what is possible.

In quantum terms, I would say that the particle (matter) is a focused manifestation of the wave (energy, the field, pure potential). The thing that does the focusing (manifesting) is Consciousness. What that means to me is that when we are done manifesting a particular pattern of self, we return to the field of pure Consciousness and release the stuff of life for another aspect of Consciousness to do what it will with it. Once there we are both drop (Self/soul) and ocean (God). It may be impossible to establish where Self ends and the rest begins, but we are there nonetheless and we are free to do it (manifest some pattern of self) all over again. I would further argue that we are both drop and ocean all along even though our focusing into a pattern of matter hides that reality from us. All of this is to say that I believe that we are eternal.

Hey…. isn’t that what that Jesus fellow taught? Isn’t that what he demonstrated? Isn’t that what his resurrection was all about? Is it such a stretch to imagine that this sort of adventure is not only available to all of us, but that it is THE Adventure. Incidentally, and for the record, I believe that Jesus was God and that he is therefore eternal. Where I differ from Christianity as it is commonly taught these days is that I happen to believe that you too are God (Consciousness in my worldview). I believe that you are equal to Jesus in every sense. In a nutshell, I believe that there is nothing but God (Consciousness). The only reason that nobody I know can walk on water is that we simply don’t realize who we truly are. Warning: you can try to fake it until you make it, but I’m guessing you might get wet. Just sayin. Jesus knew who he was beyond all shadow of a doubt. He demonstrated to us not just who he is, but who we all are. I believe that he wants us to know and experience our eternal nature for ourselves. But that’s just me. We each have to decide for ourselves. There is no other way to get there than through our own experience… even if we choose to follow a well tread path (which is perfectly fine). So on this Easter weekend what I say to all is: Happy Trails!

Parades and Porches

As an introvert, it’s easy to get the feeling that I am watching from the sidelines. I am and I’m not, but because I keep a low-key profile, it’s easy to feel invisible and expendable. Then again, as I have mentioned before I don’t like being the center of attention so invisibility is often my preferred state. But it is also true that I lowkey want to be connected in a meaningful and impactful way. Time out. Did you just notice my use of the latest lingo??? I’m highkey proud of myself that this near fifty year old can understand what my students are freakin saying half of the freakin time! Of course the rest of the time I lowkey just have to look it up…

Back to my point. It’s easy to think that I could just slip out the back jack and nobody would notice. Of course this is crazy talk. We are about to slip out the back jack of Houston and what is in fact happening is everyone is freaking out. Shannon and I have in a relatively quiet way ingrained ourself into the fabric here. As a case in point, we will momentarily be heading out to our world famous Art Car Parade. This is a huge event in Houston. It would be quite easy to be an anonymous spectator in the crowd. That would be our typical m.o. at such a thing. As for art car folks, let’s just say they are more than a bit flamboyant, which is to say the opposite of us. You wouldn’t expect to find us in that crowd. And yet… there we are. We are personal friends with several of the best of them. We have even been in the Art Car Parade, as we pulled Tiny Drop through a few years ago. Today will be a huge celebration not only of the creativity and hard work that has gone into this year’s entries, but also of the network of relationships that we have cultivated here.

It’s slightly funny, because Houston is like the wild west in which autonomy is everything. Houston’s motto might as well be “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do.” Actually, the Art Car Parade is one of our better manifestations of that attitude. And yet, in this extreme quest to be different, to be unrestrained, to be free, what has in fact developed is this intense sense of community. It’s surprising, actually, that such a deep connectivity can be found in this place. Mind you, you have to work for it. But some people do. And I suppose, in a way, that makes it feel more special. There is a paradox of course in all of this. My ACIM (A Course in Miracles) lesson for today says in part this (which I am interpreting for my own digestibility):

“All things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God (the non-reductionist all-knowingness of the All that Is). It seems that we will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God’s creation (all of existence) is the way in which salvation (freedom, joy, enlightenment) is obtained. Yet all we find is sickness, suffering and loss and death. (In truth,) to join with His (the will of the All That Is) is to find our own (will, creativity, freedom).”

Let me explain. This is to say that we find freedom not by seeking independence, but rather by celebrating and cultivating our inherent interdependence. If this seems counterintuitive, think of it this way: love = connection. And there is nothing more free than the pure state of Love.

This weekend I am feeling the love. Also at this very moment the Department of Energy Race to Zero Competition is taking place at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado. My students and I have been a fixture at this competition for the last five years. We have been not so lowkey celebrities at this event having been two time champions. It’s a fierce world-class competition, but you know what… more than that it is a place in which both my students and I have developed some world-class, life-long friendships and colleagues. My two closest academic colleagues, collaborators, and really great friends who make me so happy every time I talk to them, Mary Rogero from Miami University and Jonathan Bean from Arizona, are there right now competing with their students. My students and I are not there this year, for reasons I won’t explain. Mary and Jonathan have been emphatic over the last few weeks that they wish I was going to be there and that they are going to miss me. And I know they are not alone in that. I, for one, am also missing what has become for me a great celebration of generations of people coming together to work for humanity’s salvation. Godspeed to all of those “competing” right now. I know that regardless of whether or not they walk away with a trophy, they will walk away knowing that the work that they are doing in the world is priceless.

Well that was yesterday. The brief update is that this morning Mary’s teams won first place in one division and a best undergrad project in another. My day stated with a huge smile for her and her students! That, and the fact that both she and Jonathan texted me to tell me that they could see the influence of our grand winning project from last year in many of this year’s projects. It’s not often that we get to see the impact of the work that we do. It’s especially rare to get to see it rippling out across the universe. My typical m.o. is to gloss over such things. Not today. Today, I am standing in the grace of the power of our interbeingness.

Last but not least, here is my porch story. Remember my close friends and colleagues who I left behind up at school a few weeks ago because I needed to go home for some self care? One of them is Kathleen English and another Amanda Tullos. Amanda, Kathleen, and her husband Steve Setlzer, have been the core of our green team in Houston. They are all architects, incidentally. We have had a tradition of a monthly brunch on the porch for awhile now. Today was our last brunch on the porch before we go. I so love these people. I love them for their bravery in the face of a city that doesn’t really want to change its ways. I love them for the integrity that they bring to all that they do. I love them for how much they care even though it hurts. I love them for how freakin smart they are in navigating through all landmines toward a viable future. I love them for telling it like it is. I love them for understanding that nothing matters without the cultivation of deep interconnectivity between us. I love them for the love and support that they have given me. I love them for believing in me and standing by me no matter what. I know that this is not goodbye. But it is most certainly a moment to stop and be grateful for all of the parades and porches that have bound us together in love.

Stories & Fields

We all have our stories. You know, the story about how a particular turn of events went down, which when strung together with all the rest forms the story of our life. The stories that play over and over and over again in our heads ad nauseam. Yes, I have such things. For most of my life, my stories never made it out of my head. Yet life has a way of calling us out, pulling at us, pushing on us, driving us nuts until we surrender. At least that’s how it’s been for me. There were little toe dips in the deep end in early adulthood, but any (near) complete gushing out would have to wait until much later- and even then only to a trusted few. Not that I wasn’t practicing my storytelling in the meantime, because boy was I!

One of the interesting things about stories is how compelling they are. So much so, that it would be accurate to say that we are our stories. Or more accurately, our stories are who we perceive ourselves to be. Our story is our identity. There is nothing wrong with this per se, in fact one might argue that it is a condition of being human. The same is true, in fact, for an entire group of people. Our collective story is what we call culture. It’s a bit hard to imagine living either without our own story or without a culture, nor am I sure we would want to. Our stories are how we make sense of things, how we connect the dots, how we do the most important thing that we do- to connect. To connect is to love. So from this perspective, I say by all means… tell your story.

Sharing my stories has proven extraordinarily helpful in my own personal evolution. One of the reasons is that the simple act of saying it out loud helps to bring whatever energy or patterns that a story is carrying out of the subconscious realm and into the conscious realm. Another is that sharing it with another can help bring clarity to the experience, regardless of the other person’s response or maybe sometimes because of it. Most importantly, sharing enables us to do that all important thing- connect. We find out that our experiences aren’t so outlandish, or then again maybe they are, but still not so much that it makes you seem like an alien being. Telling our story is crucial.

To not gloss over my first point about bringing the story to the conscious realm, this is what enables us to examine the energy and patterns that otherwise dominate our continued experience of life. One of the main realizations as we do this is that our personal stories have been to a large degree predetermined by the cultural story that we were born into. Maybe that is a great story, maybe not so much. Either way, what is gained by bringing it to light is your own creative powers. When we gain control over our own story, we get to write anything we want. Who wouldn’t want that??

All that is a lead up to where I find myself these days after a good fifteen years of intense storytelling, which is… tired of it. I’m tired of my same old stories. I mean really, how many dang times can you watch the same dang movie or read the same dang book?! Good grief. Enough already. There was a time when the energy of these stories demanded to be told and to be heard. Now… not so much. If you want to know these days you are more likely to get a yawn out of me! I don’t think that one situation is better than the other, just that each should have its day. I’ve already talked about why the former is important, so let’s talk about this new one.

I am actually feeling a little excited about this turn of events. My intuition is telling me that what it means is that I am ready for a new experience. It is signaling to me that actually, I am under no obligation to remain trapped in the past. Sure, my story to date has set deep patterns in my being that will likely always remain familiar to me. But all the same, I can create new patterns. I can tell new stories. I can tell whatever story I want to tell. That is my divine right. I can even tell a different story about things in the past! Think about it. We are required to edit the world as we are taking it in. Our senses simply cannot process everything that is happening. Once something is in the past, we edit even more to make sense of it, to fit it into our one, neat story of self.

The problem lies in the fact that we forget we are editing. We forget that our perspective is grossly limited in the first place. We are always only seeing an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the whole picture. Yet we have convinced ourselves that we are seeing with perfect clarity. One of the reasons that it is so important to share our stories out loud is to help both ourselves and others to gain a more complete picture of events. Of course, that only happens for us if we listen with an open mind, recognizing that there are infinite more perspectives of any turn of events. I had an interesting experience recently that brought to light that one of my ingrained stories was leaving out a whole heap of my childhood experience. This was my gymnastics story. Gymnastics set up a significant portion of my worldview, including challenges, approaches, patterns, etc. It wasn’t that my story was incorrect. It’s just that it was, well, edited. What was left out was practically all of the joy, the fun, the good times. Those stories didn’t make the edit. They only came out during my recent gymnastics team reunion. I either hadn’t told, hadn’t thought of, or had forgotten altogether some of these stories. And the fact that I had is as significant as what I had elevated to being important enough to be included in my official storyline.

You see for the book to make sense, one chapter has to flow from the next. That means that my story was going to be about trials and tribulations rather than about joy and celebration. Ugh. No wonder I am tired of my stories! And it’s not that I have to start completely over. There is some really great stuff in my book so far. Trials and tribulation, yes, but also triumph for sure. Challenging, yes, but also mystical, miraculous, and mind-blowing. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. It has been exactly what it needed to be to tell the story that I am here to tell. It’s just that maybe I need to keep working on it. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick with my edits. The truth is, I have no idea what the ending will be. I don’t know the path ahead even. I don’t know what my experience will be, what it will mean, or who it will touch. There is nothing but unknown ahead. And that’s cool. It wouldn’t be possible, though, if I hadn’t already exhausted the old stories.

This leads me to what has been in my awareness over the last couple of weeks. There is a direct link between our stories and the field that we are creating around us. You’ve probably heard about this phenomenon through concepts like we attract what we are thinking/being, we see what we expect to see, we get what we expect to get, etc. It’s all of that Law of Attraction stuff. Perhaps you’ve tried that out. Maybe you’ve had success with it, maybe not. Either way, I think the key is that it’s not just about the stories we are telling ourselves, it’s about the field that we are creating because of it. We could religiously repeat the story we are wanting to experience in our head and police any deviation from said story in our thoughts/words/actions. But I dare say that if we are working that hard at it, we aren’t really believing it. We are trying too hard. And the Field knows. We can’t hide the truth from the Field. It knows how we really feel. And besides, this overworking reveals an underlying attachment to an outcome that the Field may or may not deem to be in the best interest of our story. So we are likely to be disappointed.

So instead of trying to manifest a certain reality, these days I find myself just trying to focus on my field. What story is playing in my head from moment to moment and what sort of field is that creating around me? You get this field thing, right? It’s your personal energy field, which is inextricably and profoundly connected to the Field (everyone’s and everything’s field in totality). Really, when we think about it, the ultimate goal- at least, o.k., what I think about it- is to just be in a state of interbeing with the Field. To me, nothing really matters beyond that. Whatever happens, happens. So what? To me, this state of interbeing is joy, is love, is enlightenment. That is consistent with what the wisdom traditions say. What more could we want? I think it is important to say that this in no way rules out experience itself. It simply opens experience to a potential greater than anything we could imagine on our own. And that is really cool.

Now to be completely real about this. That just made it sound way easier than it is, or at least than I find it to be. As I am going about trying to bring awareness to my field, I am finding that it isn’t all that great these days. It certainly isn’t where I would like it to be or on par with where I know it could be based on past experiences. And I know that my experience is being subdued because of it. This week one of my students asked me gleefully how I was doing before class started. I answered honestly. “I am o.k.” He immediately shot back “Why just o.k.???” Mind you, this was one of my Ecology & Man students and they perhaps tend to think of me as their guru. Trust me, I am no guru! Nor do I aspire to be, nor do I want anyone to think of me that way ever. So an honest answer he got. I replied, “Well, that is a great question. What I am working on these days is trying to be aware of the field that I am creating, and I am noticing that I am not always doing such a great job with that. So I am working on it, but for the moment I am not doing such a great job with that!” “Oh!” he replied, “that makes sense.” “How are YOU doing?” I asked. “Stupendous!” he exclaims. “That’s great! I am so happy to hear that,” I reflect back to him. Good. So good.

This student just happens to be a quiet football player, who doesn’t say much in class, and who just days before had pulled his hamstring which was going to set him back a few weeks. I have been talking to him lately about his personal experience in football and how it has defined him for his “story of self” project for the class. The class before I had chatted with him afterward about his injury and encouraged him to give it time and space to heal. I would like to think that just the fact that he had been heard and seen and not simply dismissed for a dumb jock led him to this moment of sincerely asking me how I was doing. And, I think he appreciated my honesty in return. I think it helped him to see that I am human just like him. This is how our stories connect us. This is how we weave our collective story. And, I believe, this is how we will change our field of possibility. This is how we will create a viable future for humanity- one story at a time. The trick is to not get so caught up in the story that we don’t notice the field that it is creating. In short, I am thinking that my best bet is to focus on my field first, from moment to moment, and just let my story tell itself. We’ll see how it goes!

This Place

It’s all so much easier when we are on vacation. Right??? I think maybe because our week in Big Bend was so in tune, this week by contrast felt like a disaster. It wasn’t, but that sure didn’t keep me from feeling like it was. The truth is that it was a mixed bag, just like just about every other week in life. There was some not so fun stuff, some o.k. stuff, some comical stuff, some infuriating stuff, some good stuff, and even some great stuff. Yet my state of being was brutal regardless of any of it. My best guess is that I finally crashed into the full realization that this phase of my life is ending. We are moving on. While that is super exciting, there is also a mourning that will have to take place… which I have been avoiding.

But with spring break having come and gone, the mad dash is now on. We are down to two months. There is not only an overwhelming amount of work and details that we need to take care of, there is also all of the emotions that are going to express themselves by hook or by crook. I found myself this week not even being able to deal with my self. So I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, got quiet, did a lot of self care (new skill!), and didn’t give myself a hard time about anything. Basically, I just gave myself space to be a mess. Internally anyway. Nobody who encountered me this week would have known I was a mess, with the sole exception of Shannon. And even at that, I tend to want to go through these moments alone and this week was no exception. I just need to sit with myself.

So let’s see, what can I tell you after a week of sitting with myself? The first thing I can say for sure is that my state of being definitely determines how I experience life. For example, on Monday something that should have been cause for joy and celebration barely moved me at all. As the week wore on this remained true although by simply being a witness to the phenomenon, I was at least able to register the good stuff like positive feedback, music that moves me, and a beautiful day. I have to say that the moment that began to break the ice came unexpectedly mid week. I had forgotten that a few of my professional colleagues were coming to campus for a Women in Architecture event that I was also supposed to take part in. I was reminded of the fact by the student organizer a half hour before the event was set to start.

It was a speed meeting sort of thing for our female students to meet as many female architects as possible- which is awesome. The plan in my head prior to this realization was to get the heck out of dodge as soon as studio was over and go home for some self care. I was dealing with the change in plan o.k., even though it required me to ignore the fact that I was not feeling well physically. As I headed to the event, two of my colleagues were already there and the other arrived shortly afterward. Now here is the important thing to know about this- these aren’t just three colleagues, they are actually three very close friends. One of them was my classmate at Princeton and my roommate during grad school. Two others have been our partners in crime on the green scene in Houston for many years, and our relationships transcended professional bounds a long time ago. All three are people who know me very well and have supported me in all ways. I didn’t let on to them that I was a mess either. We just chatted as normal prior to the start of the event. Then it turned out that the event didn’t need me because we had gotten enough outside architects to talk to our students- which was great. Without a single moment of hesitation, I decided to head home for that self care. I said my goodbyes to each of them and was off.

It wasn’t until I was driving away that I realized that just seeing the three of them had made a difference. A pang of sadness hit me that I wouldn’t be hanging out with them, catching up, definitely laughing, and maybe even going to a spontaneous dinner later. Of course the pang was intensified by the realization that we will soon live 2,000 miles away and doing such things are suddenly not quite so easy. But you know what? I just let it be. The truth was, I needed the self care. And instead of being sad about it, I was happy just for the opportunity to unexpectedly be in their presence even if for only a moment. Just that one moment made me realize that I am in no way alone in the world. In fact, I am surrounded by an abundance of people who love me, even when they may not be in my presence or in my awareness. It also brought to my attention that we will need to make space to spend time with friends before we go! That hadn’t even registered on our massive to do list yet.

Thank God the end of the week has been beautiful here, because you know something else- beautiful days just help. The Universe was so kind to me that It actually locked me out of my classroom yesterday, forcing me to take my class outside. How awesome is that?! I always loved it when a professor would take us outside on a perfect spring day. It was just what the doctor ordered. As for today, I mixed a little self care with some of that to do list. I don’t teach on Fridays, but instead use them to catch up on my professional work. I had an unusual opening in my schedule this week though, so I decided I was going to dive into our yard work and enjoy the beautiful weather in the process. We have put a ton of tender loving care (aka work) into this house, yard included. But not having spent summers here for the past five years, it had gone almost completely wild (seriously) and we have been slowly working to tame it.

This is another one of those emotional goodbye moments for me, because our yard was our big permaculture project of nine years ago. We transformed the front yard into organic shaped beds to grow our veggies, installed a drip irrigation system, and planted numerous fruit trees: satsuma, meyer lemon, star fruit, fig, papaya (long gone), and another that hasn’t produced anything so I can’t even remember what it is. The above photo is what it looked like right after we finished the initial install. The back yard has a spiral herb garden, a banana grove, peach trees, and a grapefruit tree. One of the peach trees is right outside of our kitchen window and is always gorgeous. We are hoping the peaches make it in time for us to enjoy them one more time. The rest of the back yard is xeriscaped with rocks. Shannon built the coolest trellis structures, one to support vines right outside our master bath, and the other to provide cover over the deck off of the master bedroom, which I imagine one day might support grape vines. It is all still a work in progress as we are moving toward at least somewhat completing the vision.

What I hope is that the future owners of this home thoroughly enjoy all of the love that we have put into it. I hope they love taking baths surrounded by vines outside the picture windows. I hope they love their feet being massaged by the rocks that form the floor of our walk in shower. I hope the kitchen- cabinetry, finishes, appliances and all- enriches their everyday lives. I hope they love the wood floors throughout, especially since we had to replace them twice! I certainly hope they appreciate their lower energy bills thanks to the high performance systems we have installed, not to mention me making Shannon crawl on her knees for days as she sealed the sill plate to the foundation. She seriously thought I was nuts… at the time. I would love for the new owners to continue using the meditation room as such, but that is too much to ask. Putting as much as we have into this house was never the smart thing to do. Any financial advisor would have strongly discouraged what we have done. But I just can’t. I can’t be with a place and not do everything within my creative powers to make it the best place it can be. If we aren’t here to make the world a more beautiful place, then what on earth are we doing???

I knew when we started all of this work that this day would come. I actually thought it would come sooner than it did. For me, it was an act of love from the get go. I knew that as much as we were doing it all for us, we were doing it for the next family that will live here. This house has seen its share of troubles. It has not just been an act of physically transforming it, but also energetically transforming it. The latter has been harder. I would swear that the three (yes 3), internal flooding incidents that this house has had in the past 12 years were it doing my crying for me. So as you might imagine by now, I have regarded the transformation of my self to be one with that of my house. That we will be passing this on a happy place is testament to what is possible and what is still yet to come. There is a whole world out there. But we will only ever transform it one place, one heart, at a time.

Abnoba in Big Bend

I didn’t come to want to be an architect in the usual way. It wasn’t about slick modern buildings, The Fountainhead, or even any of the timeless architectural masterpieces of our civilization. I didn’t discover architecture in a city, even though I grew up in one and became passionately dedicated to understanding and evolving our predominant settlement pattern. In fact, long before I set my sights on becoming an architect, the very first thing that I ever wanted to be was a Park Ranger. Want proof? Here you go:

That’s me in the Ranger’s hat on the right. This was taken at Yellowstone circa 1978 ish. As you can see, I’m ready to take on the world. It’s a good thing, because I’m needing that moxie right about now.

I discovered architecture before I even realized that I had discovered it… in another national park. My profession might mistakenly consider it more artifact than architecture, but the epitome of architecture for me is represented by Mesa Verde. When I first visited Mesa Verde- around the same age as the above photo- I was instantly mesmerized. What touched me deeply was this sense of humans being at home in the world, of the possibility of building a home that was fully integrated with nature. This is what inspired me to become an architect. Never seen it? Here is a photo I took about ten years ago:

I’ve been chasing the dream of Mesa Verde for what feels like a long time now. It is a difficult challenge for a culture and a settlement pattern (the city) that is so very removed from nature. While I’ve spent nearly 50 years growing up in, studying, and working on what our Vermont friends call “The Belly of the Beast” (aka Houston), my home has always been elsewhere. I come by it naturally. My grandfather on my father’s side was a mountain guide in the Colorado Rockies in his younger years. He passed his love of the mountains along to my father. Meanwhile my mother’s family loved the lakes of Minnesota and so they spent their summers in a little cabin on Martin Lake just north of her hometown of St. Paul. As for us, we spent our summers camping mostly near Durango, Colorado, but clearly visiting various parks throughout the country.

These days I find my home in my wife’s home state of Vermont. Perhaps not surprisingly, we have nested a home in the mountains and a home on the lake. I know my grandpas Roy and Sox are looking down smiling the biggest smiles. They would so love these places that I get to call home. Soon they will be home permanently. We couldn’t leave Texas, however, without visiting one of the most phenomenal national parks in the country- Big Bend.

So as I was saying, I am a mountain, forest and lake sort of person. Deserts- not so much. Same for Shannon. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Seven hikes combined for 22 miles and several scenic drives later I can say expect the unexpected. Every single hike was completely different from the other. Each landscape was surreal in its own unique way. It brought me back to this deep sense of how sacred this planet we call home really is. If you haven’t noticed in awhile, slow down and take a look. Please. I’m asking nicely. In Big Bend the wind roars its command while the rain, when it comes, pitter patters the gentle reminder that it has not forsaken us.

Species upon species have called this place home, humans included. Many are extinct. For now I am convinced that only a few roadrunners, two deer, and one jackrabbit (who we saw four times) live there. Big Bend is a reminder that the fate of a place can change radically, from sea to wetland to volcano to mountain to desert. Transformation is the law.

It will be impossible for us to find our home in the world again if we don’t get back in touch with it first. That is why it is so incredibly important to get out into nature. Not to mention, it’s humbling. I have a case in point for your entertainment. On the fourth day we were tired from the previous three days of hiking and therefore decided to take the scenic drive out to the adjacent State Park. There was a short hike called Closed Canyon that we were interested in seeing to boot. The drive and the hike were well worth it. Breathtaking! We had not paid enough attention to the map before we started the hike though. I had mistakenly thought that the hike through this canyon would land us at the Rio Grande at the other end (it wouldn’t). Then all of a sudden we ran into a pool of murky water with a steep slope on one side and a slippery slope on the other. It was an impasse that we had not anticipated.

We joined a rock climbing gym last fall and have enjoyed bouldering, although we are quite the novices and haven’t taken any lessons. Mostly, we just marvel at other people gracefully moving across the wall as if they are lovingly slow dancing with the “rock.” That’s what being at home in nature should look like- a dance. But when I am bouldering, it feels more like a fight for survival! In the gym it doesn’t bother me because there is a mat underneath and I am quite adept at falling onto mats from certain heights. Shannon was intrigued enough by the situation before us that she decided to put her new bouldering skills to the test. It would require climbing in a sideways direction with the first section looking something like a V9 at the gym. In other words, it really was just a slippery slope with not much to hold onto. Mind you, we are still struggling with the V3’s. But if you could make it past that first little section then it looked much easier. There were things to hold onto. Shannon made it across with flying colors. She made it look easy even. I told her to go scope out the next section to see if this was just an anomaly in the trail. She did and reported back that there was no more water and it appeared to go on. She came back across with equal ease.

I, however, was honestly terrified. It wasn’t that the fall was any further than at the gym. It was that there was murky water at the bottom that I imagined a snake might be living in (which may have in and of itself been irrational). I might also mention that I am a good deal shorter than Shannon and therefore don’t have as much reach. I almost walked away, but then was so disappointed to not get to the Rio Grande that I made myself give it a try. Shannon stood on the crevice under me to help support me through the tough section. I made it across! Not gracefully, mind you, but I made it. Then we took the few steps forward to the next drop off that Shannon had scoped out. I immediately saw that there was no way in hell that we would be able to get back up the next drop if we went down… nothing but slippery slope. Then looking further around the corner I saw that there was another drop into a waterway that Shannon hadn’t seen. We were, in fact, at the end of the trail (which had we bothered to fully read the map at the beginning of the trail we would have realized). Well, chalk it up to our first real bouldering experience in nature (although I had vowed I would never do such a thing). Now there was nothing to do but go back.

That’s when the problem set in. Shannon went first and had no problem. I, on the other hand, well… how should I put this. Let me just describe the scene. Imagine me sprawled out in an x position on my belly facing a steep, slippery rock with Shannon scrambling to get back under me as I am slowly sliding down the rock. She yells out “Get a grip!” O.K., well, she didn’t actually say that. She said “find your grip.” But she might just as well have said the former. In a full fledged panic, and I do mean complete out of control I am going to die panic, I yelled back “I don’t have a grip!!!!!” That much was obvious I suppose. Fortunately, she got her own footing in time to catch me and not go sliding down herself. She was then able to support me- freaked out as I was- through the rest of it. While my life wasn’t in any real danger, feeling like it was in that moment reminded me how tenuous life is. Vulnerability is a powerful teacher. And sometimes, quite the comedian. We’ll be laughing about this for the rest of our lives. I don’t reveal this often, but there is a tender reality in the heart of this prickly pear.

On another day we drove out to Terlingua, the tiny knock about town just outside of the park. There is a ghost town there that just happens to have 58 residents, go figure, and a coffee shop (thank God!). Oh, and, an art gallery. We had to stop in. The artist in residence initially seemed like she would let us be, but quickly decided to be conversational instead. She started off by informing us that she always tells visitors that if something speaks to you, the time to buy it is right now. Alrighty then. We browsed around knowing that we hadn’t come to buy art. After perusing the entire one room gallery, the last thing we came to was a stack of her paintings. As we flipped through we both saw it, but kept right on flipping without mentioning it. Then Shannon went back to this painting and read the description on the back. The artist insisted that we pull it out and take a closer look, so we obliged.

The artist, Lori Griffin, proceeded to explain that she had painted a series of goddesses over a sleepless two month period after a loved one had passed away last fall. The goddesses had visited her one by one. Let me start by saying that I am not really a goddess sort of person either, as strange as that may sound. When it comes to resonance with archetypes, I tend more toward the masculine in nature. For example, two years ago we were in Costa Rica on a retreat to celebrate my best friend Micki’s 60th birthday at Mystica, a retreat center run by another Lori, our good friend and Reiki Master Lori Myles-Carullo. (Incidentally, I highly recommend this place!) One night we each pulled cards from a deck of archetypes. I pulled Green Man… alongside a card labeled “existence”. Made perfect sense. Green Man is the ancient spirit representing the birth and rebirth of man from nature. Yes, that resonated with my state of being.

Shannon isn’t into goddesses either. Yet there was something about this one that stopped us in our tracks. The first thing was that she was translucent. And she was in a forest. And you could see the forest through the trees, I mean goddess. Shannon asked about that. Lori explained that this goddess was very hesitant to show herself. She gave only small, elusive glimpses at first. Lori sensed that she kept herself invisible for her own protection and survival. When she finally did fully appear to her, even then she remained translucent. Nor did she seemingly say anything, at least not to Lori. Lori simply painted what she saw. I just listened quietly at first. Then I took over the questioning.

What is this orange in the background? Lori began explaining to me how she had applied the orange paint. No, no, what does it represent? I mean… the forest is on fire! Oh, yes, she says. This goddess is all about the elements: water and wood (trees) specifically, but also stones and fire. This was a mountain scene, even though it isn’t readily apparent in the painting. Then she goes on to explain that she later discovered that there is a goddess such as this in the Celtic tradition. Her name is Abnoba. She was worshipped in the Black Forest region of Germany. She is the protector of woods, springs, rivers and wild animals. Ah. And this butterfly in her hand? Transformation. Yes, of course. The world is on fire and this goddess is serenely, silently standing there holding out transformation with not a care in the world. Well, I said, “we have to buy it.” You can fill in the rest. Here it is:

Spring Break!

Gone camping! We are off to Big Bend for a week in the wilderness. In my absence, I’ll give you the words of some wise people: Mark Nepo, Susan David, and Charles Eisenstein. Enjoy! I will be back next week with adventures from Big Bend!

First up, a poem by Mark Nepo. This beautifully captures what interbeing is all about.

Beneath All Trouble, Oneness

When I saw the wheelchair man
with spindly limbs twist his neck to the sun,
I wanted to take the newborn from the blanket
and put her in his hands.
 
And when the blind woman knelt at the stoplight
to hug her dog, I wanted to embrace everyone
who ever showed me an inch of truth.
 
There is less and less between heart and world.
In the morning, I am sure
this is a deep blessing.
By night, it seems a curse.
 
In time, our pains in being here
crack open into a soft wonder
that on one owns.
 
I notice everything now, and more,
I am everything I notice.
 
Like one who suddenly sees while staring,
I now know love, though I have been loving.
 
To watch the sun rim your face,
your head in my lap, while small birds sing-
I could have died there on that bench,
but want so much to live.

Next up, a TED Talk by Susan David that is a great follow up to last week’s post “The Zone.”

Last, but not least, an interview with Charles Eisenstein which explains what the new story of interbeing is all about.

The Zone

To be perfectly honest, I had such a rough week that I didn’t have time to wonder what I might blog about. Typically something starts brewing in my head at some point during the week, but this week just didn’t lend itself to that. I was that much under the gun. Then yesterday morning the above diagram came across my FB feed via a page I follow called Unify. Immediately it provided a common thread through everything that this week brought across my path. So to the zone we go!

Let’s start at home base in the comfort zone. Aaaaah… comfort. This week was not at all comfortable for me. I wasn’t the only one. I associate comfort with being at ease. It’s a carefree, worry-free space. It’s feeling safe and secure. It’s not just knowing that everything is going to be o.k., but sensing it experientially. To me, and I think for many people, this state of being seems like a prerequisite to happiness. And for that reason alone, we are highly motivated to stay within the bounds of our comfort zone. The comfort zone tends to get a bad wrap, right? The above chart paints it in the alternative light of fear avoidance. While that motivation is equally true, I think it’s helpful to recognize the both/andness of the comfort zone. Why, after all, should we not be comfortable in life??

I have to insert here that I am highly motivated to seek happiness at this moment in my life. This comes at the heels of a long period (many years) of sober reflection about the state of humanity and who and how I need to be in relation to that. It has not been fun. I miss light and carefree. I do know that state. I’m willing to bet that a lot of people feel the same, feeling exhausted from whatever has been holding the focus of your concerns be they sociological, political, economic, environmental or all of the above. It’s easy to arrive at a place of, well, nevermind. As in never let me bring that to mind because it disturbs my peace. And I can’t do anything about it any way so there is no point worrying about it. This is how our status quo is upheld. Less through conscious assertion and more through subconscious omission.

I find myself questioning if and how I can hold an honest view of the state of humanity such that I show up to it with integrity, while also abiding in a state of happiness. I have an inkling of an idea that figuring out how to do this is critical to any viable path forward. I’m trying. When I get it figured out, you’ll be the first to know. Of course I know that it is the trying itself that stands in my way, but that’s a whole other story that I’ll leave for another time. For now, I will say that I do think that happiness is tied to a profound sense of comfort. Profound, however, is the operative word, which is to say that there are different levels of comfort.

The lowest level of comfort is the bubble to the left in the above diagram. The bounds of this version of comfort is very much dependent on that which has been given us. That is to say that it requires us to accept without question our society and our given identity and role within it. We hardly made any of this up. Neither did our parents or elders. But somebody did, and the rest of us have just accepted it as a given. To question the given is to leave the comfort of your place within it. This. is. Not. Comfortable. So much so that while all of us test those waters, most of us learn to leave them well enough alone. In this sense, what holds us in place ranges from pangs of discomfort to existential fear. Leaving this comfort zone in a very real way threatens our survival, given that our survival is – whether in this country we like to admit it or not- dependent upon our social relations.

I currently have the responsibility of walking my students up to the edges of their comfort zone in order to bring its boundaries to consciousness. While I always proceed with this work delicately, this week brought me face to face with how fragile our worldview and accompanying identity is, and therefore how scary it is to question it. As I looked across the room to the end of the table I could see the sheer terror on one of my student’s faces. She was able to verbalize that everything that she believes in was being challenged and she just needed to be quiet. I, along with everyone else in my class (which I was quite proud of), went out of our way to assure her that she is safe. For as scary as it is, we are profoundly safe. Yet that isn’t readily apparent. What also isn’t apparent is that questioning our boundaries doesn’t mean that everything within them is wrong. What I find oh so important as we help ourselves and others to break free from old constraints is to point out that our ruling perspective isn’t wrong, but simply limited. To be clear, the thing that might help us to transgress our boundaries is the realization that we could understand and experience more of what we are already seeing and experiencing, more of who we are. The transgression doesn’t have to be a revolt. It might more fruitfully be a simple act of wonder.

Fear is powerful. It manifests in all of the ways represented above and then some. It can get ugly. We can get ugly when it takes hold of us. I can’t imagine living in this zone, but certainly some do. When somebody is operating from this state, it is difficult to know what to do. The best I can figure is to recognize it for what it is and don’t get sucked in. Just hold space for other states of existence, other zones, to emerge for that person. Maybe some day they will. Maybe they won’t. But either way, it does no good for another person to get stuck there with them. Patience, forgiveness, and wisdom are key here. It is also o.k. and fully appropriate to sometimes just walk away. We are as adults each ultimately responsible for our own growth. Our real job is to be aware if we are ourselves operating from fear and to make adjustments if so. This is no place to hang out. I’m needing to keep this front and center in my awareness at the moment. My life has me in full training mode on this front as well.

Yet the real question is can we move through all of the above levels while maintaining a state of comfort. That is what I mean when I ask if it is possible for me to show up to our challenges full on while maintaining a state of happiness. Our knee jerk reaction is that comfort equals stasis and growth requires discomfort. From one perspective, yes. Moving beyond our boundaries means stepping into the unknown. It’s hard to imagine feeling any sense of comfort there. Yet is there another perspective? What if we could embrace the mystery of the unknown? Then would it feel uncomfortable? Then would it feel scary? Or might it instead feel exciting, enriching, invigorating… dare I say fun? In fact I think it does and I think everyone has had some experience through which to relate to this alternative view. I also think that there are some people for whom this is their m.o. I envy such people, in a good way.

Applying this thought specifically to my life and my dilemma, what I see is that I don’t know what is going to happen to humanity. I don’t even know what is going to happen to me next! There are some likelihoods of course, but then life is full of surprises. That is the very nature of life- spontaneous emergence (some other time 😉 ). All it means is that anything can happen at any time. I will say, however, that what happens is very much tied to what we believe can happen. You know what Billie Jean King says- “You have to see it to be it.” When I coached I often used this principle with my players. I would tell them that if they wanted to be a college hockey player or a national team hockey player or whatever, then the best bet is to start behaving like you already are. Start carrying yourself like such a player does, training like such a player does, eating like such a player does, thinking like such a player does, etc. We are very powerful. We visualize the future into existence. Our problem is that we don’t realize that we are doing this and therefore keep reenacting our old limitations.

Step one is therefore to realize that we are creating our own realities. This is what the process of challenging our comfort zone is all about. Until we do that, we stay stuck in our old limitations. This work comes with the realization that who we are was made up by somebody other than ourselves. It was given us. Moving beyond our comfort zone is to move from acceptance of the given to acceptance of our creative powers. It is to reclaim the full possibility of ourselves, which I would claim is unlimited. It sure doesn’t seem that way though! How do we access this realm of pure potential? Now we are talking! This is what we call “the zone.” This is a very different zone that the comfort zone. “The zone” I am talking about now is the one that athletes, musicians, artists, and geniuses talk about when they describe something flowing through them as if it is coming from somewhere else. Well it is coming from somewhere else. It is coming from the extended realm of pure potential. Some call this universal consciousness, or universal intelligence, or the field, or the All That Is, or just plain God. You are a drop in that ocean, and therefore you have access to it. When you access it, you are in the zone. This is how we reach beyond old limitations.

What is scary about the current state of humanity is that we are a mess! Good grief, are we a mess. Fear is rearing its ugly head without abandon. We are so extraordinarily uncomfortable as limitations close in on us that we are clinging tightly to any old boundaries that we believe might return us to a sense of safety. None of this will work. The only way forward is… forward. It is easy to react to our predicament by operating from a place of fear, but what if we instead operated from a place of wonder? What if we met the observation of the failure of the old boundaries of our comfort zone (who we are) not as a threat, but as an opportunity? What if we leaned into the field of unlimited potential to become more of who we are, rather than less? This is how I, and many, many others, are choosing to interpret this moment in our history. Does it mean that we are for sure going to evolve to a higher state? No. We might just as easily devolve into a lower state, or no state at all. Yet that choice is fully up to us. And while that realization is daunting, it is also really, really cool.

But I don’t want to leave it there. In order to get to any future state, I have to show up in some viable way on a daily basis. It isn’t sustainable for me to be in a constant state of pressure or fear. I need to be comfortable in my skin in my everyday life. I need to get back to happiness. Even more so, I need to abide in the more profound state of joy. I need to do this while staying square in the knowledge of what is. Blinders will not get me to a higher state. Yet neither will staying stuck in the problems. I need to see through to potential. I need to see it to be it. We all do. Joy comes from a deep sense of knowing that we are all of it already. We are already all Olympians. We are already all enlightened beings. We are already the higher state we seek. That being the case, what on earth is there to not be joyful about? Our old crappy selves are a thing of the past. Soon. Very soon.

Dance

I thought it might be fun (I use this word loosely) to take you on a sampling of a week in the life of me:

Sunday: Reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and feeling overwhelmed by this knowingness that the only thing that is going to save us from extinction is a fundamental shift in worldview.

Monday: Still feeling overwhelmed if not a bit helpless about the state of humanity and therefore not overly excited to face and rally my students with a sense of hope. I get through it.

Tuesday: Still not feeling it. My daily A Course in Miracles lesson pisses me off, because I feel that the way that the lesson is stated is counterproductive if not just off altogether relative to how I am understanding our predicament. My brain races into thoughts that I should just give it all up… teaching, blogging, fighting in any way whatsoever. I’m sure that’s what all of the wisdom traditions would have me do- stop fighting. Then right off the bat as I walk into school a student chases me down with begging questions. You know- the big questions… about life. Actually, he is not one of my students. Yet as many students have, he heard about me and sat in on one of my classes in which we work on this very issue of shifting our worldview. He desperately wanted to talk to me about Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, and such. O.K., God. Fine. I’ll talk. And talk we did for a good half hour, right there at the top of the stairs, about the depths of life. Then I immediately got thrown into a grand opening in which we all pretended that our new fabrication center is fully functional when it is far from. My heart breaks every time I have to face how severely we underserve students who have been underserved their entire lives. Yet the day ends on a high note as my students, Shannon and I meet with a passive house builder who is interested in helping us to implement our net zero home for low-income communities in Houston.

Wednesday: A meme with a dancing 3 year old girl makes me smile deeply and warms my heart.

Thursday: First thing when I get to school I check what the discussion is that day for my class. It’s evolution day. Uh-oh! I have to get my game on. This is always one of the most animated days in class. It was awesome. I absolutely love giving students permission to say what they really think, to talk it out with them, and to watch light bulbs going off when they begin to understand that there are different ways to see things than how they have been presented to us in the past. From there I walked into a major review for my design studio. It was a fairly large fail for my students- they aren’t where they should be. Five years ago I would have blown a gasket. Not now. Instead, the outside reviewer (who happens to be a close friend and ally) and I, turned it into a perfect failure… the kind that leaves the students understanding what they can really do and what impact they will have because of it. It was awesome. My day ends with a meme of a dancing 5 year old girl that makes me smile deeply and warms my heart.

Friday: It’s a full day on the run, doing my dance in the world. The first meeting of the day is in town to work with the City and potential community partners to bring that net zero, low income housing to fruition. Then it’s a race across town for a meeting with my client and the contractor for a building I am working on. Yes, I still have my own architectural practice in the midst of all of this. The day ends with me swearing in Houston traffic as I am trying to get to Shannon and Sara, the goalie mentioned in my “Friendship Guide” post, who was here visiting for a few days. A tasty dinner and good company settled me down.

Saturday: I’m tired, but Shannon and Sara convince me to go to the rock climbing gym with them nonetheless. Something about struggling my way up the wall makes me feel like I can do it, whatever it is.

I could go into more depth about any one of these things or any of the million other things that crossed my radar and provoked me this week, but you know what I am going to choose today? Dance! Because sometimes in life, you just have to dance. So just for fun, this is going to be my history of dance. I mean specifically the history of me dancing.

As a young girl, you would not have caught me boldly dancing with abandon in front of a camera, or in front of anybody for that matter. I was a shy kid. Being the center of attention was not, and is still not, my thing. Of course these days I am at the center quite a lot- teaching, public speaking, running meetings, managing projects, etc.- and I am fortunately at ease there, but that took a lot of practice. You might imagine that not wanting to be the center of attention was a bit of a problem for a gymnast. It was. Gymnastics forced me to start facing my shyness early on. It forced me to start dancing, in public. I hated that part of it. I hated competing in general for the same reason. The way that I dealt with it was to just get through it… with as little motion or expression as was physically possible. It was like saying to the judges and spectators, “We all know that I have to do this routine, so I am just going to do it in the least interesting way possible so that you either won’t watch or maybe will only watch with complete disinterest.” That worked pretty well for me. I mean it worked well for the outcome I was after. It did not produce good scores!

In the meantime, when I was alone and sure that nobody was watching, I would ham it up. The truth was that I rather enjoyed moving my body (still do). I just didn’t like people watching me move my body (still don’t). My mom would occasionally catch me and with complete exasperation exclaim, “Why don’t you do that at the gym???!!!” But I just couldn’t. I was so bad at the expressive side of gymnastics that my mom signed me up for real ballet lessons. Gymnasts do a certain amount of dance lessons within the context of their training, but that clearly wasn’t working for me. So she took me to a retired ballerino from the Houston Ballet. Because I did have some skills from gymnastics, I was put into a class of actual aspiring ballerinas. Yikes. One day this danseur noble was teaching us a new sequence. Somewhere in my focus on just trying to get it right so that I didn’t stick out, I lost myself in it. Then suddenly, I caught him out of the corner of my eye excitingly waving his arms in the air. Then I noticed the most frightening thing ever- everyone else had stopped dancing and they were staring at me. He was waving his arms at me. I was mortified. I immediately froze. That prompted him to put his hands on his head and exclaim, “Why did you stop???? You were the only one doing it right!!!” Oh. Who knew???

Nobody knew for a very long time. Except for perhaps my mom, that is. She would tell my coaches, but they certainly did not believe her. While the ballet lessons were phased out, dance lessons continued in the gym. My favorite was from a jazz dancer. She introduced us to isolations, in which you isolate each part of your body so that you can move it independently and with a greater range of motion. It is challenging. I was intrigued. I spent quite a lot of time practicing those isolations at home in front of the mirror. Of course nobody knew that, because they never saw me use my newfound freedom of movement. That is, not until one fateful day…

It was summer and time to have our new floor routines choreographed. The year was 1984. I was fourteen. Step one is picking the music. My music had always been the most conservative (stiff) thing that we could come up with. We had again found just such an option for me. Yet in the privacy of my own room I had fallen in love with the basketball theme music for the LA Olympics. It was jazzy. Quite. It resonated with me so much that I did something crazy. I took it to my coach and asked him if I could use it. He looked at me like I was nuts. But something in me wasn’t going to back off. He finally agreed that we would cut two options for my music and let the choreographer decide which to use. I agreed with that plan.

We had taken a team trip to Austin to work with this really good choreographer. It was an all day affair with each of us waiting in the lobby of the gym while she worked with us one at a time. It was finally my turn. I felt her sizing me up as I walked across the empty gym to meet her and my coach at the floor. As I arrived she looked me over one more time for good measure. My coach explained to her the situation and steered her toward the conservative music. She listened to both and then without hesitation stepped onto the floor and said “Do this.” It was a tuck jump to straddle landing followed by a knee and shoulder shimmy thingy. Shit. What had I done? She knew. She had my number and she wasn’t about to let me off of the hook. There was only one thing I could do. I obliged. Perfectly. Her response: “Thought so. We are going with the jazzy music.” Then she proceeded to choreograph what was a very jazzy routine for that day and age, as my coach watched in complete bewilderment.

Unfortunately I never got to compete that routine. I never got to that moment of revealing what I had been hiding all along. I blew out my knee instead, effectively ending my career. But I never stopped loving to dance. No one ever suspects it. On the rare occasion that someone gets to see me really move, shock is always the response. Here is a fun little case in point. I was pretty straight laced when I started college. I had never been the partying type. So much so that I didn’t drink much or go out very early on in my college career. My freshman year I mostly only went to hockey team social functions. At one such event, for whatever reason, the music moved me to dance. Hip hop was our music of choice. Shocked, one of my teammates blurted out what became my (primary) hockey nickname: Shellmaster Flash. It was like my secret super hero identity, the superman to my Clark Kent. My super power: dancing. It was fitting and it stuck. This past summer Grandmaster Flash played the Princeton reunions. Alls I am saying is, me and my namesake resonated. He could see me and he knew. At the end we gave each other a high ten and embraced our fingers for an extended moment of mutual appreciation. Sometimes, people, you just have to dance.

Attachment

So I kind of had to throw some theory in my last post “Human Things” to talk about what I want to talk about next. In general, my intent is to always talk from an experiential perspective, it’s just that my experience is highly informed by stinking thinking! So to give insight into what I grapple with requires sharing what I am thinking about from time to time. I think (see???) what I am going to do is label posts that are strictly theoretical with a “Rated T” at the top. That way you know what you are in for and can either skip it or more easily refer back to it later. It’s also my intent to keep theoretical posts well spread out so as not to overwhelm.

O.K., now about attachment. Let me just be blunt. I love attachment! I mean I get attached. If you think I was attached to that umbrella, do I have some stories for you! Take my shoes for instance. Anyone who knows me well knows how I love my shoes. Yet I’m not one of those people with a closet full of shoes. Oh no. I only need my favorites. My normal rotation at the moment includes 3 pairs of dress shoes and 1 pair of casual sneakers. Yes, I have other shoes in both categories, but I only ever wear the ones that I am attached to (aka, my favorites). And I will wear them until they are worn out. It’s not that I don’t want new ones, it’s that having to retire one of my favorite things makes me so sad. And frankly, I am a creature of habit so I am pretty much only going to have 3-4 shoes in my rotation at a time. That means adding new ones necessitates letting go of old ones.

You think I’m weird, don’t you? How about cars then? I know a lot of people get attached to their cars. I sure do. My current car is a sporty red 4 door Mini. It has a name. Of course it has a name. Bernie is the fastest car (by far) that I have ever owned. And I love it. That said, my previous car was a silver Matrix named Myles. If you have known me for any amount of time you probably rode in Myles at some point. I drove Myles for 13 years and over 200,000 miles. Myles took me all over Texas coaching hockey. Myles transported my kids, my dogs, my coworkers, my friends and at least half of the 2006 Women’s U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey Team (not all at once, mind you). Myles saved my life twice. The first of those two incidents I thought was for sure the end of Myles, but a major surgery later and he was right back on the road. When I finally had to retire Myles a few years ago, it was- and I am not at all exaggerating- excruciating. I was super excited about Bernie, but that didn’t matter. When I handed over the keys the car sales woman could tell I was about to lose it and uttered this big sympathetic “aaaaaaw” as if I was the most pathetic little thing she had ever encountered.

Not a car person either? O.K., how about places? Like, say, my childhood room for instance. We moved into the home that my parents still live in when I was 5 years old. At some point early on my mom let us each pick what color we wanted to paint our room, so long as we painted it with her. I picked the brightest kelly green you have ever seen. My dad made me a trundle bed and painted it white with little pink flowers. There was a matching wardrobe, toy box, and desk/shelving unit with pink and light blue shelves, also made by Dad. In one corner was (is, actually) this huge stuffed buffalo that my dad won for me at Astroworld. I loved that moment and I loved having that dang buffalo take up a whole corner of my room. In the opposite corner next to my bed was a stuffed, rainbow colored (um… nevermind 🙂 ) hot air balloon hanging from the ceiling. I had fallen in love with that balloon during one of our annual summer camping trips to Durango and my parents were kind enough to get it for me and cart the thing home (it wasn’t like it could be deflated, it was stuffed!) Behind my headboard were stuffed letters that spelled out my name with stuffed clouds surrounding it. It was one, big pillowy heaven with all of my gymnastics heroes hanging on the wall. And it was greener than the grass. I loved it. I never ever got tired of my room, particularly the color of it. It was still that exact way when I left for college, and frankly it is still that exact way today (although it is also doubling as a storage closet for all of my grandmother’s old antiques which my mother is still waiting for me to go through with her…one of these days, Mom.)

My point is, when I left for college it was rough leaving my little haven behind. Not that I didn’t create a little nest with every move. Every single one of my college dorm rooms was special in some way. My sophomore year I actually got these glow in the dark star stickers and I proceeded to create the constellations on my ceiling. It made me so freaking happy to look up at those stars from my loft bed every night. Hmmmm…I wonder if they are still there and who else might have enjoyed them (or been extremely annoyed by them as the case may be)! Every year I had a rough time abandoning my college nest at the end of the school year. As for Princeton in general… and maybe you can all relate to this… leaving college sucked. Royally. I resonate with that place at a deep level. It is like home.

Have you gotten the picture? I get attached! Now the thing about it is that all of the wise people tell us that attachment is a bad thing. Oh and your financial advisor, if you have such a thing, will tell you too- don’t get attached to your house. Not a good investment. Attachment bad. I get it. I get why they are saying it too. Let’s break it down, shall we? First off, what is the deal with me??? Why all of this attachment? I’m sure you all have your own theories brewing, but let me tell you a little more about my experience. The thing about it for me is… I feel things. No, no, I don’t mean I have feelings (although, yes, I do… shocking as that may be to some), I mean I feel things. Every single thing that I described above is a dead thing, right? It’s matter. It’s just stuff. Just a bunch of molecules smushed together. Put another way, there is no spirit in any of it. Right? Well, that’s what Descartes said anyway. That’s also what most of us continue to say. It is of the material world and therefore by (Cartesian) definition it is not of the spirit world. Are we sure?

Last time I checked my high school physics lessons, E=MC². In case you you have forgotten: energy = mass times the speed of light squared. In other words, energy is nothing more than mass (matter, material stuff) moving very, very, very fast. Put another way, mass (matter, material stuff) is energy moving…… in……. super……. super…….. super…….. slow…….. motion. Huh. Matter and energy are the same thing? I will get into this more in some future theory segment, but we have also known for over 100 years that at the quantum level particles (material stuff) and waves (energy stuff) are, you guessed it, the same thing. So… there is no spirit (energy) in the material stuff (matter), eh? Think again. Better yet, check your own experience. We are all nothing more than energy moving in super slow motion (relative to, say, the speed of light). Energy resonates- it moves in waves. I resonate. You resonate. We all resonate. Guess what else resonates? That’s right, things. Every single stinking thing resonates. Every last bit of the material universe. It’s all energy, resonating.

So why do the wise ones tell us not to get attached to these resonating things? Are they wrong? No. But I do believe that we have tended to misinterpret the message, both in the giving and the receiving of it. What we generally hear when we are told “don’t get attached” is “don’t get attached to the objective world- abide in spirit instead.” We take this to mean that the objective world is a throw away. It isn’t our real home. If you get attached to it, then you will preclude yourself from reaching your true home, which abides in spirit. Doesn’t that sound right? Yet what happens to this idea when we consider that perhaps the material world is nothing but energy. For me, energy is the equivalent of spirit. If that is the case, now what? To attach or not to attach, that is the question. Actually, this isn’t the question at all, because what is happening here is a confusion of terms.

Let’s return to my shoes. For me, all things- inanimate or otherwise- are energy/spirit, moving in super slow motion of course. Things don’t contain energy, they are energy. In my mind, a shoe is made up of all of the energy that went into its making. This includes the energy that went into the materials of which it is made as well as the energy that went into the design of it as well as the energy that went into the making of it as well as the energy that went into the packaging and delivery of said shoe to my foot. In this way, my shoes ground me and connect me to the earth by putting me into an energetic relationship with, well… everything else.

If this is difficult to imagine, think about the relationship between you and your food. The food that you eat quite literally becomes you. It becomes you in both material and energetic forms, if you insist on thinking these separate things. The nutrients become your new cells. The energy animates your actions in the world. But go even deeper. The food that you eat is a physical history of every energy that went into its formation. You may think it crazy, but the Buddhists have good reason to advise us not to eat angry chicken. That anger is literally stored in the material body of the chicken and when you eat it, it is physically/energetically transferred into you and becomes you. Seriously, friends, don’t eat angry chicken. And by the way, you don’t need to eat something to absorb its energy. Energy moves quite readily without any material interaction. It also moves with and as material. Are you getting the picture?… there is no escaping energy transfer.

This process of transferring and structurally incorporating energy from one thing into another thing has no end. My shoes go right on absorbing and incorporating the energy of me and my feet and everywhere we visit. That’s because all things are profoundly interconnected energetically, which is to say there is no real separation between the energy of this or that. Put simply, all things are energetically in relationship with one another. According to this worldview, I am by the very nature of existence in an energetic relationship with my shoes. And by extension, I am also in relationship with everything that went into the design and construction of my shoes. It can then be said that what is actually happening between me and my favorite shoes is that we are resonating together. Likewise, my car contains the energetic imprint of every person who has ever ridden in it, every place we have ever visited, and every event it has ever been involved in. The energetic imprint of my life from the ages of 5 to 22 is embedded in the green paint on the walls of my childhood bedroom, as well as everything else in there. I in turn carry the energetic imprint of all of these things around in me. The resonance between me and the things in my life is real.

So what to do with attachment? The issue that I am raising here is that we tend to confuse the word “attachment” with the word “relationship.” Too often, when we hear “don’t get attached”, our minds go right to… “don’t get into a relationship.” Yet it is impossible, as I hope I have explained above, to not be in relationship with the things in your life, be they thing things, plant things, animal things, or human things. If a thing has ever crossed your path, you are in relationship with it… even it if is no longer “in your life.” Actually, when thought through completely, there is nothing in existence that you are not in relationship with. I am in a loving relationship with my favorite shoes, my car, and the places I inhabit. That is to say that we resonate together, we support one another, we respect one another, we value one another, and so on. That, to me, is a proper relationship between me and the things in my life.

What is not helpful, as the wise ones would say, is for me to treat any of these things as a possession. This is the rub. The second we turn any type of thing (human things included) into a possession, we have objectified it. We have robbed it of its spirit. We have made it into something much less than what it actually is. If we hold on too tightly, we will prevent it from fully actualizing its own unique potential in the world. That is as disrespectful of spirit as anything can be. That is what holds us in chains. When we hold back a thing by seeing it as less than the divine being that it is, we by extension diminish our own self. When we honor every other thing as spirit, we honor our own self as spirit. Then, and only then, are we all free. So the next time you hear some wise one telling you to practice non-attachment, think non-possession. But by all means, be in relationship with, resonate with, and deeply love all of the things in your life. When it is time for something to go, really, do as Kondo says. She has it right. Thank it for its service and send it off with love.

Author: Shelly

Earth

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