The Heart of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week is here. And I have so much to be grateful for in my life. I am going to enjoy spending time each day devoting my attention to all the blessings my life has generously given me. Most recently, I am grateful to be alive and well in this body that I call my home. After my accident, I am feeling a renewed sense of gratitude for my life. Especially since during the previous week I spent a lot of time saying "fuck it all" and "what is the point of this life anyway?" I wonder if I had given more energy to that kind of thinking whether my accident would have turned out any differently... What I do know is that life gives us all opportunities to check out or to decide to stay around. And I am feeling pretty clear right now that I am exactly where I need to be. This life has a lot more to offer me, and I have a lot more to offer it.

I have a bright red rental car right now, and was able to go to the body shop and empty my car of so much crap. I was told that they should have an opportunity to check out my car tomorrow and hopefully determine the cost of repairs, and whether or not my insurance company will pay for those repairs or total the car. Either way, it is pretty much empty now. I took away bag after bag of stuff: two large plastic garbage bags filled with glass and plastic recycling, a bag of clothes and shoes, another bag of papers and binders, and several more bags of random stuff. I even found an umbrella! I didn't know I even owned one...

I am also grateful that I could go grocery shopping tonight. I pulled out a cookbook from a Buddhist monastery, and found a couple of heavenly sounding recipes. One was for quinoa lentil mushroom loaf, and the other was for sweet potato burritos. Unfortunately, I ended up needing a lot of ingredients, and headed out to Trader Joe's and My Organic Market. By the time I got home, it was nearly 8pm, and my steam for cooking up a feast had withered. So, tomorrow night I will have good things to create, and that sounds wonderful!

One of the things that I get frustrated with this time of year, though, is the whole speedy convenience living of it all. Trader Joe's was filled with tables and shelves of ready-made foods that would be luxurious and tasty for the holiday. And there were tons of folks flocking around them, picking their treasures. It makes me sad, though, that people are no longer willing to devote some good time to preparing this feast of gratitude. It has become, largely, just one more obligatory holiday where so many people just go through the motions and create the feast without any connection to the meaning of it all. Now, sure, much of the meaning could be found within a bunch of white religious zealots who sailed their ships to the New World and began spreading plagues and dominating the intricate balance the indigenous people held within the natural world. But somewhere deeper, I find this holiday a time of celebrating the harvest, the bounty that Mother Earth has given us yet again. Celebrating the beauty of togetherness, and creating food in community. Of celebrating gratitude for all that we receive. And there is something that makes my skin crawl about the whole way people buy the ready-made pie without knowing who made it, and without knowing where it came from, and without caring a bit about those things. One more way that Americans want what they want, cheap and convenient and easy, without needing to contribute much of themselves to it, other than money. *shiver*

And with these things in mind, I am feeling super-inspired to cook. I am feeling grateful for having a lot of time this week. I am also feeling grateful for the slowness I have been inviting into my life since I began this blog, contemplating voluntary simplicity. To me, cooking a feast to share with my beloveds is the very essence of what makes life worth living. And *that* is something that I am grateful for this Thanksgiving.

Feeling Lost

I don't like spending time with the dark parts of myself. I am a being who is usually very much drawn to the light. I'm not talking about day and night here, but inner realms and experience. I am not drawn to negativity, pessimism, depression, or hopelessness. Not that I don't experience them in my life, because surely I do. But I am naturally drawn to joy, optimism, love, and effervescence. Angela "Blueskies" is hugely fitting to the state of being that is most natural to me. But it's been quite a while since I inhabited those states of being on a regular basis. My name right now may as well be Angela "Thundercloud."

Anger has been barging its way into the hopelessness and sadness these last few days. At first, I thought it was coming along with my cycle, the usual anger and aggression that often accompany it. But this has lingered and intensified. There is a track in my mind that feels like a tiger, waiting silently, patiently to strike to kill anyone who crosses me in the slightest way. This part imagines confrontations, and imagines scenarios and outcomes that involve tremendous violence in words and actions. Now, I haven't been acting upon any of these scenarios, but I have been watching them, especially these last couple days. I haven't even seen any point in leaving the house. It seems that when I do, unbelievably frustrating things happen.

The question that has been a recurrent mantra in my mind has been "what is the fucking point of any of this?!" I feel like a hamster stuck on a wheel, or at least in a little shitty cage. But I KNOw that I'm that hamster, stuck on a pointless fucking wheel, inside a prison of a shitty cage, and I KNOW that there's more outside of it, and yet I can't seem to find the way.

I have experienced firsthand - in ceremony and in meditation and in community - the most incredible beauty in this world, in this life. I have felt the sublime power of love. I have felt held in the womb of Mother Earth. I have seen things I couldn't have ever believed, and felt things that called into question everything that I have ever known. And in spite of all of that, the death of Familiar kitty has marked life with a heavy darkness. And part of that darkness has disconnected me from those truths that come from living in the Light. I remember them as a novel right now...characters and scenes from a life that are bound to the page, yet not my own.

I posted a question on Facebook the other day: "What gets you out of bed in the morning?" The answers that I received were depressing beyond my imaginings. I also had included an aside to that question, "besides the alarm clock or coffee," hoping to suggest I was looking for the *meaning* of getting out of bed in the morning. Not once person who answered went there. The answers? The dog, the cat, the kid, hunger, needing to pee. And honestly, these are the things that I have been feeling in my life, lately, too. Never before have I felt like I got out of bed for food or a piss. I got out of bed because the light of day pulled my spirit into the world to LIVE. But right now, I am feeling that I, too, get up to eat, poop, and sleep again. And after living my life from a place of intense meaning and connection, living with these things as my drives is the most devastating thing I have ever known.

I cannot wake up in the morning and get out of bed if all there is to my life is eating, pooping, making money, and sleeping again. If that's all there is, then let me die right fucking now.

I already know, somewhere deep inside of me, that there is way, way more to life. But when I try to go there, it's as if I'm dumb or something. Like the part of me that knows that has been blocked off somehow. And yet the question, the longing remains. I know that a new pair of fuzzy boots is a great thing, but it doesn't give meaning to my day. Stuff doesn't give meaning to my day. Material things don't give meaning to my day. Their absence can be a pain in the ass, for sure - as it was tonight, when I discovered that the tape deck in my car no longer works, and that is what I use to play my Ipod - but that's not living and dying. It's a fucking tape deck. And the boots are fucking boots. I also know that getting rich and buying a fancy car and house won't give meaning to my life. It's just more stuff that might make me "comfortable" and make me feel "abundant" but it's essentially just more garbage.

What about finding a partner and having a family? While these things certainly do add some sense of meaning to life, undoubtedly, and provide some sense of structure to daily living that is rooted in living communally, when it comes down to it, unless the deeper meaning of life is clear first, these things just become another path toward material living. Getting the right stuff for the couple, getting the right stuff for the kid. And good god, raising a kid in a material paradigm? That makes me want to die, too...

Anything external, really, is guaranteed NOT to add meaning to life. Those things are just distractions. It's the inner stuff that really gives meaning to my day. And it's relationships, too, the ways that these inner worlds of people (and animals) come together and create the world together. And right now, I am feeling betrayed by that. All those years of loving, and one day it's all gone. It's as if it never happened - except in my heart, that is. How is that fair??? When I go down this track of thinking, then I feel like there's no point to life at all, we're just waiting around to die. And it's no fucking wonder that all the religions have made up things like "heaven." That's the greatest comfort ever, believing that at the end of the line, we'll be reunited all together in one big angelic party, with harps and clouds and that crap. I don't buy it for a minute.

The Buddhists really do lay it all out with no bullshit. Change happens constantly, and there is no external God to believe in. All we can do is accept that everything is going to fall apart, and love in spite of that, with as much compassion as possible. Life is going to pull the rug out from under us again and again. And eventually, it will be our very own body that has the rug pulled out from under it. As much as I try, I can't find anything in that that encourages me to embrace a spiritual path even more fully than before. If anything, I feel inclined to come back to my original question: "what's the point anyway?" I don't buy into any of that heaven and angels crap, and haven't since I was a child. The coddling of religion offers me no solace at all. But I have been spiritually motivated for years - right now, I can't even feel connected to that.

Well, at least I am walking in circles with the question...

Continuity and Change

Today has been a good day so far! I'm currently sitting at City Cafe in Baltimore, one of my longtime coffee shop haunts. I just had a haircut with Kenny, who has been pretty much exclusively cutting my hair since I was 19. That's 14 years! His work is wonderful, hands down. And as we were saying our goodbyes, I felt moved to offer him gratitude for his being one of the constants in my life when there has been so much change.

I remember sometime last year Ali saying to me how nice it was to have history with each other. At the time, it hadn't really ever crossed my mind, but her words resonated strongly within me. It *is* really nice to have history with people! Especially given that there is so much change in life...especially in my own life lately. With the truth of things being that change is the only thing that doesn't change, it feels overwhelming to me that anything can be gone without any notice. But when things do show up over and over again over so many years, there is something deep and sweet that grows. A sense of belonging. A sense of connectedness. And I love that.

There were years and years when it seemed that in spite of my best intentions to have peaceful, dependable relationships with people, there was always some kind of conflict erupting. It seemed like every year someone major in my life would either move away or there would be a conflict between us, and the friendship would come to an end. Add to that a few major breakups and the pain that followed. For years, it seemed like there was a revolving door on my life, and nothing would settle. The truth was more that I wouldn't settle. And I wanted friendships on my terms. Sometimes those terms were entirely agreeable. Those people have been around for the long haul. But sometimes those terms were not part of the agreement, and I just couldn't understand what was wrong. I get it now...

I am super grateful for the ways that Madre Ayahuasca has shown me these things, and asked me to clean up my life. No more loose ends, no more unresolved conflicts...even when there is no fixing, it seems that now there is no inner conflict that allows things to linger on and on. I am grateful that I have been asked to go within myself and see my own patterns, my own bullshit, and to see the truth. And I am willing to continue this work for as long as I live.

I now see that the revolving door of friends and loves was just a part of my spiritual practice starting to take root. I can love anyone. I can talk to anyone. But those people who I will form the most powerful and intimate relationships with need to resonate with my path. What a blessing, now my life feels so full of exactly that. I have a TRIBE of souls all over the world who resonate with this path. And even better, I have a TRIBE of souls right here at home who also resonate with this path, and who seem to want to share that in our daily lives. It's still not as much as I'd prefer, but I'm working on it. =)

What's been so hard for me lately is knowing the truth of change. Of feeling just how easily my reality in this world can be ripped apart, and there is no going back to the way it was. There is no normal. There is only what is right now. And god, that hurts so much. I have been feeling lately like there is no point to even trying to love life with death haunting me as it has. But in this moment of clarity, I am understanding that the truth of change is even MORE of a reason to love more deeply, commit more thoroughly, and to be exactly who I am in the midst of all of that. Life goes by so fast. Maybe if I wasn't on the spiritual path that I'm on, it would be possible to sink into the shallow waters of living in illusion, chasing material pleasures, and fulfilling all the statuses that are available to fulfill. But I KNOW in my bones that none of that matters. There's no un-learning what I have learned. And now, I see even clearer than before that nothing lasts. Nothing. Not my surroundings, not the people and animals in my life, nothing stays the same. Even my own body changes every day, and will one day no longer exist.

I know that I am not at the bottom of this well yet. I know there is deeper to sink into this truth. I am willing to go there, with all the darkness that accompanies it. But I also am committed to knowing what life *is* beyond intellect and philosophy. I want to sink all the way into this murk of not understanding the point! I want to make myself available for death to reveal to me what the point of life is. I already feel it being revealed in my body, but just ever so slightly. I don't want to push it, just so that I can feel happy again. It will take as long as it takes. I am willing to wait in order to really know more fully.

It's tricky...there are people who want to fill in the blanks for me, for sure... People always want to share their knowing and their wisdom and their philosophy. And there are times for sharing those things, absolutely! But right now, I know that I am ripe for the Universe revealing these answers to me directly.

One Month

Wow, I actually can't believe that I missed writing two days in the last week. Sunday and Tuesday. Sunday, probably because I was involved in the Day of the Dead Brunch, and yesterday...well, not sure why. Perhaps because there's a lot on my mind, and it's sometimes easier to look away. I could feel the tendency wanting to emerge again tonight. The "oh, well, it's so late anyway, you may as well not bother." But here I am anyway. Showing up on the page.

Sweet Friday just made his way to my bed, where I am sitting to write this. He's perched himself on my left knee, and is purring away.

Today marks one month since Familiar kitty passed. It's unbelievable to me, still, though the reality of it is completely clear. What I am in touch with right now, below my own surface, is this darkness. This voice within me that says, "what's the point of anything. We're all just waiting to die." Isn't that a song by Gillian Welch? Well, it is haunting my spirit right now, and in spite of the fact that I am able to function and even experience some level of joy and goodness in my life, this undercurrent has become pervasive.

When the truth of death sits this close, I know that I can't help but come to confront all of my fears, all of my doubts, all of the ways that I make meaning in my life. There is the question in me, "what's the point of life?" And this is a question that I, in one way or another, have been asking for years. While I am deeply committed to living as fully consciously as I can, to facing my demons, and to keeping my heart open in the midst of great suffering, what I feel right now is a flatness, a flatness that has come from something within me not wanting to feel this much pain, trying to protect me. But it is only protecting me from the suffering of loss, not from the fears of the reality of death. I literally feel like just collapsing face down on the floor sometimes when this powerlessness comes over me...I am powerless to do anything in the face of the neverending flow of living and dying. Death is already at hand, and is sucking the juice out of living, too, for me right now.

There is such a pull to want to just get on with things. It comes from within me, and definitely comes from the outside too. Whether it's someone trying to smooth over the pain with some lofty spiritual philosophy, or with some lighthearted banter, no one wants you to feel sad and flat for long. It's a bummer. And I'm definitely going about my life, doing what I do. But what is the point of doing what I do, waking and sleeping, and eating and bathing, and all that other stuff that fills up the days? In spite of the truth that I KNOW there is more to life, that there is a true sweet divine order to the universe, and that I have tasted that sweetness firsthand in profound ways, right now, there is no sweetness. Well, there is this kitty on my knee...

I know all the good answers. Life goes on. I have to choose to make meaning in my life. Love is powerful. Tears are perfect. I've said all this a thousand times, and heard it thousands more. But I am driven by the truth of what I feel within, and what emerges within right now is some shade of gray, lying limply on the floor, wondering what it's all about.

I hear that question emerging over and over in my life right now. What's the point? I've long since given up any ideas that material gain is the point, that success and status and accomplishment are the point of life. And I have often felt that connection, love, community, peace, simplicity, and the like, are the point of life. Love is surely the point of life! But right now I just can't get back to that. These are merely intellectual concepts that don't have any hold in my current experience.

So, for now, I am going about my days, trying to live peacefully and simply. I would love to have my life back. Any day now, universe. Any day.

Change

I am home again, back in my own house, sitting in my own bed, beneath the warm blankets. The night is cold and quiet, and I am joyous to have a sweet golden kitty on my knee. He purrs on and on, completely content with this moment. I am completely content with this moment, too.

So much is changing in my life. I had dinner with a friend tonight, and through our conversation, I began to realize some deeper shifting that is happening. I reflected back to 9/11, perhaps the first time in my life that I had ever been called to think of my life in terms of living and dying, and what I wanted for my life. At that time, I was teaching flute lessons at a music store in Ellicott City, more than forty students, and five days a week. I was living in a small apartment complex that was okay, but not great. I didn't connect with people there, I didn't know my neighbors. I spent a lot of time commuting. And at the time 9/11 happened, I was also subbing for a friend of mine who had just had a baby, and needed a teacher for her beginning instrumental music classes. I was all over the place, I was working nonstop, and my life didn't feel rich. 9/11 struck me in the gut, with so much sorrow and so much fear surrounding me. It was right around then when I turned off the TV, turned off the radio, and walked away from most print media, too. Something inside of me was calling for another way of living, one that felt more meaningful. And a few months later, I moved to Oella.

In the years since I came to Oella, so much big change has happened in my life! I became interwoven into an amazing community, both in my neighborhood, and on Main Street. I began working in music totally as a freelancer, with a music studio in my house. I began to travel the world, and began my spiritual path for real. I started to write, and went to Goddard for my master's degree program. I broke away from my family of origin, and have now healed the old wounds there. I have redefined pretty much every part of my life, cleaned out the old cobwebs, and claimed it for what is truly in my heart. All of this came from my willingness to feel the deep question that came from the events surrounding 9/11: if I were to die in a year, what would I want to be different?

And now, another major event has come into my life surrounding life and death: the passing of my first little love, my life's companion for so many years, my Familiar kitty. Once more, I am faced with the question: is my life totally in line with my heart's true joy? Life is so ephemeral, and death is always so close. Is there anything that I need to release here in order to truly live fully?

I have thought of moving to Peru for a long time now. A LONG time. It has called out to me for years. I have felt more at home there than anywhere else, and have found deep peace in my experiences there, both in ceremony, in connecting with the people, and in the land of the Andes mountains. And I promised myself a long time ago that I would not run away to Peru. That I would only move there if I was running *to* something, not escaping anything. But honestly, every time I have considered living there, I have always been considering the ways of living and thinking and being that I would love to leave behind. Peru has awakened me on a lot of levels, and opened my heart and mind so deeply! But even now, if I were to move to Peru, I would be going there as a refugee from a culture that I feel no connection with, that doesn't meet my deepest needs.

This weekend, while at the Compassionate Classrooms workshop in Durham, NC, I had the blessing of connecting with some really wonderful people. I attended as a teaching artist, not a classroom teacher, as many of the attendees were. And beyond the wonderful ideas for using NVC in my work in classrooms and arts integration programs, I was surprised to feel something else stirring...something old and familiar that breaks free now and then, the lioness of idealism within me roaring to dive in deep in order to bring change to the world. This inner lioness was stirred up, too, by one of the wonderful facilitators of the workshop, Catherine...who is quite the lioness herself.

So, today as I drove the five hours north from Durham to home, I found this inner lioness purring and prodding me to think about some things that keep coming up for me. The biggest piece is about wanting to really live my life in service of others, and in a way that makes a real difference. I want my life on this planet to matter! And this feeling wells up from within me strong like a river, like a moth flying toward a flame. Over and over, the way that has come up is in the realm of teaching. I have considered going to school to receive my teaching license many times, most recently last fall, right around now. But each time, what has stopped me is the bullshit that surrounds being a teacher! Once, it was the requirements of the school that halted me. I simply couldn't imagine having to go back and take freshman level "requirements" like algebra and PE, just in order to qualify for a music teaching certification. I walked away. And since, I have considered what would be needed to do a master's degree in education...it would take 1 1/2 years, most likely...but when I consider what the job would actually look like, I have felt disheartened and again, walked away. I figured that at best, I would connect with kids and be a great teacher...and at worst, I would be seen as a subverter of the system, and fired. But now, once more the idea is surfacing. Oh, the thought of being a classroom teacher who is *also* an arts integration specialist, and who is *also* passionate about NVC! Oh, the thought of it just makes me buzz!

What if I could be a strong, loving presence in the classroom, and work to change the system from the inside out? What if I could drop my feelings of powerlessness to make any change in the world, and step into my power, beginning to create the world I want to live in? Today as I sat with all of this, the thing that flashed like lightning through my mind was "huh...I don't need to move to Peru after all." I can stay right here in my own country and instead of feeling like a failing martyr, I can stand full and strong in my power, and work to make change from the ground of peace and love. Peace and love as *practices* and not just hippie ideals. Peace and love with tools and vision and community. Now that's worth waking up for in the morning.

No hurry here. I am just grateful to sit present with these ideas as they come, and am grateful to feel supported in considering the real possibilities. But just like the months that followed 9/11, I feel a strong wind of change blowing through my life. And I am ready and willing to bow to its guidance, and follow the truths that emerge.