I had all these great plans about how my surgery and recovery were going to work out. I would teach all the way up until the morning before, wrap up all my other tasks, get lots of love and energy from friends. I knew who would be with me before and after, and I imagined my recovery in loving detail: Myself, maybe slightly uncomfortable and with limited mobility but handling it gracefully and coming back remarkably quickly to my old self; unlimited time to connect with the people I loved with no obligations; and of course I had the post-surgery list of mostly gentle tasks which I would take on, one by one, no rush but completing them easily. Ease was really the word I would have used pre-surgery to describe what I had planned for myself, and I saw myself wafting through these two weeks like a gentle breeze. Kind of makes you want to run right out and have some surgery yourself, doesn't it?
The reality came with the snow. I had not been imagining my surgery in loving detail; in fact, I felt anxious about it, and so I had the opportunity to sit with that for a while. (Don't you just love how many opportunities we have in life for growth and learning?) I realized after a while that my anxiety stemmed not from a fear of death, which is what I had assumed, but from a fear of pain, a fear of being afraid, a fear of the changes that might come all unexpected and unplanned. So really it was a fear of life I guess. And then it started snowing.
I would love to say that the snow messed everything up, but the truth is that the snow messed with my head. My fears became more specifically focused: My surgery would be delayed (it wasn't), we'd be trapped at the hospital (we weren't), I wouldn't be able to fulfill my pre-surgery obligations (I did), etc. The surgery went as planned and I went home and slept. And it kept snowing.
One of my fascinations with human beings is that we can hold so much contradiction, every noun (person, place or thing), every verb (action, doing, being) is surrounded by a complicated tangle of beliefs and emotions. (Remember diagramming sentences and teasing out those snarls of adverbs and adjectives, phrases and clauses, into tidy pruned branches?) But unlike the sentences in a novel, human beings are stories telling themselves while being told and everything keeps changing.
When I worked in sexual assault, people would often ask, "Isn't that really depressing?" The truth is that while it gives you an odd lens through which to view the world, it also gave me an opportunity for which I was truly grateful. Over and over again I got to be with people who had had this horrible thing happen to them (noun and verb), and accompany them on their journey to create something around it. The interesting thing is that people mostly create beauty.
After my surgery, my primary partner went back to work, my secondary sweetie went back to her town two hours away, and it kept snowing. My post-surgery plans were completely destroyed by the snow and I was trapped at home alone. And in my desire to create something beautiful out of something difficult, I settled in to enjoy the snow. Because I am a good yogini, I chanted and meditated and sent healing energy to myself. I completed all of the tasks on my list, I worked on my upcoming workshops and finished the essay I was working on. I had nothing but sympathy for the friends and loved ones who were themselves trapped by the weather while trying to figure out their own plans for getting to and from work and the upcoming holidays. I knitted them all sweaters. I painted the house, re-organized my files, backed up everything on the computer.
Ha! Okay, actually what I did while realizing that my plans had been changed for me, and that I needed to adapt, was to throw a big fit and get angry at everyone and sulk. And since I can't manipulate the snow, I threw everything I had into manipulating the people in my life into DOING WHAT I WANT THEM TO DO ANYWAY, DAMMIT!
Oh look! It's...another opportunity! I am generally very aware of when I am being manipulative. It usually has to do with being slightly dishonest about what I am feeling in the moment. And it's all about teasing out that tangle around my noun/verb and picking out what I choose to display. The day before yesterday I was having my tantrum, feeling forgotten by my friends, full of loneliness and self-pity and the unfairness of it all. By yesterday morning I was in recovery mode, figuring out what to do next and how to take care of myself. By afternoon I had had my first visitor and was content. My partner was home from work and I was enjoying her company. I had my first outing post-surgery. What I was feeling during those 24 hours was all sorts of things; what I was thinking during those 24 hours covered a huge territory. So what would I pick out of that mess to tell you, had you asked me how I was?
I have a perverse fascination with the social networking sites. Many of them have that feature where you can put in what you're doing right now and how you feel about it. I notice about myself that I often don't want to tell people what I'm feeling right now in that feature. I observe what I feel, but then I think about it. Am I feeling private? Do I want sympathy? Do I want laughter? And frequently I am holding on to the past, displaying for people what I DID feel, rather than what I DO feel, because I want them to respond to that.
It snowed again this morning. My partner is back to work and I am back to being trapped alone at home. But a shift has happened. I recently finished reading My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. As a neuroanatomist who has suffered a stroke and recovered, she has an interesting way of thinking about that process. In the book she talks about the choices we make to run specific brain circuitry. She makes the point that very little of what happens there is out of our control (90 seconds worth per reaction, according to her) and that the rest of it is ours to determine. And she talks about choosing to run the circuitry for joy, rather than that for fear or pain or anger, because it's a better way to live. When I read that, I immediately thought, hey, she's talking about yoga! In yoga we talk about the fact that we already live in bliss and that we can access it at any time. We talk about the patterns of our minds and how we tend to run the same patterns over and over again, and that becomes our practice, to establish and run different patterns by choice. One pattern that we can choose to run is santosha, contentment or making peace with what is.
It is tempting to imagine that santosha looks like that paragraph up there of what I would have liked my response to have been to my situation. If only I were a better person, not so petty and mean and manipulative. Last night I had a reminder of what I think santosha actually looks like when I talked with a friend on the phone. I was so happy to hear from her, and, when I heard her sincere sorrow and sympathy for my situation, something in me relaxed. She talked about the snow and how simply getting to and from work day in and day out has taken every scrap of energy she has, and how upset she is at all her plans for the holidays going awry, but then she went on, "This is going to sound weird, Autumn, but yesterday as I was struggling with driving to work, completely exhausted, I was just so in awe. I mean, I could barely keep my eyes on the road. Everything was just so beautiful."
It isn't that the bad things don't happen. It isn't that we somehow erase them from our consciousness. As I shift from what I wanted this time to be into what it is, I feel, I feel, I feel–I feel hamstrung and helpless in the face of the weather; even as I look for a change in the weather report, I feel so grateful that I don't need to get anywhere right now. I feel frustrated that the concerned attention from friends I wanted will become coffee dates to catch up on the news; even as I feel cheated by fate, I feel glad to recognize that my normal routine will return. I feel anxious to return my body to where it was and worried about teaching again; even as I mope about everything I can't do, I feel pleased and powerful at my ability to return to my practice, adapted to my current needs. I feel sad that I won't get to have my boyfriend come take care of me; even as I cling to the idea that it might still be possible, time is moving and when the snow melts I think I will be well enough not to want to lie around and be cared for. I mourn as I let go of the idea that this is an important connection I'm losing, but even in my disappointment, there is the new thought that maybe that won't be so bad; that in fact, I'm kind of tired of being in recovery and it might be nice not to be an invalid when I finally get to see him. I feel annoyed at friends who disappeared, and disappointed in myself for my small-mindedness. And I feel filled with wonder at how many people surprised me with their support, and I remind myself that sometimes love comes when you're looking the other way. I keep having this gleeful thought that I am really learning something right now, about how you just have to put out as much kindness and love and generosity as you possibly can to whomever is around you at the moment, and trust that while it may not come back from them specifically, it will come back. And the odd thing is that I recognize that this is something I really need to learn, that I need to understand, because it does not come easily to me, so I also feel grateful to have this opportunity brought to me. So even silly, limited, mean-spirited me, even I have made a beautiful bonsai out of the thing given me, the noun/verb not of my choosing.
I went to visit my friend Kellie in Ohio a month before her death. We both knew this would be the last visit. I sat on her bed and she told me she had been hoarding painkillers, just in case. But "I'm not ready yet," she said. She was paralyzed by this time from the armpits down, had been through two rounds of chemotherapy and many surgeries, and she lay in bed looking out one tiny window. The view from the window didn't look like anything special to me; I looked out and just saw the small tree put in for landscaping. Kellie looked past me through the window and her face opened like the sky. "It's still so good," she said. "You know? It's still so good." Let it snow, I guess. Santosha.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Home for the Holidays
This time of year has turned me quiet and confused as usual, remembering connections to people who are no longer with me, and maneuvering through the web of connections that do still exist, new and old, trying to find my place. I was having tea with a friend the other day and she said to me something like, “You are family, you know.” Oh no. It’s…the f-word. The word that feels so cozy, like we know it. Of course it feels that way; after all, it lives in the word “familiar”, just as we’ve all lived in our sense of family all our lives. But what the hell is it?
When I was little what I remember about family holidays was a complicated dance through the homes of extended family with multiple turkey dinners. My family was full of odd branches where divorce had happened; instead of cutting off the limb, it had sent off shoots to grow larger and stranger, in funny unexpected directions. My hometown was full of cousins of all flavors, along with the more garden variety relatives, and somehow we had to spend time with everyone. I never thought it was strange; it was just how holidays and families were. As I got a little older and my own personal connections became more important to me, I began to have more of an opinion about how I wanted to spend these times. I particularly remember being around 11 or 12 years old: I had a huge crush on a boy at church and our family had been invited to a party at his parents’ house on the same day we were obligated to go to one set of great grandparents with that particular branch of relatives. One young cousin had received a science kit complete with dissectible frog that day. I can still feel the ambivalence of wanting so badly to be somewhere else, with someone else, that I could barely stay put inside my skin, and at the same time feeling the pleasure of taking my cousin on a tour through the frog, her wonder of discovery and my satisfaction in teaching her.
At those times, I have such a strong sense of these skin and bones as holding in something else, something other. I am a container and what I hold is large and mysterious, terrifying sometimes and not always pretty but worth exploring.
Later at college and into my adult life, things became simpler. I lived far away from family so I made a family of friends. I was glad to leave behind the complications of kin. My friends and I celebrated together and each group of friends felt like a group that would stay connected forever. Until each one stopped being connected.
Then I met my partner. Her family lived close but they didn’t speak to us. My family was still far away so everything was simple again. My partner and I were family, and for holidays we invited stray friends home for dinner.
Later still I met another woman and with her we became a family of three, venturing into a whole new territory with the belief that love is big enough to hold more than two. When I used the word family with her though she reacted like an animal in a trap, panicked, hostile, trying to chew her leg off to get free. I was offended at the time, but I have a certain sympathy with her now after a few more years of experiencing polyamory and the complications it brings to family ties.
This Thanksgiving my partner and I celebrated alone, enjoying the luxury of time together, cooking and eating and watching movies and just being together. But I also felt an echo of that ambivalence that I first felt so many years ago. My chosen family is larger now and local, so where are the complications I remember from my childhood of the multiple homes with the multiple turkeys? Trying to fit in everyone and finding the compromise that doesn’t quite work? Family it seems to me is partly about that feeling that grows out of obligation, that feeling of being here because I have to, even if I don’t really want to, teaching the young cousin when I want to be off flirting.
At the same time, being the obligation is uncomfortable. The young cousin had no sense of herself as obligation because I was family; therefore, I was there with her. She wasn’t aware of being chosen. But in friendship and with polyamory, we do choose, and we know we are choosing and being chosen. And we want to keep being chosen. I don’t want you here because you have to be here; I want to know that you want to be here. And I’m terrified that you might stop wanting to be here. There comes a time in a relationship where I become the frog on the tray. Peel my skin away and what will you find? Will you see only the complicated workings, throw your hands up in dismay at ever trying to figure it all out and walk away? After all, I don’t have to look far to see someone easier, fresher, sexier than I am. Or will you feel that wonder of discovery that holds you even though it’s complicated, and maybe not always much fun? Why are you choosing me? And will you keep choosing me? Family, I think, might have something to do with that choice.
Here we are in family holiday season and I am approaching a surgery. Not a major surgery, but my first since I was 12. My mother has offered to fly out to be with me, but I have chosen to have my family of partners and friends with me. And I am scared. Is that web of connections a safety net or a trap? If I make use of it will it change everything? My temptation when I feel unsure is to make myself small, cut all the ties and drop away.
I wrote a piece for a class where I used the phrase, “…I needed to feel admirable.” A woman in class asked if what I really meant was, “…I needed to feel admired.” I love being admired, but the truth is that what I always want to know is whether I am worthy of admiration, worthy of being loved. I am loved, I have been loved, I will be loved. I am comfortable with that conjugation of the verb and I feel the truth of it. Those are the strings of my web. I wish I could say that I am always so secure in myself that while I am being loved I also know I am worthy of it, but the truth is I need reassurance to tell me that it is okay for me to be there, in that web, to pull the threads when I need help and know that I’m not strangling someone’s freedom, to feel comfortable letting the thread go and know that the attachment is still there even as it’s reeling away from me, to know that I am allowed to be loved even when I am prickly and complicated and exposed. To know that I can accept love and care from this chosen family, even if they have mixed feelings about the obligation, because there is something of worth they can receive only from me. To know that they will be there for me, that I can trust the web of love to hold me safe.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
When I was little what I remember about family holidays was a complicated dance through the homes of extended family with multiple turkey dinners. My family was full of odd branches where divorce had happened; instead of cutting off the limb, it had sent off shoots to grow larger and stranger, in funny unexpected directions. My hometown was full of cousins of all flavors, along with the more garden variety relatives, and somehow we had to spend time with everyone. I never thought it was strange; it was just how holidays and families were. As I got a little older and my own personal connections became more important to me, I began to have more of an opinion about how I wanted to spend these times. I particularly remember being around 11 or 12 years old: I had a huge crush on a boy at church and our family had been invited to a party at his parents’ house on the same day we were obligated to go to one set of great grandparents with that particular branch of relatives. One young cousin had received a science kit complete with dissectible frog that day. I can still feel the ambivalence of wanting so badly to be somewhere else, with someone else, that I could barely stay put inside my skin, and at the same time feeling the pleasure of taking my cousin on a tour through the frog, her wonder of discovery and my satisfaction in teaching her.
At those times, I have such a strong sense of these skin and bones as holding in something else, something other. I am a container and what I hold is large and mysterious, terrifying sometimes and not always pretty but worth exploring.
Later at college and into my adult life, things became simpler. I lived far away from family so I made a family of friends. I was glad to leave behind the complications of kin. My friends and I celebrated together and each group of friends felt like a group that would stay connected forever. Until each one stopped being connected.
Then I met my partner. Her family lived close but they didn’t speak to us. My family was still far away so everything was simple again. My partner and I were family, and for holidays we invited stray friends home for dinner.
Later still I met another woman and with her we became a family of three, venturing into a whole new territory with the belief that love is big enough to hold more than two. When I used the word family with her though she reacted like an animal in a trap, panicked, hostile, trying to chew her leg off to get free. I was offended at the time, but I have a certain sympathy with her now after a few more years of experiencing polyamory and the complications it brings to family ties.
This Thanksgiving my partner and I celebrated alone, enjoying the luxury of time together, cooking and eating and watching movies and just being together. But I also felt an echo of that ambivalence that I first felt so many years ago. My chosen family is larger now and local, so where are the complications I remember from my childhood of the multiple homes with the multiple turkeys? Trying to fit in everyone and finding the compromise that doesn’t quite work? Family it seems to me is partly about that feeling that grows out of obligation, that feeling of being here because I have to, even if I don’t really want to, teaching the young cousin when I want to be off flirting.
At the same time, being the obligation is uncomfortable. The young cousin had no sense of herself as obligation because I was family; therefore, I was there with her. She wasn’t aware of being chosen. But in friendship and with polyamory, we do choose, and we know we are choosing and being chosen. And we want to keep being chosen. I don’t want you here because you have to be here; I want to know that you want to be here. And I’m terrified that you might stop wanting to be here. There comes a time in a relationship where I become the frog on the tray. Peel my skin away and what will you find? Will you see only the complicated workings, throw your hands up in dismay at ever trying to figure it all out and walk away? After all, I don’t have to look far to see someone easier, fresher, sexier than I am. Or will you feel that wonder of discovery that holds you even though it’s complicated, and maybe not always much fun? Why are you choosing me? And will you keep choosing me? Family, I think, might have something to do with that choice.
Here we are in family holiday season and I am approaching a surgery. Not a major surgery, but my first since I was 12. My mother has offered to fly out to be with me, but I have chosen to have my family of partners and friends with me. And I am scared. Is that web of connections a safety net or a trap? If I make use of it will it change everything? My temptation when I feel unsure is to make myself small, cut all the ties and drop away.
I wrote a piece for a class where I used the phrase, “…I needed to feel admirable.” A woman in class asked if what I really meant was, “…I needed to feel admired.” I love being admired, but the truth is that what I always want to know is whether I am worthy of admiration, worthy of being loved. I am loved, I have been loved, I will be loved. I am comfortable with that conjugation of the verb and I feel the truth of it. Those are the strings of my web. I wish I could say that I am always so secure in myself that while I am being loved I also know I am worthy of it, but the truth is I need reassurance to tell me that it is okay for me to be there, in that web, to pull the threads when I need help and know that I’m not strangling someone’s freedom, to feel comfortable letting the thread go and know that the attachment is still there even as it’s reeling away from me, to know that I am allowed to be loved even when I am prickly and complicated and exposed. To know that I can accept love and care from this chosen family, even if they have mixed feelings about the obligation, because there is something of worth they can receive only from me. To know that they will be there for me, that I can trust the web of love to hold me safe.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Monday, November 10, 2008
What to do, what to do...
I have this exercise I do every morning (most mornings, anyway) where I sit down and write three pages freehand. Anyone familiar with The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron will recognize the exercise at once, but for those who aren't, this isn't a diary, it's not capital A art, it's just a brain dump...blah, blah, blah basically to just get it all out. I don't keep the pages for long once I've written them; they may hang around for several months and then I recycle them. For that reason, I have no desire to fill up a pretty, expensive journal with these jottings; I try to use scraps, random left over paper, paper already printed on one side, that kind of thing. I've done a lot of scrounging through the house to find paper to use and recently I found a stack of old college notebooks. Being the frugal sort, I had ripped out all my class notes and recycled them (I can't imagine I'll need my notes from Stage Lighting or Neurophysiology from 20 years ago any time soon,) but I couldn't bring myself to throw away the leftover blank pages. And look! It's paid off because now I can use them for my morning pages!
One morning as I was opening my notebook to begin writing, the pages fell open to the very last page and there was a 20-year-old list of things to do left over from college. I am a big fan of to do lists. I write them all the time, and, when I am anxious about something, I write them in a frenzy, adding everything I can possibly imagine needing to do for the next several years. I remember reading somewhere that a to do list can make you feel capable and productive because you can write a list that goes, "Wake up, Brush teeth, Write novel" and feel really good about yourself because you have accomplished two out of three. And we all know that ain't bad. This particular list made me laugh because, out of 18 items, I had crossed off two–laundry and Dance History reading. I laughed partly because those are always two of my favorite things to cross off lists–laundry and reading; laundry because it does not take much effort to gather clothes, throw them in the washer and go do something else for half an hour, but gosh you end up with nice fresh clothes. And reading because reading is easy for me no matter what the topic is. I imagine I probably did them both at the same time, spending a pleasant couple of hours on a Saturday morning. I also laughed ruefully imagining the young woman I was then, stressed out and trying to be healthy (weights, find out pool hours), take care of social obligations (write to parents, Jenna's present), do my homework (Dance History reading, unit write-ups, write seminar paper, Phys Psych lab write-ups, Phys Psych research and rough draft, dance journal), get an on campus job (call about non-print resource center), take care of everyday life (laundry, clean, driver's license) and figure out what to do after I graduate (Career Development Office, letters and forms.*)(*Yes, these were the real items off that 20-year-old list.) Clearly I failed miserably (16 items to go...), yet twenty years later here I am, still alive and functioning, healthy and happy despite not having crossed off those other 16 items. But I still make those same lists, with items that feel urgent now, and they still don't all get done. Twenty years from now will I find one of these and wonder why I bothered?
I was thinking about these things today as I washed dishes because my partner had the day off work and was home with me. I did not have the day off work, but I work at home. Sometimes this creates a little problem. Today I was feeling an anxiety that I recognize, one that is common to me and that I have fought with for all of these years. I know that I have to work and I have to earn an income and this is important. I also know that I have to take advantage of the time I have with the people I love, that time with them is a gift I will never get back, and this is important as well.
What does this have to do with a sense of direction, with getting lost? Only this: I use my to do lists to direct myself, to build a path, but where exactly am I trying to arrive? Thinking about college I remember a particular day in the fall, my first year. My house had organized an apple-picking expedition but I had a long list of things to do. My friends talked me out of my tree with gentle voices and no direct eye contact, lulling me out the door and into the car where it was too late for me to turn back. We picked bags and bags of apples, all kinds of apples. There was no hope of us ever eating all the apples we picked but we couldn't stop. The air was crisp and the trees were beautiful. We brought our apples home, jealously guarding our bags and bags of apples from each other, and the kitchen staff let us make caramel apples in the kitchen. We ate apples until we were sick of them.
And I was relaxed and happy, enjoying my friends, and full of apples and full of my very own self. I don't have the slightest idea what I needed to do, and didn't do, that day. But I remember the apples and the air and the leaves and the friends. I know through my life there have been other times when I have chosen the apples. And times when I have chosen the list. The lists may keep me honest but the apples bring me joy.
I have to remember that the lists are my way to pretend I have some say in my life, some control over what happens, and the direction I take. Once the list is written though I can't let it march me around like a drill sergeant, putting me through my paces. Because I don't think I've ever had "Go pick apples and cherish your friends" written on any list, except on the one in my heart.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
One morning as I was opening my notebook to begin writing, the pages fell open to the very last page and there was a 20-year-old list of things to do left over from college. I am a big fan of to do lists. I write them all the time, and, when I am anxious about something, I write them in a frenzy, adding everything I can possibly imagine needing to do for the next several years. I remember reading somewhere that a to do list can make you feel capable and productive because you can write a list that goes, "Wake up, Brush teeth, Write novel" and feel really good about yourself because you have accomplished two out of three. And we all know that ain't bad. This particular list made me laugh because, out of 18 items, I had crossed off two–laundry and Dance History reading. I laughed partly because those are always two of my favorite things to cross off lists–laundry and reading; laundry because it does not take much effort to gather clothes, throw them in the washer and go do something else for half an hour, but gosh you end up with nice fresh clothes. And reading because reading is easy for me no matter what the topic is. I imagine I probably did them both at the same time, spending a pleasant couple of hours on a Saturday morning. I also laughed ruefully imagining the young woman I was then, stressed out and trying to be healthy (weights, find out pool hours), take care of social obligations (write to parents, Jenna's present), do my homework (Dance History reading, unit write-ups, write seminar paper, Phys Psych lab write-ups, Phys Psych research and rough draft, dance journal), get an on campus job (call about non-print resource center), take care of everyday life (laundry, clean, driver's license) and figure out what to do after I graduate (Career Development Office, letters and forms.*)(*Yes, these were the real items off that 20-year-old list.) Clearly I failed miserably (16 items to go...), yet twenty years later here I am, still alive and functioning, healthy and happy despite not having crossed off those other 16 items. But I still make those same lists, with items that feel urgent now, and they still don't all get done. Twenty years from now will I find one of these and wonder why I bothered?
I was thinking about these things today as I washed dishes because my partner had the day off work and was home with me. I did not have the day off work, but I work at home. Sometimes this creates a little problem. Today I was feeling an anxiety that I recognize, one that is common to me and that I have fought with for all of these years. I know that I have to work and I have to earn an income and this is important. I also know that I have to take advantage of the time I have with the people I love, that time with them is a gift I will never get back, and this is important as well.
What does this have to do with a sense of direction, with getting lost? Only this: I use my to do lists to direct myself, to build a path, but where exactly am I trying to arrive? Thinking about college I remember a particular day in the fall, my first year. My house had organized an apple-picking expedition but I had a long list of things to do. My friends talked me out of my tree with gentle voices and no direct eye contact, lulling me out the door and into the car where it was too late for me to turn back. We picked bags and bags of apples, all kinds of apples. There was no hope of us ever eating all the apples we picked but we couldn't stop. The air was crisp and the trees were beautiful. We brought our apples home, jealously guarding our bags and bags of apples from each other, and the kitchen staff let us make caramel apples in the kitchen. We ate apples until we were sick of them.
And I was relaxed and happy, enjoying my friends, and full of apples and full of my very own self. I don't have the slightest idea what I needed to do, and didn't do, that day. But I remember the apples and the air and the leaves and the friends. I know through my life there have been other times when I have chosen the apples. And times when I have chosen the list. The lists may keep me honest but the apples bring me joy.
I have to remember that the lists are my way to pretend I have some say in my life, some control over what happens, and the direction I take. Once the list is written though I can't let it march me around like a drill sergeant, putting me through my paces. Because I don't think I've ever had "Go pick apples and cherish your friends" written on any list, except on the one in my heart.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Satya Revisited
Back again, walking in circles. I defined satya as non-lying in my last post, in alignment with the other yamas, or restraints, in yoga, most of which are "a-something", with the prefix "a-" meaning "not". You'll notice satya does not begin with "a-". A more accurate portrayal of satya might be "being" or "being with what is" as in maybe more of an ability to sit with truth.
And I'm definitely sitting with it right now in a very uncomfortable way. I recently read a book (and I apologize to the author because I forgot to write down the reference) which said, "To live a life that is yours, you must be willing to be imperfect and humble, lost and fuzzy often." But we want– I want–a good story, a story that ends well so sometimes it's more comfortable to give it just a little poke.
When I am truly lost, I notice in myself a tendency to spin the story even as it's happening. Am I brave in the face of the unknown? Is this the story of the kindness of strangers? Am I facing the whims of a hostile universe? Do I want sympathy or admiration? Usually though what I am really feeling at the time is stuck and frightened and kind of annoyed at myself that here I am again. Can I not just get this right?
I feel similarly when I get lost in my own life. Can I not just get this right? I think that there is where I run into trouble, because I don't really know what I mean by "getting it right"; I only know that it is not this thing that I happen to be doing now. And at that point the difficulty is to just sit with it. Satya.
It makes me itchy. Can I accept the fact that getting it right might mean being here with this feeling that it is not quite right? I'll think about it. In the meantime I remember. I do the things that I know do me good even though I'm not sure I trust them right now. I had the experience recently of having a health issue come up that made me fear my own practice. I avoided my mat to avoid the possibility of having my body let me down. Finally I knew that my practice needed me to show up for it. I stepped onto my mat and I began. As I moved from pose to pose, feeling the strength and grace of my body, I remembered that this is also truth, satya, that I can trust my body. I remembered that breathing is good.
I am imperfect and humble, lost and fuzzy often. It is the willingness to be these things that I seek, and which I lack. So I will sit with them and be itchy until the willingness arrives.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
And I'm definitely sitting with it right now in a very uncomfortable way. I recently read a book (and I apologize to the author because I forgot to write down the reference) which said, "To live a life that is yours, you must be willing to be imperfect and humble, lost and fuzzy often." But we want– I want–a good story, a story that ends well so sometimes it's more comfortable to give it just a little poke.
When I am truly lost, I notice in myself a tendency to spin the story even as it's happening. Am I brave in the face of the unknown? Is this the story of the kindness of strangers? Am I facing the whims of a hostile universe? Do I want sympathy or admiration? Usually though what I am really feeling at the time is stuck and frightened and kind of annoyed at myself that here I am again. Can I not just get this right?
I feel similarly when I get lost in my own life. Can I not just get this right? I think that there is where I run into trouble, because I don't really know what I mean by "getting it right"; I only know that it is not this thing that I happen to be doing now. And at that point the difficulty is to just sit with it. Satya.
It makes me itchy. Can I accept the fact that getting it right might mean being here with this feeling that it is not quite right? I'll think about it. In the meantime I remember. I do the things that I know do me good even though I'm not sure I trust them right now. I had the experience recently of having a health issue come up that made me fear my own practice. I avoided my mat to avoid the possibility of having my body let me down. Finally I knew that my practice needed me to show up for it. I stepped onto my mat and I began. As I moved from pose to pose, feeling the strength and grace of my body, I remembered that this is also truth, satya, that I can trust my body. I remembered that breathing is good.
I am imperfect and humble, lost and fuzzy often. It is the willingness to be these things that I seek, and which I lack. So I will sit with them and be itchy until the willingness arrives.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Do You Trust Me?
If you've ever done any kind of improvisation–acting or dancing or music–you know that the gap between being told to "just dance" or "just sing", and being told "Here is the structure, here are the confines: now dance" is a Grand Canyon of significance. If you haven't done any improvisation, you might guess that the choice with more freedom is the easier of the two. In fact, having confines makes improvisation much easier. I titled this blog with that in mind, setting up my own confines in order to make my writing easier. I am allowed, by my own rules, to be rather free in my interpretation of what my blog is about, but I do have to stop and think, with each entry, does this actually meet my intention?
As possible entries arise, and as I censor them, I come back over and over again to the concept of satya, non-lying, one of the five yamas, or moral restraints, in yoga practice. Each time I censor myself, am I doing it truly because it doesn't fit my theme? Or am I trying to hide a truth from this unknown audience of mine?
My thoughts in writing are mirroring my thoughts in life lately. When I censor myself, why am I censoring myself? What are my motivations? When I write, I don't particularly want you to know much about me beyond what I write. I tell myself that it's because I am writing not to define myself more clearly, not to show where "me" stops and "not me" begins, but to define for myself where "me" and "you" connect. I don't want to write something that will fracture that fragile union. I think about my past work in sexual assault, where it was so important to quickly identify and strengthen the places where I could connect with my client; the work was not about me and who I was and my preferences and my experience, it was about supporting and strengthening this other person. Too much information brought the possibility of a disconnect.
That all sounds good and reasonable but I find I need to look a little deeper. When I was a kid, my idol was Mr. Spock on Star Trek. I have him to thank for the fact that I can raise one eyebrow in a quizzical stare. Because he was only half-Vulcan (the other half was Human, for those who grew up in a cave and somehow missed this show), he had to struggle for the emotional control that came naturally to other Vulcans. I admired him for his constant battle, and I could easily understand why it was important for him to succeed, because it was important to me, too. I knew that my life would be better, easier, if I could find that same self-control. He had defined his parameters, and I would, too. If I could control the information about me and my emotional state, and contain my responses to them, I knew that I could control my life and make it safe.
I find now after many years and a lot of practice that I always can come up with really good, really reasonable reasons for not speaking the truth. I am especially good at not speaking the truth without actually coming out and lying about anything. The skill has served me well in the past, but as my life begins to integrate into a greater whole, I'm not sure it serves me at all now, and I'm less and less sure about all of those really good reasons.
A couple of years ago I joined an online business networking site and as I've become more active in it lately, I've noticed a slight feeling of discomfort. I couldn't quite catch sight of it until just this week, when I suddenly joined several other networking sites and the feeling became powerful enough to overwhelm me. Remember that feeling of walking into the cafeteria of a new school? You walk in with your tray and look at the lines of tables: kids are sitting, kids are talking, calling out to one another, running to get a napkin and fork, joking with one another...I changed schools a lot growing up so the memory is still a powerful trigger today. I want you to know me. I want to be safe. Two dueling impulses. I want you to know me. I want to be safe. It's tempting to think that by presenting only chosen pieces of myself, I can have both. Our culture teaches this well; we have to put our best foot forward, present a professional image, and society will accept and protect us in return. But I can't really blame the culture–I think I'm pretty good at creating my own lines around my behavior and my appearance. When I withhold truth, I am really trying to control the actions and responses of the people around me. I have a belief about what would happen if I did not do this, and I respond in fear, feeling small, feeling vulnerable. I am making my world safe. I am defining it. I am making it a little easier for myself to know how to move, to improvise.
So back to satya: is this truth? And I think about the path of our country right now. There are those who want us to believe that we live in an unsafe world. What if our world is already safe? What if we are safe? How would that change us if we could really know it? How would that change me? I am safe. I will show myself to you. Practice it with me now. Let's just dance together.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
As possible entries arise, and as I censor them, I come back over and over again to the concept of satya, non-lying, one of the five yamas, or moral restraints, in yoga practice. Each time I censor myself, am I doing it truly because it doesn't fit my theme? Or am I trying to hide a truth from this unknown audience of mine?
My thoughts in writing are mirroring my thoughts in life lately. When I censor myself, why am I censoring myself? What are my motivations? When I write, I don't particularly want you to know much about me beyond what I write. I tell myself that it's because I am writing not to define myself more clearly, not to show where "me" stops and "not me" begins, but to define for myself where "me" and "you" connect. I don't want to write something that will fracture that fragile union. I think about my past work in sexual assault, where it was so important to quickly identify and strengthen the places where I could connect with my client; the work was not about me and who I was and my preferences and my experience, it was about supporting and strengthening this other person. Too much information brought the possibility of a disconnect.
That all sounds good and reasonable but I find I need to look a little deeper. When I was a kid, my idol was Mr. Spock on Star Trek. I have him to thank for the fact that I can raise one eyebrow in a quizzical stare. Because he was only half-Vulcan (the other half was Human, for those who grew up in a cave and somehow missed this show), he had to struggle for the emotional control that came naturally to other Vulcans. I admired him for his constant battle, and I could easily understand why it was important for him to succeed, because it was important to me, too. I knew that my life would be better, easier, if I could find that same self-control. He had defined his parameters, and I would, too. If I could control the information about me and my emotional state, and contain my responses to them, I knew that I could control my life and make it safe.
I find now after many years and a lot of practice that I always can come up with really good, really reasonable reasons for not speaking the truth. I am especially good at not speaking the truth without actually coming out and lying about anything. The skill has served me well in the past, but as my life begins to integrate into a greater whole, I'm not sure it serves me at all now, and I'm less and less sure about all of those really good reasons.
A couple of years ago I joined an online business networking site and as I've become more active in it lately, I've noticed a slight feeling of discomfort. I couldn't quite catch sight of it until just this week, when I suddenly joined several other networking sites and the feeling became powerful enough to overwhelm me. Remember that feeling of walking into the cafeteria of a new school? You walk in with your tray and look at the lines of tables: kids are sitting, kids are talking, calling out to one another, running to get a napkin and fork, joking with one another...I changed schools a lot growing up so the memory is still a powerful trigger today. I want you to know me. I want to be safe. Two dueling impulses. I want you to know me. I want to be safe. It's tempting to think that by presenting only chosen pieces of myself, I can have both. Our culture teaches this well; we have to put our best foot forward, present a professional image, and society will accept and protect us in return. But I can't really blame the culture–I think I'm pretty good at creating my own lines around my behavior and my appearance. When I withhold truth, I am really trying to control the actions and responses of the people around me. I have a belief about what would happen if I did not do this, and I respond in fear, feeling small, feeling vulnerable. I am making my world safe. I am defining it. I am making it a little easier for myself to know how to move, to improvise.
So back to satya: is this truth? And I think about the path of our country right now. There are those who want us to believe that we live in an unsafe world. What if our world is already safe? What if we are safe? How would that change us if we could really know it? How would that change me? I am safe. I will show myself to you. Practice it with me now. Let's just dance together.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Truth in Numbers
I have another post sitting in draft mode on the concept of satya in yoga–truthfulness, or rather not lying. But I'm struggling with it the way I think we often struggle with truth. How much is too much? How much is necessary? How much is kind? Does the truth I need to tell match the truth you're ready to hear from me? And what is truth anyway? That post will sit a little longer while I puzzle it out.
But thinking about truth got me thinking about reality, and thinking about reality always makes me think of number lines. I exchanged rings with my life partner, finally, after our 15th year, and on the inside of mine I have engraved a number line. People who have looked carefully at it always ask what the numbers are for–maybe the number of years together? A measurement of my finger size? When I tell them it's a number line they're blank. "Oh I see," they say, not really seeing at all.
When I was 15 years old I fell in love with a number line. I was in bed, it was summer in Texas, and I was thinking about numbers and how they fit together. Suddenly, a thought came to me, the way these thoughts will, fully formed and thrilling, flinging me out of bed and to a pencil and piece of paper. I drew a number line and numbered it 0 to 10. Yes, it was really true, this thought I had! And I needed to share it: "Mother! Mother, look at this... How many points are there between 0 and 10? An infinite number. And how many points are between 0 and 1? An infinite number. And between .5 and .55? An infinite number! In fact, there are infinite numbers of infinities!" She didn't care. And neither did anyone else that summer. But I was in love! I drew my number line for anyone who came within 3 feet of me. I couldn't sleep at night thinking about it. All I wanted to do all summer was moon over my number line.
When I got back to school in the fall, the first thing I did was run to my geometry teacher, who has featured in my blog before. He was the first person I talked to who understood my crush and pointed me to various books on the subject. (As a side note, later as an adult it was great fun to come across the problem of multiple infinities listed in a book about the 7 greatest unsolved mathematical problems.)
Fast forward to 3 years ago, when my partner and I decided to exchange rings. We had discussed it many times in the years we had been together, but I always balked at the idea of anything that smacked of marriage in any form for all kinds of reasons. I didn't want people to look at a ring and make any kind of assumption that they understood my situation. It was really the concept of the number line that changed my mind. We all think we understand number lines: they're so dull we let small children use them for basic math, adding and subtracting. In fact, don't tell the children but number lines are subversive. We don't really understand them at all. Not only do they hold every number imaginable (and even the imaginary ones!) but they also are not really lines at all. They are home to infinities nesting inside one another, a stranger reality than we can possibly imagine, but a truer reality than we are able to see.
We humans need this, I guess. A construct that allows us to look reality in the face without seeing it. So someone may see my ring and assume they know me or my situation, but I know the ring is a construct, a representation of what I believe, what I value, what I desire, and the truth of my relationship can't be seen in the ring. The number line is to remind me of that if I start to feel constrained. But the ring, the construct, can maybe give a glimpse occasionally of how much bigger we really are than we think we are, how much more of the infinite we already contain and share with one another. And it can remind us to at least try, every now and then, to look behind look within look beneath look through the construct of self, of mind, of body. What nests inside? What looks back at you? What are we really?
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
But thinking about truth got me thinking about reality, and thinking about reality always makes me think of number lines. I exchanged rings with my life partner, finally, after our 15th year, and on the inside of mine I have engraved a number line. People who have looked carefully at it always ask what the numbers are for–maybe the number of years together? A measurement of my finger size? When I tell them it's a number line they're blank. "Oh I see," they say, not really seeing at all.
When I was 15 years old I fell in love with a number line. I was in bed, it was summer in Texas, and I was thinking about numbers and how they fit together. Suddenly, a thought came to me, the way these thoughts will, fully formed and thrilling, flinging me out of bed and to a pencil and piece of paper. I drew a number line and numbered it 0 to 10. Yes, it was really true, this thought I had! And I needed to share it: "Mother! Mother, look at this... How many points are there between 0 and 10? An infinite number. And how many points are between 0 and 1? An infinite number. And between .5 and .55? An infinite number! In fact, there are infinite numbers of infinities!" She didn't care. And neither did anyone else that summer. But I was in love! I drew my number line for anyone who came within 3 feet of me. I couldn't sleep at night thinking about it. All I wanted to do all summer was moon over my number line.
When I got back to school in the fall, the first thing I did was run to my geometry teacher, who has featured in my blog before. He was the first person I talked to who understood my crush and pointed me to various books on the subject. (As a side note, later as an adult it was great fun to come across the problem of multiple infinities listed in a book about the 7 greatest unsolved mathematical problems.)
Fast forward to 3 years ago, when my partner and I decided to exchange rings. We had discussed it many times in the years we had been together, but I always balked at the idea of anything that smacked of marriage in any form for all kinds of reasons. I didn't want people to look at a ring and make any kind of assumption that they understood my situation. It was really the concept of the number line that changed my mind. We all think we understand number lines: they're so dull we let small children use them for basic math, adding and subtracting. In fact, don't tell the children but number lines are subversive. We don't really understand them at all. Not only do they hold every number imaginable (and even the imaginary ones!) but they also are not really lines at all. They are home to infinities nesting inside one another, a stranger reality than we can possibly imagine, but a truer reality than we are able to see.
We humans need this, I guess. A construct that allows us to look reality in the face without seeing it. So someone may see my ring and assume they know me or my situation, but I know the ring is a construct, a representation of what I believe, what I value, what I desire, and the truth of my relationship can't be seen in the ring. The number line is to remind me of that if I start to feel constrained. But the ring, the construct, can maybe give a glimpse occasionally of how much bigger we really are than we think we are, how much more of the infinite we already contain and share with one another. And it can remind us to at least try, every now and then, to look behind look within look beneath look through the construct of self, of mind, of body. What nests inside? What looks back at you? What are we really?
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Wandering Alone in the Woods
I had the odd experience not too long ago of watching myself walk into a room. The off-centered feel of it reminded me a little of an exhibit that's up at our local museum. At this exhibit, you walk up stairs and there, on one landing to either side of you, is what looks like a random collection of tall wooden slats standing propped in cement holders and painted with colors and vague tree-ish shapes. You could walk right through it and continue up the stairs. You could wander through the slats looking at them more closely. Or maybe something could catch your eye, a movement a flicker of something up to the left there. When you look to see what's caught your attention, you see yourself wandering through a forest. Through a clever placement of cameras, the artist has created the illusion that you are off having an adventure you don't know anything about in some forest primeval. It takes you by surprise, when you see it, if you see it.
That feeling of stepping through the looking glass is very much how I felt at this cocktail party, chatting and laughing with family and strangers, looking up to see 2 young women walking towards us, and one of them was me. Only of course she wasn't; she was (and is) a close relative, more than 20 years younger than me and taller when I looked more closely. I hadn't seen her for years, and the last time she was still a child. We could all see the obvious similarities back then (red curly hair is hard to miss) but she was too much younger for us to see that she was actually going to become me.
My first feeling was envy, a strong stab of it, looking at this beautiful vibrant young woman striding confidently towards us, smiling. Almost as though she was me, but the improved version, what I wish I could have been then. Self-pity was bitter in my throat; why couldn't I have been strong and confident and happy when I was 18?
Over the course of the next several days my feelings went through a transformation. First, I realized that in many ways I was strong and confident and happy then; it's just that I was also a lot of other things, too: scared, insecure, exhausted, a perfectionist and therefore hard on myself, uncertain what the future might hold. And I was really really good at hiding all of those things from the people around me and projecting only strength and confidence. Maybe, I thought in a flash of insight, maybe she isn't as strong and confident as she looks either. Maybe she doesn't know how beautiful she is. And that might mean I was beautiful then, too, and just didn't know it.
I worked hard then at letting her know what a shining star she is. I can't send a message in a bottle back to myself in time, but I thought at least I can give her something to carry with her into her future. Probably what it means to her now is that she has some kooky relatives. But that doesn't really matter.
What matters is something I discovered in my thirties returning to ballet after many years away. I loved the dance as a child and it was home to me, until I began looking in the mirror and seeing something that only existed in comparison with something else. It became not the joy of barriers melted away, but a slamming up against lots of walls built up out of nowhere, an isolation, so I left it. When I went back, I found the joy of it again, the connection, and realized that I had built my own walls. Instead of looking in the mirror and at the women around me and seeing myself reflected, and the strength and beauty of all of us together, I saw only what I was up against. Any strength and beauty I saw automatically became not mine, separate from me, only desired. But I wasn't seeing truth.
And when I first looked at my young relative, the irony is that I saw myself, but a self that was not mine, a self that I didn't believe in, a self I couldn't live up to, a self that I wanted to have for my own and I had to protect myself against it. When I was able to soften and let that self back in, I could give her an offer of love and acceptance for who she is. Somehow I think that the message in a bottle may have made it back there after all. Maybe now it will get a little easier to glance up at a stranger, and see myself looking back, not a trick of a camera or of genetics, but truth.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
That feeling of stepping through the looking glass is very much how I felt at this cocktail party, chatting and laughing with family and strangers, looking up to see 2 young women walking towards us, and one of them was me. Only of course she wasn't; she was (and is) a close relative, more than 20 years younger than me and taller when I looked more closely. I hadn't seen her for years, and the last time she was still a child. We could all see the obvious similarities back then (red curly hair is hard to miss) but she was too much younger for us to see that she was actually going to become me.
My first feeling was envy, a strong stab of it, looking at this beautiful vibrant young woman striding confidently towards us, smiling. Almost as though she was me, but the improved version, what I wish I could have been then. Self-pity was bitter in my throat; why couldn't I have been strong and confident and happy when I was 18?
Over the course of the next several days my feelings went through a transformation. First, I realized that in many ways I was strong and confident and happy then; it's just that I was also a lot of other things, too: scared, insecure, exhausted, a perfectionist and therefore hard on myself, uncertain what the future might hold. And I was really really good at hiding all of those things from the people around me and projecting only strength and confidence. Maybe, I thought in a flash of insight, maybe she isn't as strong and confident as she looks either. Maybe she doesn't know how beautiful she is. And that might mean I was beautiful then, too, and just didn't know it.
I worked hard then at letting her know what a shining star she is. I can't send a message in a bottle back to myself in time, but I thought at least I can give her something to carry with her into her future. Probably what it means to her now is that she has some kooky relatives. But that doesn't really matter.
What matters is something I discovered in my thirties returning to ballet after many years away. I loved the dance as a child and it was home to me, until I began looking in the mirror and seeing something that only existed in comparison with something else. It became not the joy of barriers melted away, but a slamming up against lots of walls built up out of nowhere, an isolation, so I left it. When I went back, I found the joy of it again, the connection, and realized that I had built my own walls. Instead of looking in the mirror and at the women around me and seeing myself reflected, and the strength and beauty of all of us together, I saw only what I was up against. Any strength and beauty I saw automatically became not mine, separate from me, only desired. But I wasn't seeing truth.
And when I first looked at my young relative, the irony is that I saw myself, but a self that was not mine, a self that I didn't believe in, a self I couldn't live up to, a self that I wanted to have for my own and I had to protect myself against it. When I was able to soften and let that self back in, I could give her an offer of love and acceptance for who she is. Somehow I think that the message in a bottle may have made it back there after all. Maybe now it will get a little easier to glance up at a stranger, and see myself looking back, not a trick of a camera or of genetics, but truth.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Crossing the Line
Have you felt that line before? That line where nothing has changed, the exact same things are going on, but suddenly everything is different because it matters to you?
Backing up...I didn't intend to write this today. I have a whole long list of things to do and writing in my blog isn't on it. But I've been thinking so hard on this I just have to spit it out of my brain and onto paper, a piece of half-chewed gum, to get it out of my way for something else. Because I felt that line last week and now it's tripping me up. Something I thought I could step over, designating the difference between point a and point b somehow got bigger and bulkier and three-dimensional on me, not, apparently, a line at all.
You've felt it too, haven't you? There you are with someone or a group of someones, or maybe just by yourself, and you're doing something, or maybe you're not, and if you had a little soundtrack in your brain it would go something like this, "This is nice, I like this, I'm happy, this feels good." Then it's like something sits up and listens in, ears perked, "Ohhhh, you know what? I DO like this! This IS nice! Wow, I AM happy! And oh gosh this DOES feel really good. REALLY good..." And does that something then snuggle in all content and pleased with life? No it does not. It panics. "I want this to continue. What if it stops? What if it doesn't stop? What does this mean, that I like this? Is this okay that I feel like this? Hey, who gets to decide that anyway? Why wouldn't it be okay? But what does it mean? And what if it never happens again? It has to happen again. But what if I get hurt? And what if I get what I want? And what do I want? What does it mean that I want something I didn't know I wanted? What will this change? I don't want change."
This has been my soundtrack all weekend. I'm a little tired. The inner witness has been chiming in periodically as well, "Isn't that interesting that now that you care, now that it matters, you've become attached to outcome? I wonder if there would be a way to care deeply, to have it matter terribly, and still release attachment? Can you desire this and be clear about your desire, and truly feel just fine no matter how things turn out?" All of this internal conversation reminded me of a book I had read a couple of years ago called Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life by Mark Epstein. He says in the beginning of chapter 3, "...desire forces us into a place where our usual modes of relating are upended, where success can only be found when...we risk making fools of ourselves. This seems to be one of desire's primary functions: to keep us off balance, in between, on the verge, or just out of reach." I want I want I want seems to go hand in hand with I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared.
It would be nice don't you think to let go of them both? Desire and fear right out the window; then we can all just be placid and satisfied. Unfortunately, it seems that I want I want I want and I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared also have a couple of important friends: I love I love I love and I live I live I live.
So I guess I'm just going to sit here on this line between point a and point b, off balance, in between, on the verge, and rest here a little. Because I DO love and I DO live and I DO want. And I AM scared. From Mark Epstein-"Touching desire, meeting and gratifying another's desire, lets us know God." God and me, we're just going to sit here a little. Get to know each other.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Backing up...I didn't intend to write this today. I have a whole long list of things to do and writing in my blog isn't on it. But I've been thinking so hard on this I just have to spit it out of my brain and onto paper, a piece of half-chewed gum, to get it out of my way for something else. Because I felt that line last week and now it's tripping me up. Something I thought I could step over, designating the difference between point a and point b somehow got bigger and bulkier and three-dimensional on me, not, apparently, a line at all.
You've felt it too, haven't you? There you are with someone or a group of someones, or maybe just by yourself, and you're doing something, or maybe you're not, and if you had a little soundtrack in your brain it would go something like this, "This is nice, I like this, I'm happy, this feels good." Then it's like something sits up and listens in, ears perked, "Ohhhh, you know what? I DO like this! This IS nice! Wow, I AM happy! And oh gosh this DOES feel really good. REALLY good..." And does that something then snuggle in all content and pleased with life? No it does not. It panics. "I want this to continue. What if it stops? What if it doesn't stop? What does this mean, that I like this? Is this okay that I feel like this? Hey, who gets to decide that anyway? Why wouldn't it be okay? But what does it mean? And what if it never happens again? It has to happen again. But what if I get hurt? And what if I get what I want? And what do I want? What does it mean that I want something I didn't know I wanted? What will this change? I don't want change."
This has been my soundtrack all weekend. I'm a little tired. The inner witness has been chiming in periodically as well, "Isn't that interesting that now that you care, now that it matters, you've become attached to outcome? I wonder if there would be a way to care deeply, to have it matter terribly, and still release attachment? Can you desire this and be clear about your desire, and truly feel just fine no matter how things turn out?" All of this internal conversation reminded me of a book I had read a couple of years ago called Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life by Mark Epstein. He says in the beginning of chapter 3, "...desire forces us into a place where our usual modes of relating are upended, where success can only be found when...we risk making fools of ourselves. This seems to be one of desire's primary functions: to keep us off balance, in between, on the verge, or just out of reach." I want I want I want seems to go hand in hand with I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared.
It would be nice don't you think to let go of them both? Desire and fear right out the window; then we can all just be placid and satisfied. Unfortunately, it seems that I want I want I want and I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared also have a couple of important friends: I love I love I love and I live I live I live.
So I guess I'm just going to sit here on this line between point a and point b, off balance, in between, on the verge, and rest here a little. Because I DO love and I DO live and I DO want. And I AM scared. From Mark Epstein-"Touching desire, meeting and gratifying another's desire, lets us know God." God and me, we're just going to sit here a little. Get to know each other.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Joy and Pleasure
Somehow in trying to figure out what to write next I was thinking about stuff that makes me happy. I was reading over old morning pages for the last several months and was amazed again to see how emotions just flow over and through everything and are so powerful but change so quickly. It's like that old joke about the weather-don't like it? Just wait a minute. But often the things that really tweak my mental state into joy are little and silly. Here's a little list:
Wind
The hand dryer in the bathroom at our local grocery store. I swear I always go to the bathroom there only because I adore this dryer. When you put your hands under it, it blows mach force air at you so your skin does that funny rubbery thing and they dry fast!! Whoo.
Homemade chocolate chip cookies. There are some in the kitchen right now. Often they make me happy, then they make me a little ill.
Frogs
The memory of skinny dipping in Walden Pond after a Grateful Dead concert with my roommate and 3 strangers who were giving us a ride home to Boston.
A card I bought myself that sings "I've got the power..." when I open it.
Doing something well and being admired for it.
Odd bits of sensory memory of good sex that float up out of nowhere to take my breath away at the oddest times.
The cold plunge at the women's spa. It's freezing, it has a waterfall, I always feel exuberant and full of life after it. Plus I love watching the faces of the women in the hot tub as I stand for many minutes at a time letting the frigid water beat on my head and shoulders in complete bliss.
Flannel sheets on naked skin on those first cold nights of fall.
My little sandals that are yellow and orange and red with a big flower on the top.
The commercial that's out right now for the lottery with penguins and chickens hang gliding.
Friends who send emails just to say hi.
A big fat new book, much looked forward to, a cup of tea and a morning to myself.
Yummy life. Eat it up.
Wind
The hand dryer in the bathroom at our local grocery store. I swear I always go to the bathroom there only because I adore this dryer. When you put your hands under it, it blows mach force air at you so your skin does that funny rubbery thing and they dry fast!! Whoo.
Homemade chocolate chip cookies. There are some in the kitchen right now. Often they make me happy, then they make me a little ill.
Frogs
The memory of skinny dipping in Walden Pond after a Grateful Dead concert with my roommate and 3 strangers who were giving us a ride home to Boston.
A card I bought myself that sings "I've got the power..." when I open it.
Doing something well and being admired for it.
Odd bits of sensory memory of good sex that float up out of nowhere to take my breath away at the oddest times.
The cold plunge at the women's spa. It's freezing, it has a waterfall, I always feel exuberant and full of life after it. Plus I love watching the faces of the women in the hot tub as I stand for many minutes at a time letting the frigid water beat on my head and shoulders in complete bliss.
Flannel sheets on naked skin on those first cold nights of fall.
My little sandals that are yellow and orange and red with a big flower on the top.
The commercial that's out right now for the lottery with penguins and chickens hang gliding.
Friends who send emails just to say hi.
A big fat new book, much looked forward to, a cup of tea and a morning to myself.
Yummy life. Eat it up.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Just Us Chickens
I've been thinking a lot lately about what to write next, coming up with themes and letting them go, and just not really being struck by anything in particular. The irony of beginning a blog with the theme of getting lost and then promptly NOT getting lost very much at all has not been lost on me. It has made me think about it though, this piece of me that has been very much a part of my identity for so long that I had forgotten to question it, to see if, really, it still fit me. Oh, I still have no sense of direction; take me in a building, run me around a little and let me back out, I'll have no idea where I am. We have so many natural landmarks here that I'm pretty full of myself, throwing around north and south with the best of them. But I've still gotten lost to the point of tears when someone's given me directions to "just take that exit past the chevron station..." and it just hasn't been that simple.
What I have noticed though is that I've just been here for so long that I know this place, in a way I've never known any other place in my life. I never realized that when you're 18 years old 5 years spent in a single place seems quite long; when you're over 40 and just now noticing that you've lived that same 18 years rooted in one city, you start to think that maybe it was only reasonable to get lost so often when you never stayed put.
And I think when it comes to feeling rooted and learning my way around, I'm a slow learner. My brain was wired for other kinds of knowing, but feeling a sense of belonging, a sense of place comes slow to me. With that comes an almost endless searching for community, an obsessive need to "find" it and make it mine somehow, always questioning what it actually consists of. But today I was doing the dishes and looking out at the chickens and got a little glimmer of something.
Yes, we have chickens in the city. We used to have three, but Nancy died, leaving Bess and George behind. We got them when they were tiny chicks, picked out for their beauty and their egg laying abilities and they grew up with each other and with us. It's been interesting to us to watch their little community develop and realize that they have a whole complicated social structure all their own. They have different voices and different calls they use for different purposes. One call is a warning call for a predator, specifically a cat. When they're out in the yard and we hear that call, we know to go running to the defense of the flock.
Yesterday we had them back in the coop and were out working on the side of the house when we had a little visitor. Specifically, a little orange striped visitor, a local cat who is adorable and sweet and friendly....and whom we've had to chase out of the backyard when he's gone after the chickens. But the chickens were safe and the gate was closed so we were playing with and petting the cat. The chickens were going nuts, calling and flaring their neck feathers, spreading their wings, making themselves bigger. We couldn't figure it out; we'd call to them, we went out to the yard to try and calm them, but they were having none of it. We finally figured it out when we saw one chicken seeming to watch the cat's movement and realized she could see him through a hole in the gate. (The visual cortex of a bird, you have to remember, is much more powerful than our own.) Even then though, they were safe in the coop and they know that; we've seen that they understand the difference between being out and vulnerable, as opposed to inside and safe. A little more thinking and detective work on our part and we got it–we are part of their flock! They were warning us and trying to protect us. We're kind of stupid sometimes but eventually we figure it out.
It's a cute story, and we were touched by their concern, but is there really any deeper meaning there? Honestly, I don't really know. But I do know that I like the fact that I live here in this place with the companions who occupy the space around me, and I know that when push comes to shove I've got my flock behind me. They've got my back and sometimes that's enough.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
What I have noticed though is that I've just been here for so long that I know this place, in a way I've never known any other place in my life. I never realized that when you're 18 years old 5 years spent in a single place seems quite long; when you're over 40 and just now noticing that you've lived that same 18 years rooted in one city, you start to think that maybe it was only reasonable to get lost so often when you never stayed put.
And I think when it comes to feeling rooted and learning my way around, I'm a slow learner. My brain was wired for other kinds of knowing, but feeling a sense of belonging, a sense of place comes slow to me. With that comes an almost endless searching for community, an obsessive need to "find" it and make it mine somehow, always questioning what it actually consists of. But today I was doing the dishes and looking out at the chickens and got a little glimmer of something.
Yes, we have chickens in the city. We used to have three, but Nancy died, leaving Bess and George behind. We got them when they were tiny chicks, picked out for their beauty and their egg laying abilities and they grew up with each other and with us. It's been interesting to us to watch their little community develop and realize that they have a whole complicated social structure all their own. They have different voices and different calls they use for different purposes. One call is a warning call for a predator, specifically a cat. When they're out in the yard and we hear that call, we know to go running to the defense of the flock.
Yesterday we had them back in the coop and were out working on the side of the house when we had a little visitor. Specifically, a little orange striped visitor, a local cat who is adorable and sweet and friendly....and whom we've had to chase out of the backyard when he's gone after the chickens. But the chickens were safe and the gate was closed so we were playing with and petting the cat. The chickens were going nuts, calling and flaring their neck feathers, spreading their wings, making themselves bigger. We couldn't figure it out; we'd call to them, we went out to the yard to try and calm them, but they were having none of it. We finally figured it out when we saw one chicken seeming to watch the cat's movement and realized she could see him through a hole in the gate. (The visual cortex of a bird, you have to remember, is much more powerful than our own.) Even then though, they were safe in the coop and they know that; we've seen that they understand the difference between being out and vulnerable, as opposed to inside and safe. A little more thinking and detective work on our part and we got it–we are part of their flock! They were warning us and trying to protect us. We're kind of stupid sometimes but eventually we figure it out.
It's a cute story, and we were touched by their concern, but is there really any deeper meaning there? Honestly, I don't really know. But I do know that I like the fact that I live here in this place with the companions who occupy the space around me, and I know that when push comes to shove I've got my flock behind me. They've got my back and sometimes that's enough.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Magic Carpet Ride
Well, that's the first thing that came to mind anyway when thinking about this particular topic. I have a feeling this post might be a little brief and free-wheeling...
So I was thinking about life. Now that's a shocker. But really, I was, and what I was thinking was that in some ways it's like taking a yoga class. No, no...stay with me here. What I was thinking is that you come to class and step on your mat and class begins and you really can't leave. I mean, well, obviously, you can, unless someone has locked you in, but the thing is, mostly people don't leave. There you are, on your mat and whatever happens, whatever comes, you just stay. And maybe you do all the poses as illustrated by the instructor, or maybe you make adaptations, or maybe you just say, "Not today, thanks!" and hang out in child's pose to wait out whatever's going on. Often the class will contain poses that are challenging in some way, either physically or emotionally (being bored counts as a challenge!), and there will be poses you don't like much, and poses you like a lot, and maybe there will be your very favorite pose ever and you're so happy to be able to do it! The point is you're there for all of it; you have your reactions, whatever they are, but you're still there on your mat.
And it seems to me that we're born, and then we're just here, and a bunch of stuff happens and we react to it, and we adapt to it, sometimes we flow with it, sometimes we fight it, and sometimes we sit it out, but we're still there in the room on the mat. All of that other stuff is just stuff happening-inside, outside, all around-but our presence in the room is unchanging, until the class is over. We are responsible for whatever we do on the mat, but we can let go of everything else. The mat, the floor, the earth beneath us, the air in the room or in the outdoors, the breath of the other people there with us, it all contains us and supports us so we don't have to do that part. And we have no control over what poses the teacher will teach, or what the other students may do, so we don't have to worry about that either. And we've shown up already by being born, so really we just have to ride, and leave when it's over.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
So I was thinking about life. Now that's a shocker. But really, I was, and what I was thinking was that in some ways it's like taking a yoga class. No, no...stay with me here. What I was thinking is that you come to class and step on your mat and class begins and you really can't leave. I mean, well, obviously, you can, unless someone has locked you in, but the thing is, mostly people don't leave. There you are, on your mat and whatever happens, whatever comes, you just stay. And maybe you do all the poses as illustrated by the instructor, or maybe you make adaptations, or maybe you just say, "Not today, thanks!" and hang out in child's pose to wait out whatever's going on. Often the class will contain poses that are challenging in some way, either physically or emotionally (being bored counts as a challenge!), and there will be poses you don't like much, and poses you like a lot, and maybe there will be your very favorite pose ever and you're so happy to be able to do it! The point is you're there for all of it; you have your reactions, whatever they are, but you're still there on your mat.
And it seems to me that we're born, and then we're just here, and a bunch of stuff happens and we react to it, and we adapt to it, sometimes we flow with it, sometimes we fight it, and sometimes we sit it out, but we're still there in the room on the mat. All of that other stuff is just stuff happening-inside, outside, all around-but our presence in the room is unchanging, until the class is over. We are responsible for whatever we do on the mat, but we can let go of everything else. The mat, the floor, the earth beneath us, the air in the room or in the outdoors, the breath of the other people there with us, it all contains us and supports us so we don't have to do that part. And we have no control over what poses the teacher will teach, or what the other students may do, so we don't have to worry about that either. And we've shown up already by being born, so really we just have to ride, and leave when it's over.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
Monday, February 11, 2008
Hey, whose path is this anyway?
It occurred to me to wonder, as I wander on and off this path I'm on, getting lost and finding my way back, whose path is this really? And is it marked, or am I wandering around in a featureless space with little animator goggles on that are creating some kind of reality for me? Kind of like the 21st century version of Plato's cave?
What brought this up for me was a question from a yoga student: She felt that there's some kind of ideal out there for each pose, and isn't that what we're trying to reach? She has a dance background, like me, and comes from that concept of trying to get to that one exact perfectly correct and beautiful placement. I have a couple of issues with that: One is, it was exactly that kind of noble goal that brought me to an entirely unhealthy way of being in my body, treating it like a prisoner of war that was holding out on me, and two is, I think of yoga practice as kind of a special science experiment where objective curiosity and observation is crucial, and having too much goal in there skews the results.
So I was thinking about all this later, and thinking about how often we easily slip into wanting someone else's ideal life. Kind of like that ideal map of a pose, there's also an ideal map of a life out there somewhere and that's the one we want for ourselves. I remember talking with my neuroscience professor once either close to or right after graduation and feeling almost sick with envy. Her life just seemed so damn easy in so many ways because she had a very singular focus, and because of that focus her career path was laid out in a nicely marked straight line for her. She had never strayed from it and she was entirely happy. I, on the other hand, felt like I was scattered all over everything and every step I took was taking me down some kind of Dr. Seussian trail, in no particular direction at all.
Now, twenty years later I look back and there's still no straight line back there behind me, but I've had a really fun life. I love my life and I love my body–the way they are. They still both take me by surprise sometimes and I like that. Don't get me wrong–I still sometimes yearn for something more, something clear, something easy, something perfect. I do think there's probably an ideal out there for everything, something we're striving for, but I think it's unique to us individually. So there is no perfect essence of Triangle Pose; how could essence of Triangle ever take into consideration my own beauty, my own unique quality? There is only the perfect Triangle Pose for me today, right now, this second and it's the very pose I'm doing. And my path is uniquely my own, correct only for me, and I fill it the best way I can.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
What brought this up for me was a question from a yoga student: She felt that there's some kind of ideal out there for each pose, and isn't that what we're trying to reach? She has a dance background, like me, and comes from that concept of trying to get to that one exact perfectly correct and beautiful placement. I have a couple of issues with that: One is, it was exactly that kind of noble goal that brought me to an entirely unhealthy way of being in my body, treating it like a prisoner of war that was holding out on me, and two is, I think of yoga practice as kind of a special science experiment where objective curiosity and observation is crucial, and having too much goal in there skews the results.
So I was thinking about all this later, and thinking about how often we easily slip into wanting someone else's ideal life. Kind of like that ideal map of a pose, there's also an ideal map of a life out there somewhere and that's the one we want for ourselves. I remember talking with my neuroscience professor once either close to or right after graduation and feeling almost sick with envy. Her life just seemed so damn easy in so many ways because she had a very singular focus, and because of that focus her career path was laid out in a nicely marked straight line for her. She had never strayed from it and she was entirely happy. I, on the other hand, felt like I was scattered all over everything and every step I took was taking me down some kind of Dr. Seussian trail, in no particular direction at all.
Now, twenty years later I look back and there's still no straight line back there behind me, but I've had a really fun life. I love my life and I love my body–the way they are. They still both take me by surprise sometimes and I like that. Don't get me wrong–I still sometimes yearn for something more, something clear, something easy, something perfect. I do think there's probably an ideal out there for everything, something we're striving for, but I think it's unique to us individually. So there is no perfect essence of Triangle Pose; how could essence of Triangle ever take into consideration my own beauty, my own unique quality? There is only the perfect Triangle Pose for me today, right now, this second and it's the very pose I'm doing. And my path is uniquely my own, correct only for me, and I fill it the best way I can.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
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