The taste of damp sweet Spring teases the palate
A craving for warmth sends chills deeper into bones
Tiny green sprouts struggle for survival
Feeding upon the humus of the old
Birth and death reflected in a drop of morning dew
As the shadows of winter fade my journey turns
Once maiden, then mother
resurrecting once again
Dipping an apprehensive toe into cool wise waters
Enter the crone
As fertility of my flesh fades
Seeds of creative freedom sprout
Feeding on memories of pain, passion, of youth
Dipping the quill into the dark
Rich ink of the soul
May life begin again
Last Sunday Rev Sinkford spoke about resurrection, how we are born and reborn many times in our life. One life change shaking us up and moving us in new direction. Pema Chodron dedicates a whole book to the idea that when things fall apart, when the solid ground beneath out feet suddenly becomes thin as air and we find ourselves in a free fall, it's not necessarily a bad thing. These are moments of tremendous growth.
As I gallop headlong through my 45th year of this life I am confronting new realities. My eyesight is less reliable, requiring drug store cheaters to read. Allergies are cropping up that have never been an issue in the past. And now I begin the transition into the crone phase of this full and wonderful life. With the onset of menopause come new challenges. My early morning meditations are often accompanied by a hot flash or two, reminding me ever more deeply not to mistakenly think myself immortal. Sleep can elude me more with the occasional night sweat. Taking time to relax physically and mentally has become important. For this reason I have taken up knitting, finding that as I tie little knots into yarn, the tight bundles of knots in my mind loosen as do my muscles. Another great relaxation is walking back from school with my six year old daughter. The more present I am in the moment, the more relaxing it is. Mindfulness is a practice for all ages (pun intended).
I search my feelings for anything hinting of fear or anxiety but find only a sense of relief. I've wondered at this for a time and it has dawned on me that the women I most admire have all achieved their greatest accomplishments late in life. I've caught myself many times searching for gray hair on my head and being disappointed when I don't find it. I'm hoping that I have my greatest accomplishments still ahead of me. Most of the women I work with in the USNPCA and the UU Peace Action Committee are older than me and I admire their wisdom, beauty, poise and relentless persistence for the cause of peace and social justice. They are my constant inspiration and role models.
Our culture is so devoid of spirit and heart. I find myself yearning for a ritual that would connect these moments of passage with my larger sangha or social circle of friends. With first menses there is a blossoming into womanhood, the maiden. It is a busy time of love, heartbreak, work, struggle and finding our inner strength. Many cultures have beautiful rituals surrounding this rite of passage. As we birth new life, dancing with a new spirit who carries some of our spark, we connect with a deep, primitive force that makes us one with all of existence, past, present and future. By burying the placenta under a rose bush for which my daughter is named, I created our own ritual. Prior to birth our culture has the baby shower, and my pagan sisters performed a beautiful birthing ritual for me just prior to Alexa'a entry into this realm. Suckling our young we feel a sense of the order and perfection of this life, just as we doze off to sleep the new born sleep. We nurture our child and forget ourselves, focused on protecting that bit of our heart with legs, arms, and an inquisitive mind not yet afraid to engage this world. We give all we have... and then we let go. The hormones begin to slow, the family needs us less and at last there is space to create in a new way. A chance to more closely examine the cracks in the mortar to see what we have blocked away in our busy-ness. Finding wisdom hidden in the hair and mud buried beneath years of tacky wall paper. In there we are all three; maiden, mother and crone. In this sacred matriarchal trinity, I am reborn whole.
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Monday, December 8, 2008
Impermanence
A Prince about to be coronated as king, the future Buddha, determined to see what was beyond the gates of his estate He employed a chariot to show him around against the will of his father. On his journey he observed an old man, a very ill man and a corpse. Then he saw an ascetic whose face relayed contentment. As Siddartha contemplated the meaning of what he'd seen he came to realize that we all suffer or at least find life less than perfect, the first of the Noble Truths. The second Truth is that the cause is attachment. The good news can be found in the third and fourth, that we can end our suffering by following the Eightfold path.
The first Noble Truth says that "Life is dukka". Often this is translated as suffering, but closer fit would be unsatisfying or imperfect. Few of us will deny that there is dukka. This dissatisfaction comes from the impermanence of EVERYTHING in this existence. Impermanence is not the flaw, it is the reality. Our attempts to make permanent that which cannot be permanent brings us suffering and unhappiness. It is our thinking that is flawed or at least deluded with regard to reality. All of us will experience illness, aging and ultimately death. We all hope that we won't suffer any illness more threatening than the common cold, nor that we will have to endure too much pain as we age and we always imagine sitting back when we've done all we can in this life and quietly releasing into death. This life is rare so to attach to this scenario can only lead to more dukka. Attachment is two-fold as I think of it. There is clinging or grasping after pleasurable things and thoughts while avoiding those that are not. The middle way is to avoid both and just reside in the moment as it is.
There is a Buddhist practice of meditating on death. The premise being that since death is inevitable a few rehearsals might be in order to help us get it right. It's also a reminder not to identify too strongly with the body. Often in my meditations I visualize myself a sitting corpse or sometimes a skeleton. I remind myself that this body and mind are only dirt and will eventually decay and fail me. Rather than a morbid focus I find this practice very liberating. It relaxes me. It reminds me to relish the itch on my nose, for it will pass with or without my scratching it. The painful veins in my legs may one day provide pathways for grubs as they aid in my decomposition. The pinched nerve in my neck, the nerve damage down my left side that causes an endless itching sensation - all these will fade away, becoming mulch for a new harvest of life. And then I look at my body in a new light. It is chemistry and electricity. It is the most complex measuring tool for my analytical experiments in space and time. Who the observer of these experiments is I'm not entirely sure. But then that is why I'm still just practicing and not yet a Buddha.
Thought does not come out of a vacuum and so it is true of this contemplation of the impermanence of life. There were two occasions recently that brought my mind to focus on this topic. First was my friend Seda's post on Dysphoria (http://silknvoice.blogspot.com/2008/12/dysphoria.html) and all the comments that it generated. No one, especially in our consumerist society, will be completely happy with their body image. But for the transgendered this experience is amplified. It reminded me of how my body image has changed throughout my life. Remembering times when I was thin, ribs prominently defined beneath my skin, and yet I continued to diet and exercise to match some unobtainable picture in my mind. My best friend in high school suffered anorexia to the point that her reproductive system was compromised and she ultimately ended up in the hospital being fed intravenously to save her life. I'm relieved to say I'm way beyond that now. With my shaved head and chemical free face, I feel quite at ease with my body and all it's imperfections, flaws, scars, and now wrinkles. The signs of aging are asserting themselves each morning as I look in the mirror or try to make out the number on my cell phone display when someone calls. I could use modern technology, surgery, makeup and such to try to fit the ideal look for the aging adult (or worse, hold on to some youthful ideal I never achieved in the first place), but I think I already learned that lesson as a young woman. I'm proud of the wrinkles, because they're primarily from smiling. I'm proud of the stretch marks because they remind me of the warmth of pregnancy and that amazing and most intense experience called birth. Each scar holds a memory of a frightened young girl who tried something just a little beyond her capability, but she didn't let it stop her from trying it again later. And some scars were self inflicted, which remind me of how far I've travelled both in this external world as well as inside this host. My time with the body is so brief, so now I take good care of her in the hopes that she will allow me some more experiments in this space and time constrained world. I have great compassion for my body and my mind - they've been through a lot and managed to do way better than just survive.
Life is too short. There are no one way tickets. The second event that started this internal and now external dialog happened Friday night. I was participating in a teleconference for Nonviolent Peaceforce, when I noticed an email from the Unitarian Universalist Peace Action Committee. I assumed it would be about our upcoming meeting. It was, but it also added that a dear friend of so many of us was in recovery from surgery. She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and surgery proceeded almost immediately. As soon as she is strong enough chemotherapy will begin in an attempt to kill off the 10% of the tumor that was inoperable. Four years ago her life partner died of this same cancer. My friend has given so much of herself to so many both here in the Portland community and abroad in places like Cuba, Budapest, etc. Now she is surrounded by a large network of friends who are giving their love, time and care, and hoping it will float her through this terrible experience. It's one thing to contemplate our own frailty and imminent death, but when it is a loved one the lesson can be so much harder. We must accept our helplessness while at the same time watching for every opportunity to give care and compassion. We have to maintain our strength and energy so that we can share it when theirs wanes. This is what we do. Humans are made to care for one another. Compassion is our natural state if only we'll let it be. Never deny an opportunity to help another and you will experience the contentment Buddha saw in the face of the ascetic. And when the day arrives when your own body begins to fail, you'll find yourself carried by the love and compassion of others, bringing you full circle.
The first Noble Truth says that "Life is dukka". Often this is translated as suffering, but closer fit would be unsatisfying or imperfect. Few of us will deny that there is dukka. This dissatisfaction comes from the impermanence of EVERYTHING in this existence. Impermanence is not the flaw, it is the reality. Our attempts to make permanent that which cannot be permanent brings us suffering and unhappiness. It is our thinking that is flawed or at least deluded with regard to reality. All of us will experience illness, aging and ultimately death. We all hope that we won't suffer any illness more threatening than the common cold, nor that we will have to endure too much pain as we age and we always imagine sitting back when we've done all we can in this life and quietly releasing into death. This life is rare so to attach to this scenario can only lead to more dukka. Attachment is two-fold as I think of it. There is clinging or grasping after pleasurable things and thoughts while avoiding those that are not. The middle way is to avoid both and just reside in the moment as it is.
There is a Buddhist practice of meditating on death. The premise being that since death is inevitable a few rehearsals might be in order to help us get it right. It's also a reminder not to identify too strongly with the body. Often in my meditations I visualize myself a sitting corpse or sometimes a skeleton. I remind myself that this body and mind are only dirt and will eventually decay and fail me. Rather than a morbid focus I find this practice very liberating. It relaxes me. It reminds me to relish the itch on my nose, for it will pass with or without my scratching it. The painful veins in my legs may one day provide pathways for grubs as they aid in my decomposition. The pinched nerve in my neck, the nerve damage down my left side that causes an endless itching sensation - all these will fade away, becoming mulch for a new harvest of life. And then I look at my body in a new light. It is chemistry and electricity. It is the most complex measuring tool for my analytical experiments in space and time. Who the observer of these experiments is I'm not entirely sure. But then that is why I'm still just practicing and not yet a Buddha.
Thought does not come out of a vacuum and so it is true of this contemplation of the impermanence of life. There were two occasions recently that brought my mind to focus on this topic. First was my friend Seda's post on Dysphoria (http://silknvoice.blogspot.com/2008/12/dysphoria.html) and all the comments that it generated. No one, especially in our consumerist society, will be completely happy with their body image. But for the transgendered this experience is amplified. It reminded me of how my body image has changed throughout my life. Remembering times when I was thin, ribs prominently defined beneath my skin, and yet I continued to diet and exercise to match some unobtainable picture in my mind. My best friend in high school suffered anorexia to the point that her reproductive system was compromised and she ultimately ended up in the hospital being fed intravenously to save her life. I'm relieved to say I'm way beyond that now. With my shaved head and chemical free face, I feel quite at ease with my body and all it's imperfections, flaws, scars, and now wrinkles. The signs of aging are asserting themselves each morning as I look in the mirror or try to make out the number on my cell phone display when someone calls. I could use modern technology, surgery, makeup and such to try to fit the ideal look for the aging adult (or worse, hold on to some youthful ideal I never achieved in the first place), but I think I already learned that lesson as a young woman. I'm proud of the wrinkles, because they're primarily from smiling. I'm proud of the stretch marks because they remind me of the warmth of pregnancy and that amazing and most intense experience called birth. Each scar holds a memory of a frightened young girl who tried something just a little beyond her capability, but she didn't let it stop her from trying it again later. And some scars were self inflicted, which remind me of how far I've travelled both in this external world as well as inside this host. My time with the body is so brief, so now I take good care of her in the hopes that she will allow me some more experiments in this space and time constrained world. I have great compassion for my body and my mind - they've been through a lot and managed to do way better than just survive.
Life is too short. There are no one way tickets. The second event that started this internal and now external dialog happened Friday night. I was participating in a teleconference for Nonviolent Peaceforce, when I noticed an email from the Unitarian Universalist Peace Action Committee. I assumed it would be about our upcoming meeting. It was, but it also added that a dear friend of so many of us was in recovery from surgery. She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and surgery proceeded almost immediately. As soon as she is strong enough chemotherapy will begin in an attempt to kill off the 10% of the tumor that was inoperable. Four years ago her life partner died of this same cancer. My friend has given so much of herself to so many both here in the Portland community and abroad in places like Cuba, Budapest, etc. Now she is surrounded by a large network of friends who are giving their love, time and care, and hoping it will float her through this terrible experience. It's one thing to contemplate our own frailty and imminent death, but when it is a loved one the lesson can be so much harder. We must accept our helplessness while at the same time watching for every opportunity to give care and compassion. We have to maintain our strength and energy so that we can share it when theirs wanes. This is what we do. Humans are made to care for one another. Compassion is our natural state if only we'll let it be. Never deny an opportunity to help another and you will experience the contentment Buddha saw in the face of the ascetic. And when the day arrives when your own body begins to fail, you'll find yourself carried by the love and compassion of others, bringing you full circle.
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