Connection Magic

Last night at the pub I sat alone, drinking a beer and reflecting on the day.  And then, there was a woman, about my age.  I was looking up, so I saw she was looking for a seat, and I asked her to sit down.  When we started talking, she was a little teary.  She talked about her recent move from California, how she was staying with her daughter, and trying to figure out what to do next.

I know the feeling.  She said she was having a "weepy day" riding around on her bike, feeling lonesome and maybe a little afraid.  And we connected there, in the place where humans say "see, this is my pain.  What is yours?"

Then she said she wanted to do some work, giving care to people.  And I told her that part of my job was hiring care givers.  Her face lit up, and her whole body relaxed.  And we connected in another human space; the expansive and welcoming space that opens up when we know, once again, that we belong here.

Today she came into the office and filled out an application.

River Walk

Monday, May 12, 2014

Today is positively summery here in Eugene, Oregon.  My walk to work this morning takes me down the river path, and it is its old self now; a long, winding tunnel of green, composed of tall swaying cottonwood trees.  The canopy is far overhead, a hundred feet or more.  Tiny cotton balls drift through the air in front of me, on currents of warm lazy air.  And the river rushes over rapids only a few yards to my left.

Later in the summer, the river will run lower, creating quiet pools to swim in.  But for now, it still has its full winter size and it sill strains against the banks that contain it.  It is blue and green, reflecting the colors above it.  From where I stand, I can see it winding up stream a mile or so.  Rapids create wave crests, white and sparkling, and the Osprey are fishing in the clear morning air.

Next, I am in the office, greeting co-workers and sitting down to my desk.  But the river and the bright, reflected sunlight are still in my head and heart.

Summit Day

October 8, 2011

           To the East of Klamath Falls a long, high wall of a mountain soars above the city.  I’m going to take a break today from all the analyzing, reporting and politicking.  In just five minutes of driving, I’m standing at the base of Hogback Mountain.  The trail is a thin brown line straggling straight up a buttress to the main ridge.  There are no trees here, or very few, so the whole stretch is visible.

            In only a few hundred yards, the car is a tiny, shiny dot in the parking lot.  My breath burns and my world contracts.  The trail is so steep, I have to carefully place each step to avoid slipping.  It’s like climbing stairs with risers that are sloping downwards, and are coated with slippery sand.  The effort of concentration pays, though.  Soon, I’m in a state so focused that I can feel the expanse of Pure Mind.

            It doesn’t matter how you get there, whether from following the breath, or washing the dishes, or following every step with perfect concentration.  The destination is the same: Bare Attention.  This mind-state carries me up, through a country turned on its side, until I’m only a few feet from the ridge-top.  But as I approach, I can tell it’s not the top.  The wind is wrong, and the slope is increasing again.  I step over the lip, and I’m greeted by another near-vertical stretch of trail, threading its way up to further height, the true ridge-top.

This is a false summit.

            More steps of expansive awareness follow, un-countable steps, each the same as the last, each unique in its infinitely careful placement.  And finally, the wind freshens, and the slope decreases.  And then, I’m standing on a wind-swept ridge, a knife-edge balancing itself at the top of this massive hill.  I’m not sure why, but every time I’ve ever approached summit, it seems quieter.  Maybe it’s a sense of reverence, or maybe the unencumbered wind drowns out all other sound.  It adds to the sense that you are in a far place.

            Now I begin to work my way up the ridge, still climbing but much less steeply. The world expands with every footstep, now on both sides of the mountain.  To the west, Klamath Falls is spread before me like a map.  The enormous lake lies silently to the north, darkened by its own private fog bank.  To the east, a sere landscape extends in rolling hills and spreading, cultivated bottomland.  Creeks and lakes decorate the arid view.

            I round some rock outcroppings, jutting high and sharp above me.   These formations are called sentinels, as if they guarded the summit from discovery by people of my ilk.  And then, almost suddenly, the wind freshens again, silence drapes me even more heavily, and I see the hill flatten out in all directions.

            I am standing on top of Hogback Mountain.  From the valley floor, at three thousand feet, I’ve climbed to six thousand, two hundred feet, gaining three thousand two hundred feet in two and a half miles.

            On the summit, I am alone.  The distance of the town far below me emphasizes the solitude here; I can look down and collectively see thousands of people, but I cannot see one individual person.  Here there is huckleberry and sage, bare earth, and horned lizards that scramble from their sunny hotspots to hide from me.

            And there is the wind, ever present, gentle but insistent.  It whispers to me: of the mystery contained here, here for the taking.  To the north, I can see the rim of Crater Lake, and, just barely, Mount Thielsen, a mountain I climbed many, many years ago.  Out there is also Mt. McGloughlin, and the long, high ridge of the Sky Lakes.  I can see in my mind’s eye, a thousand places up there, places where I slept and swam and despaired and exulted.  I can see, in my mind’s eye, the me of twenty-one years ago, standing on windy ridge top out there, and looking across the gulf of open country, to the distant town of Klamath Falls and beyond.

            The second half of the climb awaits, the most dangerous half.  I turn and begin my descent, on trembling knees and aching feet.  By the time I arrive at the rock cairns that mark my route down the buttress, every step is causing me pain, and concentrating on my foot placement is very, very difficult.  At last I feel the familiar relief of stepping onto flat ground.  My mind eases, and my attention relents.  My old, busy world of thought-stream pushes back in, startling me in its suddenness.

            But it’s changed, too.  For hours afterward, the world looks different.  Just as it would from a good long sitting meditation session.  Every sense is sharpened, every joy more joyful.  Back up the hill, the summit smiles down at me, a real place now.

            Next morning, I look out the window of my hotel room, and I see the top.  I can see the summit in my mind’s eye.  I can see the me of yesterday, up there, looking down at the town.

Commerce

September 22, 2011

                Morning sunlight floods the Lorane valley, and I am in the little white chair out front, drinking tea.  And then the Sit begins, and it’s very good today. I slip immediately into an expansive state, following the sensation of the breath.  As thoughts and feelings recede, the first thing I notice today is the busy-ness of this little valley, a busy-ness that mostly goes un-noticed.

                A tiny spider drapes a thread of silk across the back of my ear.  I reach up to brush it away, requiring that he build his trap elsewhere.  A black and white chickadee sits in the Douglas Fir tree ten feet from me, squawks loudly and flys away, his wings making a buzzing sound this close up.  A woodpecker sits on a thick limb high in the same tree, slamming his beak down into the bark over and over again, creating a resounding “thwock” with each impact; thwock, pull back, listen, repeat.  Hawks circle above, calling to each other in shrill, far-away notes.  Larry stalks across the driveway and woofs at a passing car.

                All of this is meaningful to everyone involved, I have no doubt.  But it’s kind of distracting.  Then a hummingbird appears, off to my right.  Because I am sitting so still, he doesn’t realize I’m a person, and it doesn’t occur to him to be afraid.  He stops his flight even with my head, and pulls in for a look, hovering.  The buzzing of his wings is palpable, the feathers on his back reflect the morning sun in iridescent green and blue.  For an eternal two seconds, he is one foot away from my face, his tiny black eyes regarding me with a stark awareness un-cluttered by ego.  I remain frozen, and for a time, we share a mutual gaze that is unspeakably intimate.

                And then, he’s gone.  He leaves me with a profound taste of what I’m striving for.  A close encounter with a vast awareness that is infinitely connected, that knows no ego and no boundaries, an awareness that knows exquisite existence, un-sullied by purpose. 

                This is the spacious place I wait to enter, or to enter me, each time I take the One Seat.  After my hummingbird encounter, the state seems sweeter and more accessible today.  I pull my attention in from the intense commerce of the animal kingdom of the Lorane Valley, inward, then back out, with a spacious and unidentified awareness, recently modeled to me by the hummingbird, the spider, the woodpecker, and Larry.

                It makes me smile.  Down on the highway, a car goes by.

Autumn Sun

September 20, 2011

               Each morning as  Iay in bed right after waking, I turn and watch as the sky in the east lightens from the black of night to the whitish, eggshell blue of the pre-dawn.  This time of year, the sun has begun its trip south, rising further to the right on my horizon every morning.  This day, He sits exactly between the two big Douglas Firs that stand outside my cabin.  Weeks ago, in August, He was to the left of the first big tree.

                I can see yellow light drenching the hillside above me, out the other window, while I am still in pre-dawn darkness.  Then it reaches me, and the inside of my house is drenched in the light of another day.  I make tea and sit outside by the window box, reveling in the sunshine and the birdsong.  And when the tea is finished, it seems like I am already half way to the state of mindfulness.  So I put my cup down, sit quietly and allow the rest to happen.

                Thoughts and feelings recede.  They are back there, chattering away, but now the foreground of my attention is just the sensation of my breath.  A few minutes of this, and I am able to send my attention out, to the trees, the light, the birds.  Then I can bring it back, all the while residing in the subtle and profound sensation of the breath.  It’s as if that sensation becomes the vehicle I travel on.

                Moving within, I see there a terrible jittery feeling that wants nothing to do with this.  Get up it says, move around.  Of course, it doesn’t want me to continue.  Doing this means the annihilation of that jittery feeling, and like all other living things, it wants to survive and continue.  I negotiate, and it recedes.  And in its absence is a fresh, open space.

                 I sit for another twenty minutes in this state.   Then I pick up my tea cup and take it to the sink.