labyrinth

carrying on

“The problem is we think we exist. We think our words are permanent and solid and stamp us forever. That’s not true. We write in the moment. Sometimes when I read poems at a reading to strangers, I realize they think those poems are me. They are not me, even if I speak in the ‘I’ person. They were my thoughts and my hand and the space and the emotions at that time of writing. Watch yourself. Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh. That is how writing is. Instead of freezing us, it frees us. The ability to put something down - to tell how you feel about an old husband, an old shoe, or the memory of a cheese sandwich on a gray morning in Miami - that moment you can finally align how you feel inside with the words you write; at that moment you are free because you are not fighting those things inside…it is important to remember we are not the poem. People will react how they want; and if you write poetry, get used to no reaction at all. The power is always in the act of writing. Don’t get caught in admiration of your poems.”

-Natalie Goldberg from “Writing Down the Bones”

1. Blogging opens up and exposes my words. Comment moderation doesn’t work for me. I have never felt comfortable filtering out what people say, especially since this blog is publicly viewable and not private. I don’t know, maybe it’s the product of all the years I spent in religion…religions censor what people say, or even the simplest questions people have, out of its own fear. My turning around and doing the same thing just feels really hypocritical, and besides that, letting thoughts have so much power to feed my fears is precisely what I want to get away from. How can I do that if I’m not willing to face those fears? I am going to try and leave comments alone here (deep breath). Instead of instantly reacting back with more words, I am going to try to observe my reactions instead. The inner critic with its controlling voice in my head doesn’t like this idea.

2. Comments aren’t you, my writing isn’t me. If it is good writing or shitty writing, it doesn’t matter. It is just words on a screen that capture a moment in my head, or your head, that has long passed as soon as I, or you, hit the publish button, or maybe before that even. It doesn’t mean there is no value, and no genuine sharing, and no opportunity through them. But they are still only a momentary capture.3. Blogging, and writing, is an amazing tool for peeking inside the moments in my head.

3. The same way I am not my words, other people are not their words either. Their comments and reactions are their own momentary thoughts and feelings, meeting them in their own head at that instant, and then they are gone. Maybe people sometimes write comments under the assumption the words they read on the screen are me, and their words on the screen back to me are them. We seem to all be ensnared by our own thoughts, huh? Have I mentioned before I deeply fear judgment? I have erroneously convinced myself comments are about me. It actually seems pretty selfish and narcissistic. Comments aren’t about me at all.

4. We all can, and do, create images of ourselves we like, and it is much easier to do this online than it is in person. We are not sitting in front of one another, looking into each other’s eyes, seeing our smiles, our frowns, hearing the inflections and intonations in our voices, sitting in silences. Words are temporary snapshots, sometimes really out-of-focus snapshots at that.

open wide

Sometimes I have been told I am too open. It’s funny because I think just the opposite. I am not nearly open enough. If my spirituality is about anything, it is about opening. Opening wide. Opening so wide and so deep there is nothing I will refuse to look at inside myself due to fear or conditioning or habit. I think there may have been a time when I thought spirituality was about escaping from life. Wherever I looked, it seemed like really advanced spiritual people had managed to do that. But for me, it turns out to be something very unexpected. It is not about learning to escape from my life, and it is no longer about putting on some kind of pretentious showing to others, but rather about achieving balance inside of this life, reaching for greater awareness and more insight, and reacting less out of emotion and habit.

Opening wide means being vulnerable. It also means being misunderstood, judged and labeled. Sometimes it means becoming established in the darkness and learning to balance in there because it isn’t all light and bliss when I start slogging through the murkiness of everything that is inside of me. It also means crying, tearing open of wounds so that they can really heal, and being completely honest with myself.

I have lost a lot in the last few years of my life. I have created hell for, and in, myself. I lost all sense of connection and understanding of a God I thought I at least sort of knew and understood.  I lost any connection I had with myself. I don’t think it is ever really possible to lose yourself, it is more like feeling so lost and confused that you become unrecognizable to yourself. But actually it is all me, all in there, the good, the not-so-good, the saint, the sinner, etc.

My spiritual seeking is driven by a fire that will not be quenched, no matter how many times I have reached for a fire extinguisher…and is constantly demanding of me that I peer into these old habits of psychology and move to a deeper place of awareness inside of them. And there are a lot of potholes in the way, potholes in the form of conditioning and habits and patterns that simply must be entered, viewed, recognized, brought into my awareness, and challenged from a totally different vantage point than ever before.

Whether one believes in the literal Jesus story or not, it has great power in it. Jesus is a man, walking around in a body, suffering, getting angry, and all the while teaching others how not to become engulfed, teaching them the way…to be of the world but not in it. In the story, this is not a guy with his head in the clouds hiding out in a cave somewhere chanting his blissful life away, but rather a guy in the thick of things, pissing people off, making waves, teaching to crowds, hanging out with outcasts and sinners, the reviled, representing a counter-culture for his time.

I used to have a lot of expectations of God, of experiencing the Oneness (make sure you remember to capitalize the “O”) of divine union I have read about so many times. I’m letting go of my expectations, realizing that my practice is far simpler than my expectations. It is much closer to me, to what is in the simple, mundane and everyday. It is accessible and right in front of my eyes all the time. It is really only my own blindness, defensiveness, and expectations that keep blurring the picture.