Sabbath # 80

Last Sunday, no incense , no meditation.  Only  small children climbing in bed for sweet morning kisses and stories about dreams and non-dreams. Then breakfast of raspberries, pineapple, apples because everyone loves something different in different quantities. And the sweetness of sunrise serenades and dancing before kicking the soccer ball around in the back yard. And today again, not meditation but the lighting of incense, an attempt to return to routine after a week away. But nothing about today feels routine. I woke to small sounds across the bedroom and remembered, “Oh, yes. We have a puppy. And it’s after six and I’m sure he has to go out.” I rush. Let him out of his crate, carry him downstairs and out the door. There is a slight drizzle and I realize my nightwear is not something I should be seen in. But it is too late. I make a note to myself to keep some sweats by the door and shoes too. I’m barefoot and the grass is cold and wet. Yesterday we adopted a four month old puppy, Dozer. And nothing short of Grace has entered our home. He is sweet faced and instantaneously we were overcome with love. And I mean all of us. And I wondered when I sat to write this morning what would happen. Just now he is across the room near the door sleeping. Only after exploring my study: chewing and tasting the wicker trash basket, the jute rug, the bed skirt, the metal bed frame, plastic bubble wrap. But this minute he is asleep. The previous week I spent in the company of my son, his lovely wife and their three small children: Ballet, soccer practices and games, homework, stories and shows, mac and cheese, taking and picking up from school, wild dancing to Call Me Maybe and sweet embraces and special bedtime songs, who knows how long I’ve loved you, you know I always will…These people live over three thousand miles away. I see them as much as I can. My heart hurts with longing for nearness that is casual and seemingly happenstance. I miss their moment to moment. The new bo bo, the return of a friend, the monkey bar trick, first position, soothing small upsets, apple juice, vitamins, even runny noses. I miss my son. Not just remembering how he was at his children’s age but I miss the man he is today. Because something happens in his presence that I can’t  quite capture over the phone, or in email or on Face time where we can actually see each other. I believe in the gaze. Eye to eye. And there is his arm around my shoulder or my arm around his waist. Ever so briefly. And my swift embrace of his wife, in the kitchen after she has packed all the lunch pails and fed everyone breakfast of special requests. Her  beauty stuns me. I want to know her. They have their hands full with brightness all around them. They give away all they have, saving little for themselves or each other. And I have returned home to my husband, my work, and this new puppy who is still sleeping so I can write down these few words. The timing perfect. And how strange to have another presence near-by. I can’t say it eases the discomfort of absent loved ones, but it does shift the air somewhat.

Sabbath # 79

Massive dental work consumed my Friday, unexpected results. The small room, the reclined position. The staff gives you dark glasses and a blanket, if you wish. I accept both and bring my fluffy socks and music. Rock and Roll seems to work best. When the dentist broke the news that one of my teeth, after working on it and the surrounding gums, couldn’t be saved and that he needed to extract it, I excused myself to the restroom, trying to let my already groggy mind accept the information. Wasn’t all this labor to save my teeth? I returned to that blue room, to their sympathetic faces. My face already swollen and as I witnessed in the bathroom mirror, even trying not to look, splatters of blood on my cheek. I began to feel an avalanche of tears. I slipped back into the chair, pulled the cotton cover up to my chin, put on the dark glasses and tears started flowing, slowly from the very corner of my eyes. This was when I wanted to say,”My Dad just died.” But by then my mouth was open and their concentration became acute and I turned up the music because I didn’t want to hear the procedures or instructions called forth and passed on. My dentist was working on the surrounding teeth and I was hoping I wouldn’t notice when he began extracting the bad one. When I felt the pressure, not pain, the weight of his hand and then the weight of his body, the force required ,I surprisingly entered Savasana, that deep relaxation and letting go after yoga practice. Yes, I  have practiced yoga for many years. During and after my divorce, I practiced a year of intensive Restorative Yoga with Cecelia Rice. And now a regular weekly practice as a way of transitioning to writing . I had never called upon resources off the mat. It wasn’t something I even thought about. It just happened: Savasana, deep rest. Release. Letting postures settle. A form of practiced prayer. I did not travel to another place. I felt the hands, the instruments, the light,  heard the muffled conversation,  felt the kindness of people near me. My dentist, his assistant, the office staff, my husband, the distant support of my  grown children. My mind recovered Savasana. The music dimmed itself. My body remembered the well-earned rest at the conclusion of a yoga session. The release of tension, the connection to soul, mine and others. The acceptance of the earth receiving our bodies. To be received.  To feel supported by the earth and those who are in this life with us on all levels of connection. Namaste. The light in me recognizes the light in you. And I have to mention here too, my season of mid rash beginning, my study of Psalms and the Divine. The Divine present in Savasana. The Divine in the dentist and his staff. The Divine in my beloved. The Divine in my children. The Divine in all yoga teachers. The Divine on and off the mat.

The Value of Sparrows

When psalms surprise me with their music
And antiphons turn to rum
The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul

And from the center of my cellar, Love, louder than thunder
Opens a heaven of naked air.

New eyes awaken.
I send Love’s name into the world with wings
And songs grow up around me like a jungle.
Choirs of all creatures sing the tunes
Your Spirit played in Eden.

Zebras and antelopes and birds of paradise
Shine on the face of the abyss
And I am drunk with the great wilderness
Of the sixth day in Genesis.

But sound is never half so fair
As when that music turns to air
And the universe dies of excellence.

Sun, moon and stars
Fall from their heavenly towers.
Joys walk no longer down the blue world’s shore.

Though fires loiter, lights still fly on the air of the gulf,

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Sabbath #78

My study doubles as zendo,as temple, as sanctuary each time I enter after I may or may not light the incense. Bare feet on the floor, follow my breath, accept that my mind will be wild with thoughts, unforgotten messages, grievances, and perhaps a moment of clarity. My robin-egg blue notebook contains the date, time of day, a few words: gleanings from attempted stillness. I’m beginning a season of Midrash. This time not the writings of the first Buddhist nuns, nor The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, not the Bhagavad-Gita. No, this time I begin with the Psalms, read randomly because I crave disorder, chaotic order. The Psalms of the Monastic: said, sung and chanted. And back to Thomas Merton as guide. And perhaps I might turn to the writings of the forgotten Desert Mothers. And most likely a poem or two because after all, poems have endured over my lifetime as my true sacred text. Yesterday I picked up Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. I’m still rereading. My purpose is to live the text. Nothing less than obsession. The rain just began and again I raise the window so I can hear drops landing on the sill. This house I live in, solid bricks, keeps weather removed. And also the sounds of birds, distant. I’m accustomed to wood and ill fitting windows were there is less separation between me and the elements. It’s good to expose one’s self. Let the heat, dampness or cold in. Feel the breeze, if there is one. It is necessary. Today, Psalm 7. Am I not trying to leave despair behind? My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and come to their end without hope…For my days are a breath. And a moment before that I was reminded that Buddha tells us to embrace our suffering. It is the fullness of a life where we are happy to return to loved ones with a gentleness of spirit.I want hope. All week, every day I try to suspend judgement of myself and others. It is another type of practice. I believe in a church of trees, a church of ocean. Skin. Bird call. Tree pose. Hands folded at the heart center. Eyes open. Simplicity. Psalms as prayer. Poems as prayer.