California Christmas 2011

December in L.A. is ripe pomegranates, avocados and citrus and finally the end of the fresh tomatoes. It is the leaves falling off the sycamores, (only to re-foliate themselves in a couple of short months…) It is frost in Topanga and clear, sunny days in the 50s and 60s. It is fake snow and a holiday water fountain at The Grove. It is red bows on the topiaries in Santa Monica. It is holiday tamale season. It is parties. It is cars decorated with wreaths and reindeer antlers. It is movie premiere season and awards hype. It is Las Posadas on Olvera Street with atole and pan dulce. It is lights on palm trees. It is poinsettias growing on the front porch. It is starting to feel familiar to me. This is my third Christmas here. Can’t believe it!

I found myself remembering my old house in the woods in western Maine this week. Back then I made most of my own presents. I even made my own wrapping paper! I remember the light from the grey, snow filled skies, and the crackling sound of the fire against the silence of the frozen winter woods. How far I am from that time now in so many ways! But really, the rhythms of the season, the flurry of activities, and the spirit of warmth and giving and spending lots of time with the family remain, no matter if I am in snowy woods or the strip mall filled San Fernando Valley.

This year we threw a big party on the solstice, which was kind of a feat with an 10 week old. It was a success though and fun was had by all, (I hope!). We had Mexican hot chocolate and glug and overflowing tables of snacks and a fire in the hearth and out in the fire pit in the yard. Torin was passed around the party and managed to fight off sleep until much later than usual. Before that was the gift shipping day to family on the east coast, in which I appeared as a cross between a kangaroo and Santa, with Torin strapped to the front and a massive ikea bag of gifts on my back as I crossed the streets in Santa Monica. Before the party also came a huge grocery shopping expedition with multiple lists and bags piled in the car and more than one nursing session for Torin in the supermarket bathroom as we ran from store to store for several hours to get all of the ingredients for special holiday recipes. Then there was the last minute gift scramble and the longer than it seems like it should be wrapping session. We topped it all off with Christmas Eve Posadas on Olvera Street. There was warmth in the air and children running around and vendors closing shop and restaurants filling up on the oldest street in L.A. as we waited outside the original adobe house there and listened to the musicians in colorful ponchos singing on the porch. Mary and Joseph came out looking somber in their polyester robes and shepherd’s canes. They were followed by singers with candles and then slowly the rest of the crowd fell into step behind them as they walked up and down the street looking for room at the inn. They were, of course, turned away again and again until they finally ended up back at the stables of the oldest house in L.A. The musicians played again, people sang, and then we all had sweet atole and pan dulce on the house. We drove home and fell asleep watching Christmas movies on the couch. Santa roused himself/herself to stuff the stockings and put the last minute gifts out, and then Christmas morning came all too soon. Or not soon enough for my 12 year old stepson, but it came just the same and we had a special breakfast, which is always unappreciated by the children in their haste for unwrapping, and then presents and the carnage of boxes and wrapping paper and packing peanuts etc etc. I haven’t slept well in oh, say, 11 weeks or so at least, but I slept even less last week, and by the time that I had cleaned up yesterday afternoon I had a headache and a cold. I fell asleep before Tim’s amazing homemade lasagna dinner, but I feel much better this morning. Man, Christmas is so much fun….sometimes too much!

I am happy to see that Torin loves Christmas though, even at only 10 weeks old. At least he loves the very best and most important things about Christmas. He loves people and was so entertained to see all the guests at the party, and to see the crowds on Olvera Street. He loves when we are all together as a family too, and enjoyed snuggling together and watching movies. He was so happy Christmas morning with Nick and Brick around and everyone laughing and talking. He got his first dose of the Christmas spirit, and it filled him with gladness, as it should.

Meditations on Mothering The Chief

From the persistent fog of my current, sleep deprived condition I have been craving to write, before I move too far away from this pivotal time, about the helpfulness of the tools that I gained from spending some serious time in meditation before Torin was born. (It’s only taken me seven weeks or so to get around to it….but I guess I have had other things to do.) I didn’t really realize at the time, but it was such a luxury to go so deeply into concentration during my last retreat. I think it was the last time that I will get much stillness of mind for many months. I got so sick of it at the time, but now I think back on it fondly. Isn’t that always the way?

I digress though. As I believe I have mentioned before, vipassana meditation retreats are deeply unpleasant, uncomfortable and quite a challenge, but so worthwhile. Labor is kind of like that, but magnified to the nth degree. And messier. I used the same tools though, that I had developed to get through unpleasant, uncomfortable, boring meditation sessions, to now get through those INCREDIBLY painful contractions that came to push him out into the world. I remembered that everything passes and changes, again and again, over and over. I tried to get outside of myself and observe my labors objectively. It really was helpful to manage the pain. And afterwards it really was helpful to hold onto those same lessons to ride out the incredible waves of intense emotion that came upon me in the first few weeks after his birth.

Another reason that I have been slow in writing this, is that I find it so hard to concentrate on a task like this these days. Throughout each day I am interrupted so many times by The Chief, and then a session of nursing, changing, soothing or amusing is in order, and when that job is through I don’t remember what it was that I was doing before. (It strikes me now that this is kind of like my life overall these days, in that I can’t quite imagine what I did with all my time before he came, and I also can’t quite imagine what I ever did without him.) At home though I am constantly finding evidence of my previously unfinished activities, like archeological remains of my morning, leaving clues for me to help me rediscover the narrative of my day. And then other tasks go undiscovered and slip my mind completely only to resurface days or weeks later, or perhaps not at all. (Sorry to any of you reading this that are perhaps waiting patiently for me to respond to something….I have forgotten.)

My mind works in these circles of distraction as well, which I notice most clearly when I am trying to meditate. It’s a success these days if I get a few minutes of concentration in during a 30 minute meditation session. As well, I spend much of my painting time rocking or nursing and looking at my half completed work, imagining what I would paint next if I could stop bouncing on the exercise ball with the fussy baby. It may take a few days before I actually get back to it. Slowly I plug along though!

So, those are some of the things that have changed. Now as I sit in a cabin in Big Sur where we have headed for our first family vacation with Torin, looking out at the Big Sur river flowing endlessly by under the redwoods, and as I sit here in my oh so distracted mind, in my ever changing life, I must just keep remembering that everything changes. I have to keep adjusting my goals, expectations and frequently change plans midstream. And I have to be good with all that, and for the most part I really am. Because The Chief is of primary concern. He is so precious, and every day, every week bring so many changes. So many new things that he can do, so many new articulations of who he is and who he will be. He as well is constantly changing. And the full force of my concentration is for the most part now focused on him. Just as during his birth all my energy went to his delivery to this world, and now many of the calories that I eat go to nourishing him and sating his hunger every couple of hours, also my concentration just naturally flows toward him and the protection and care of his tiny, helpless, (yet loud but incredibly cute,) little self.

Chief Bringer of Joy

I can't believe it. I have a ten day old baby boy. Torin Colter Rhys. He's been on the outside for so little time, and yet every day as the sun sets I feel sad that another precious day has passed. He will only grow up and further away from me from here on. As my friend Jen, who is the mother of a nine month old said, "About twenty minutes after he was born I had the awful realization that he would grow up and get married someday,.... and it wouldn't be to me! And some other woman would be the most important person in his life." Of course she doesn't really want her son to not grow up and get married, and I would be heartbroken for Torin not to grow up and away from me. But he's just so precious and tiny now. And he's so attached to me, we're still so close. I am in an altered state these days, brought to me by my boy.

Torin is a Celtic word meaning chief. Colter is the name for the metal disc that goes before the plow. We chose it because of a beautiful line in a Philip Larkin poem, referring to the, "colter of joy." So we named our baby the chief enabler of joy. And he is, and it is such a piercing, fierce joy.

The birth itself was a good experience and I was able to bring him into the world without major complications. He was vigorous from the start, and has no trouble breastfeeding or advocating for his own needs. But he isn't too fussy either, and only complains when he means it. I love him so much. And this whole fierce rushing in of joy and love when Torin slid into the world has broken me open like nothing else. My body was broken open, my life is broken open, my spirit was broken open and my heart is so tender and open. It hurts everything is so tender and open, and I can feel the joy and pain of this life so intensely. This is the state that we can all strive for spiritually for years, and can rarely achieve. And Torin has brought me there, at least for a little while.

With his birth I've crossed a threshold. It's like I am standing on a bridge, watching a river rush by beneath me. And this rushing water is my life, running away underneath me. It has always been there running, but I just couldn't see it until now. And now I do. And it makes everything so beautiful and poignant.

Everything Changes

We've been back in CA for a little over a month now. It's been a busy month. A period once again where there has not been much naturally occurring time for reflection. We brought Nick to college, and have been having a few nights each week without kids. Except for the one still on the inside that is. The days have been full of the business of life, in addition to preparations for the upcoming birth and our changing home and routines. We've got tiny clothes, diapers and little blankets around. There is easy to prepare food in the freezer, bottles in the cupboard and infant acetaminophin in the medicine cabinet.

I feel like a storm is coming or something. Something unknown is headed our way. I am reading all the books and following what seems like good advice to prepare for something that I just can't quite imagine. Somebody else is coming out of my body. I don't know him yet, but I have never been closer with anyone in my life. And he is coming out and we will meet him soon! I can't really wrap my mind around this, and I don't think there is really any way to prepare for it any more than we have...

And as much as things will change for me, I can't even imagine what it will be like for our baby boy. He has been living in water, not exposed to air or needing to breathe or eat, for his entire existence so far. He only knows light and dark and the way that things sound when muffled through liquid. He has been floating without much influence from gravity, and for the past four weeks at least he has been living life upside down in his increasingly cramped little world. He's going to get the squeeze of his life through the birth canal soon, which should help empty his lungs of amniotic fluid, and then he will be out in the air and the light and his circulatory system will switch directions, the umbilical cord will pulse and then cease to function as it did, and then God willing he will open his eyes and breathe! It's too bizarre, I can't believe it. But they tell me it's really going to happen. In fact, it's happened to all of us. I just can't believe that we all get here this way.

Yet at the same time I am increasingly aware that things cannot go on much longer as they are. My abdomen is stretched to the limit. There is little room in there anymore for anything but baby, including the air in my lungs at times. I feel the pressure of another body in there on my hips and groin when I stand up. Getting up from a lying down position has become particularly difficult, and considering how often I get up to go to the bathroom every night, it's a bit of a chore. This just can't go on too much longer.

But what happens next is a big mystery. I've imagined it many times so far, but it is still so unknown. I am getting ready to cross a major threshold. My body is about to do something that it supposedly is perfectly prepared for and designed to do, but it has never even come close to experiencing before. And where there were two of us there will now be three. I feel the magic of this time everywhere I go these days. Strangers ask me, with excitement in their eyes, when he is due to arrive, and then wish us luck with smiles. I take stock of our lives and see the baby implements piled up, the relative orderliness of the house, the waves of well wishes and offers of support from friends and family, the happiness in our household. I feel very lucky and rich. I find myself wishing again and again that all babies and mothers may be as happy and supported as me. Everything changes, always. But for me I know it will change in a big way very soon. And it will be changed forever. I wait with some trepidation but plenty of joy and gratitude!

So Long Summer!

Summer in Maine is so sweet and so fleeting. We arrived here on the 14th of June, and there were a few days that still needed a coat, and one I think where I wore a winter hat. But the world had turned sweet and green and there were rhubarb and strawberries in the garden and the days were oh so long. Then so soon it all turned vibrant and sunny and summer exploded. Bricky went to camp at the beach every day and became browned from the sun and swam for hours a day like a seal. Strawberry shortcake tasted like sunshine itself. The peonies and roses unfolded. The garden came up and the wild valerian perfumed the fields. Friends and relatives and parties and festivals followed each other endlessly. Then by the end of July the blueberries ripened low in the grass, the tiger lilies bloomed, the bee balm blossomed and the tomatoes hung heavy and green on the vine. Summer at its apex in a few short weeks. Now it is not even the middle of August and the greens are bolted, there are more fruits than flowers, and the dark comes much more swiftly already. It is such a swift and dramatic turn of year here. It makes the passage of time so visceral. I fear the melancholy, utterly unknown two weeks ago, that always creeps in this season. Must everything be so fleeting? Can there never be ENOUGH time? Must I already face the tasks that won’t be completed, the relationships that won’t be renewed, and the visits and excursions that won’t be taken this year? Sadly, yes. It’s been a good run once again, and I am glad of all of the wonderful things that we have done, and all of the sun and fun that has made its way into our lives in the last couple of months. It’s almost over for this year though.

I have been all about action this summer. The pregnancy nausea finally passed just about the time I hit six months, soon to be replaced by incredible restlessness. I toss and turn at night and my legs and calves cramp up. Hormone surges got me cleaning out the barn, gardening and weeding, organizing our finances, putting together cribs and gathering tiny hand me downs. No painting, no blogging, no reflecting: all preparation. Nesting. Getting ready for the un-readyable. The magic, visceral transformation that is coming our way. I have gotten a lot done. I figured that I should just harness the energy while I could. I don’t know how relevant all of these tasks have been to preparing our lives, my mind, and my heart for the arrival of our little man, but it felt right. Babies really need organized barns, right?

Riding the tide of the summer though has reminded me, and in my labors I have occasionally paused to think, how fast it all goes. The seasons turn so swiftly. The toys and books and papers that I found in the loft were all so relevant to the kids just a few short summers ago, and are now so utterly forgotten. It takes my body less than a year to grow another new human being. A year from now when we return here again he will have teeth, and be able to crawl and to eat food other than breastmilk. The year after that he will be walking and running his way into childhood. I do try and remember these things in my busyness. I do try and pause to feel the beauty and gravity of the fleeting moment. My son and I, although I don’t know him yet, will never be as close again as we are right now, sharing one body. Life moves on, springs forth, disseminates. As the summer in Maine ends for us and we head back to L.A., I feel myself just breathe for a moment and look at where we stand. Despite my somewhat organized barn, there are many things that aren’t exactly the way that I had hoped or pictured them for this time in my life, but I just can’t care about that anymore. This is my life. I’m trying to hold onto the beauty and witness the complexity in every moment these days.

Miss Ohio

(written around June 1st)

I’ve been so remiss in writing lately, it seems that I should have a lot of reflecting about my winter and spring in L.A. to catch up on. My classes and completion of approx 23 oil paintings in 14 weeks, (whew! only 2 of which I actually sort of like though), a couple of film festivals I attended, some events and screenings around town, my participation in an upcoming artshow, a trip back east for my grandmother’s death and perhaps most dynamic of all, my expanding waistline and impending motherhood should all be subjects for consideration. But no. I have nothing to say about these things today, or, at least I don’t want to talk about them except in how they relate to Gillian Welch.

So, I just got back from a Gillian Welch and David Rawlings show at the Henry Miller library in Big Sur. It was a charmed event. One of my very most favorite elements of living in CA is that I am now within driving distance of Big Sur for the occasional long weekend. Big Sur is a place where just about everything seems designed to inspire awe, reverence and joy. It’s just so freaking beautiful EVERYWHERE you look! And all of those mountains and redwoods and clear streams running down to the incredible, tumultuous turquoise surf get you all high on negative ions and the world seems big and gorgeous and full of magic. Lots of amazing, brave, creative people have made their homes there throughout the years, including the writer Henry Miller. He created a little bookshop tucked into the redwoods on route 1, and stocked it with his own books, those of his wives, girlfriends and friends, and then filled it the rest of the way up with books that he happened to like, which mostly fall into the categories of either fine literature or quirky books about adventurous sexual practices. There is also an excellent tradition of parties there that attracted the bohemian sort. Occasionally they still hold events and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings happened to be starting out their new tour in this venue.

Gillian Welch is my modern musical hero. Like all idolization relationships, I actually know pretty much nothing about Gillian Welch as a person, and I realize that. I am not going to pretend that I do, but the important part to me is what she stands for to me, and what I gain from her art. And that is not insignificant. First of all, she has big teeth, fluffy hair that she never styles, and long, skinny arms and a flat chest, just like me. And she is adopted, just like me. And she likes sad, quirky, violent, and nostalgic songs that closely follow American traditional song forms, like me (except that she is a talented and sought after song writer and collaborator..and I am definitely not). And she plays the guitar usually without a pick, and the frailing style banjo. And I am not even going to say just like me on this one, because she is an amazing musician and the most that I can claim for musical prowess is that I amuse myself for an hour or two here and there, but I do play those same instruments in those same styles. Anyway, these similarities that I notice and imagine make me feel a special kinship with her, and I have been an avid fan ever since her first album came out over 10 years ago. I feel the care and consideration in her music, and there is a deep love of American roots musical institutions in her work. Her shows generate an atmosphere of laid back fun and earnest appreciation for tradition. In my opinion, she and David Rawlings are thoughtfully and skillfully helping keep American music customs alive and relevant, and that is so worth doing.

This show was a pretty intimate affair held out under the redwoods on the lawn. They served beer and wine on the patio and people gathered round on blankets and folding chairs on the grass. I was just so excited to see my favorite musician in one of my favorite places. They played for a couple of hours, and as the sun set I sank into a music induced reverie. Without really thinking about it, I suddenly was joined by my past selves of Gillian Welch listening days gone by, and I felt the last decade and its lessons in a brief, fleeting flash of clarity.

Her songs often seem to say what I would if I had the songwriting and musical chops and could. One in particular was the theme to my life in the years leading up to its current era.

“O me o My o, would you look at Miss Ohio.
She’s been a runnin’ around with the rag top
down. She says I wanna do right but not right now.

I know all about it, so you don’t have to shout
it. And I’m gonna straighten it out somehow. Yeah I wanna do right but not right now.”

I felt my twenties during that song, and how I always kind of wanted to get to this point eventually where I wasn’t risking screwing everything up all of the time. There were some moments where I wasn’t totally sure it was going to happen. Usually I was just partying maybe a little bit too hard for the amount of work that I had to do, or maybe I was overestimating my own energy and organization skills and constantly letting life get ahead of me. All the time in my head and heart I wasn’t settled and had this strong searching energy. I wanted to know everything about everything that interested me, go everywhere that I had never been before, meet everyone that seemed interesting to me and try my hand at everything. This often amounted to me not totally finishing much of anything though. But….I finally did grow up I guess. My divorce and illness and entry into life in a family did slow me down, and somewhere along the line here I found a steadiness that I have come to appreciate.

I’m not running around with the ragtop down so much anymore. As I sat there in the audience under the redwoods, listening to this song with my future child wriggling away in my belly I felt this passage of time and the changes in myself.

busy springtime growing...

I have been such a busy girl lately, I haven’t even had time or energy to blog. Although I should be working now, I miss the satisfaction of a fine, finished post and I am going to steal away an hour or two to assert myself in cyberspace.

Firstly, I sure am glad I went to meditate when I did in January, because there has been no time for reflection since then. I am in my toughest semester of grad school yet, I took on a part time job of script-reading for a local screenplay contest, (ludicrous sounding thing to actually get paid for I know, but like any job it is time consuming), and I’M MAKING A BABY! Yup, I found out I was pregnant soon after I returned from Vipassana, where I had been, ironically, letting go of my long held desire to have a child because it just wasn’t working out and I thought it was about time to move on with my life. Isn’t that always the way? Of course though we are so thrilled that some little soul decided to come into the world with us as parents. I’m almost at 15 weeks now and our first trimester screening went great so chances are good that we will actually have a baby next October! There is nothing like that reality to light a little fire under your butt. These are busy days!

I feel that I need to admit that I have suspended my meditation practice over the last couple of months of business. Vipassana brings you so into your body, and my body is so nauseous, that I have been avoiding the experience probably at the expense of some peace of mind. That said though, chronic nausea has many of the instructional benefits of meditation! They are as follows: Never get too attached to any plan or expectations you may have for your day, or your meals. Learn to live in the moment and enjoy to the fullest any vestiges of appetite and energy, and know that the moments of agony will, at some point pass. I can do most of my daily activities while steeped in waves of nausea. It doesn’t make it go away to rest or stop working, so I might as well stop judging the discomfort and just keep going. This next may be too visceral for some readers, sorry, but vomiting itself is a deeply humbling experience, it can’t be denied, especially when it happens rather unexpectedly in places like supermarket parking lots. It’s helpful for cultivating a sense of humor and compassion for the suffering of the world. That said, I will be happy when this instructional phase of my pregnancy is over. I hope that I have learned my lessons well! Feel free to tell me, any mamas out there, how coping with your nausea helped prepare you for parenthood. I would like to believe that there is something pertinent to be gained here from the last several months of acquaintance with the porcelain throne.

Life goes on though. I paint and paint for my classes, and read and read scripts to help people turn them into movies that other people would like to see. I walk the dog and clean the house and occasionally muster it up enough to cook dinner. I visit with friends sometimes, and have watched the leaves come back out on the sycamores and the blossoms burst on the orange tree and the lettuce come up in my little garden and the little lizards in my yard emerge from their winter rests. I hope that spring finds you all well, and that this beautiful time of growth fulfills its promise to all of us.

Talking Again

Well, I've been back from my 10 day silent vipassana meditation retreat and talking out loud again for a week now! How quickly the silence and stillness fades. It's long gone actually, but the experience was very deep for me and made some inroads into my consciousness that will not fade so quickly. Where to start?

I actually already wrote a blog post about this experience last week and didn't have a chance to finish it in one sitting and then I accidentally erased it and couldn't recover a saved version. I hate that, but it was kind of a perfect example of one of the main themes of the retreat itself. All things must change and pass away, so don't get too attached to anything. And they mean ANYTHING. Like your sense of self or your thoughts or memories or hopes or dreams or lover or children or sneakers or car or blog post or whatever. It's all going to go someday. And that's not a bad thing, though it's hard, (like impossible pretty much,) for us to wrap our heads around the idea. But for the few brief moments that I could actually let go of some of these attachments it enabled me to do some amazing things. Almost magically amazing to myself. I’ll spare you the details about feeling my body dematerialize and head for a more concrete example. I let go of some old and some newer traumas and emotional pain that has been really hanging in there for a while. One that I was particularly amazed to be able to let go of was the pain over losing the baby last spring, and not knowing when or if we will ever have a chance to have another baby again. The childbearing route has not been an easy one for us and we are nearing the end of our emotional ability to keep trying, and this attachment has been more painful than I could have imagined before that journey began, fueled now by the physical memory of my last pregnancy and powerful hormonal surges now that I am approaching my mid thirties. It's a craving deep down in my body that has been VERY hard to let go of. But over the days upon days of striving to sit still, silent, and cultivate equanimity for every thought and every moment, the attachment and then the pain just faded away. It may come back again at times, but I know that will pass too. As will all pain, all happiness, all anger, all triumph and defeat. It sounds nihilistic but once I relaxed into that thought I could see that it doesn't mean that anything becomes less beautiful or wonderful. In fact quite the opposite. Everything in creation and each moment of passing time can be seen and felt as precious. I'm not saying that I have become an enlightened or liberated being free from attachments in any way. I have DEFINITELY not. But I was lucky enough to take this opportunity to retreat and be supported while I worked very hard to strive toward equanimity and an acceptance of the passing nature of all things. And because of that supported environment and the many hours of hard work in which I sat still and present with my own body and mind, I did find a few moments where I could exist in deep peace and acceptance of everything just as it is. Those moments didn't last long, but they were so powerful! Ah sadly, all moments must change and pass away, even my moments of union with dharma. But I haven’t forgotten them.

In between my many, many hours a day of seated meditation, my brief period of sleeping and my two small meals a day I had no responsibilities. (Vipassana is like Buddhist tough love. Lots of sitting, little sleep, not much food. It hurts sometimes but it's good for you.) When I had an extra 40 minutes I would go outside and zone out by the little waterfalls or the pond or next to the smooth, red skinned madrone trees. At night the stars and moon were so incredibly crystalline and bright in the expansive sky, and by day the silence was broken only by our footsteps and bird calls and wind and the bells ringing at meditation times. I saw every sunset and was up long before dawn every day. I witnessed a herd of deer passing silently and unhurriedly through the grounds, and I saw a male Anna’s hummingbird bathing in a waterfall at dawn one morning. With each passing day my body and mind became more and more still and peaceful. And then it was over! And the 50 women that I had been with for the last 10 days were all allowed to talk to each other finally and chatter and laughter exploded again and stillness was forgotten in the excitement of celebrating our time together and getting ready to leave. Then five hours in the car with my new Quebecois friend who drove me home and back to the world of moving fast and eating and talking and working and endless distractions where I now exist.

I have just one more tale to tell of my retreat into stillness. Whatever gains I was able to make were all made possible not only by my family doing without me at home, but also very much supported by the vipassana center itself, which provided me with instruction and space to be silent as well as with a warm, clean place to sleep, meditate and eat healthy, delicious vegetarian meals, all of which were provided by volunteers and donations from other vipassana practitioners. You must complete a 10 day course before you can give any time or money or anything back to the center, and even then they ask for nothing in particular in return. There are no fees, there is no suggested donation, no pressure to give and certainly no pressure to convert or even to embrace Buddhism. They just recommend that you try and get the most out of these ten days and then you can do with it what you will. They feed you and heat your buildings and provide cleaning products and paper goods not to mention meditation instruction and full time assistant teachers and course managers. I didn’t even realize until after the course that the construction of a new building going on while I was there, including all materials and labor, was donated or paid for by previous meditators. It’s kind of pure to think that every single construction guy on there had sat a ten day course before he could come and work on that building. In fact, it’s very pure, that he would appreciate what the center had to offer so much that he would give in time and labor. It’s hard to find that kind of purity sometimes in our culture and I was very touched by the lengths that they go to to preserve it there, thus creating a veritable fountain of huuman generosity and goodwill.

I left there physically exhausted but emotionally renewed, and feeling very, very happy. As they said to us again and again, “May you all experience true peace, true happiness. May all beings be happy.”

Golden January

January in L.A. is one of the best months. It is currently nearly 80 degrees and sunny in my yard, with gentle breezes, woodpeckers, hawks, wrens and parrots flying up and down my street and the orange tree in the front yard is hanging low with golden globes of sweetness. I went ice skating in Santa Monica in 65 degree weather the other night with my sweetheart, and last weekend we put on tank tops and rode our bikes all up and down the lively beaches in Santa Monica and Venice.

I think that I am extra appreciative and aware because I am going away soon, not to anywhere very exotic, but I will still be far removed from my day to day life for a while. I'm going to a vispassana retreat for 10 days. Ten days of silence and stillness with my own mind. I've never been on a retreat like this, and never attempted any silence or meditation for this long. I don't know if I am ready for this....but I really want to do it and I have a chance right now so I am going to take it. Wish me luck on this inner journey and maybe I'll have something interesting to say when I get back. Maybe not, but I don't doubt that I, who have been on a fair amount of adventures, will really have gone on an as yet unprecedented one for me.

Maine California Memoir

My dear friend Caitlin Shetterly who is also an incredibly talented and accomplished writer just published a piece in the NYTimes Magazine that is an excerpt from her new book "Made For You and Me: Going West, Going Broke, and Finding Home." If you like my Maine to L.A. stories, you'll love hers! Please check out the blog, the Times and the book which will be out in March I think. I think I might have some to give away sometimes next month too for interested early askers!

her blog
http://caitdangowest.squarespace.com/

Link to the times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/magazine/16lives-t.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&ref=magazine&adxnnlx=1295107288-s6mdwm4wuvg6ESMBXFvT4g

Link to the Book
http://www.amazon.com/Made-You-Me-Going-Finding/dp/1401341462/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Woodthrush

Thanks Given to the Solitude

(Here is La Soledad, purchased for something like seventy five cents straight from the steps of her Basilica, carried with me for the last 5 years and now gracing the walls of my studio.)

Through these past couple of weeks of holiday revels I've been thinking back to another holiday, exactly five years ago, when my life came to an abrupt crossroads and the seeds were planted for what is being now reaped.

Five years ago I went to Oaxaca, Mexico for 3 weeks surrounding Christmas. My ex-husband and I were living in our solar and wood powered cabin, deep in the Maine woods, and we left the cold, dark, desolate winter for our last adventure together in that beautiful, vibrant southern Mexico city at the edge of the Sierra Madre del Sur. The trip did nothing to reconcile my failing marriage, but it did leave a deep sensory and emotional impression on me. Perhaps my mind was exceptionally open as deep questions concerning my destiny and future reverberated in my consciousness. The light and sound and smells and colors of that sojourn are burned into my memory. I remember standing alone in the hushed afternoon light of the echoeing, cavernous Cathedral off of the Zocalo, admiring the gilded icons of unfamiliar saints. I also spent many hours alone among the columned walkways and stone chambers of the old monastery, which is now an art and cultural artifact museum, admiring Mexican treasures unearthed from the nearby ruins of Monte Alban. At this same museum I was introduced to some of the Mexican masters of pigment of the 20th century, like Rufino Tamayo, Siquieros, Orozco and I saw my first works in person by Diego and Frida. On Christmas day I climbed alone through the teeming marketplace of religious decorations and squash blossom empanadas to visit the Basilica de la Soledad, dedicated to the patron saint of Oaxaca, Nuestra Senora de La Soledad (Our Lady of the Solitude.) There is no solitude like that spent in unsympathetic company, and my many moments of solitude on this trip, often while pressed against groupings of jubilant Mexican families at various processions and holiday events were made even more poignant by my unhappy partnership. But, perhaps it was lucky that I was where I was because Our Lady of the Solitude is supposedly there for us at just such times, to be with us and guide us in the moments where we feel alone and despair.

Back in that cavernous cathedral, admiring the beauty of the commanding icon of a dark saint decorated with exquisite gold filigree and placed high on the wall above my head, I was thinking about what is sacred to me. I didn't know these saints, and though I attended regular worship for many years, I was never touched by the sacred in a church. I thought back to those Maine woods that I had left behind, and to all of the living web that surrounded me there in perfect ecological grace. That was my church, and the fox, the vole, the owl, the chipmunk, the moss, the grub, the luna moth et al. Those are my saints, bringing me strength and wisdom and hope and solace and guidance when I am in need. And like the icon painters of old, I feel the desire to glorify them in image. It's a fairly puny offering and it's the least that I can do.

It was during this trip that I said aloud for the first time that I wanted to be a painter. Those weeks in Oaxaca, through those moments of solitude and in the speaking of my heart's desire my life was incontrovertibly changed and set on its new course. My heart had quickened with joy and excitement looking at the paintings of the Mexican masters in the old monastery, crystallizing my aspirations. In the cathedral, with the desire to create art glorifying my own version of the sacred came to me a new purpose. I also said that I wanted to live in Oaxaca and be a painter, and obviously part of my wish hasn't come through. But rather miraculously, part of it has. It was a long journey from the city of Oaxaca to where I sit now at the edge of Los Angeles. It took almost 3 years from the end of that trip before I even re-acknowledged my conviction to paint, and then even more deliberation before I got the courage up to take the first steps down that path. It's hard to completely change gears in one's life and career, especially around the age of 30 with a fairly large and needy family and limited resources. I couldn't do it without support. There are sacrifices to be made, and I live in near complete uncertainty every day as to how this life path is going to work. But I am overjoyed that I have made it this far. I have gained enough skill and time and tools to begin to paint, and even to paint icons! To glorify and thank that which is sacred to me. The images that I imagined so many years ago are actually coming into being, so I must thank Soledad, and all my other saints, known or as yet undiscovered for helping me get this far.