Unfurling: Trusting Your Own Rhythm

This tightly wound leaf will one day burst into being, a luscious green companion to its neighboring leaf. Yet it can’t be hurried along. There is a certain slow rhythm to its growth, a mysterious reaching toward its unfurling that is specific to this one leaf, and no other. 

Human endeavors are similar. Try to rush them and some integral, vital step will be missed. Too fast into the outside world, and a new idea, project, or solution can wither in the glare of attention and scrutiny. Or it can dry up from the lack of creative nutrients from its very source—its creator, you—the creative juice prematurely dried up from being anxious, doubtful, unprepared, or scattered.

Look around at the natural world. Imagine pushing anything beyond its own rhythm, its own timing. We’ve all seen baby birds pushed prematurely out of the nest. Or seedlings set out too late in the season, scorched by the sun. Friends miserable in their adult lives, living their days as parents, the prevailing culture, and/or other powerful influences thought best for them.  

Walk slowly. Continue to look at the miracles unfurling everywhere. Listen to the timing of each one. Listen to your own rhythm. Follow it.

Attention + Hitting the Wall + Relaxation = Insight

 ”I can’t wait to hear from myself.” —Hope Swann

 This juicy bit of wisdom spilled out of my friend’s unconscious during lunch the  other day. We laughed, and after that the conversation wove back and forth  between those moments when we absolutely know the next step to take, when  that aha! moment occurs, that brilliant insight—and those times when nothing  appears, not even a clue. 

 Hope knew that it would come from within herself. I think she was 80% there  with that knowledge. Whenever I’ve experienced a moment of deep knowing it’s  felt as if insight is embedded in experiences, thoughts, ideas, creative projects,  jobs, relationships, powerful forward leaps and just as powerful backward  tumbles, all the golden moments that I carry around from a life lived fully.  Insight is born from these connected moments, common threads that have been  gestating in the rich, nurturing environment of the brain, just waiting to be re-arranged into that oh-so-yearned-for insight.

Johah Lehrer describes just how the brain works during the search for insight in his amazing article “The Eureka Hunt”. There are several stages. First attention is gathered and focused on a solution. Secondly, there is a stalemate, some sort of block where the answer seems to drift further and further away. Thoughts just hit the wall and bounce back, insight-less.

It is here that Hope could take her wise sentence, put it in her pocket and go for a walk, a swim, or some other diversionary activity—attention has to relax and take a break from the search for an answer. Toss all ’shoulds’ and ‘musts’ into the bushes, and move on. Now I know why my own insights occur in the shower, while swimming, on long walks or while quietly resting, and why, in the photo above, the laughing Buddha, the card with the Chinese character for ’silence’, and the stone and sand dollar sit on my desk, an altar to relaxation.

While relaxing, our attention is diverted, yet the brain is working hard and fast, searching through trillions of connections until suddenly, a brand-new connection is made. Aha! We light up with the insight as if we’ve known it all along, and just couldn’t find it. What’s fascinating is that if one of these steps is taken out of the equation, an insight doesn’t manifest. There is always that feeling of the answer slipping away. There is always the need to relax.

The Art of Stopping

Five weeks ago I came down with a respiratory infection and laryngitis. After the  initial illness made  me retreat to my bed for two days, I’d feel better, than wham, I’d be  back in bed, my throat sore, the  rest of me achy and drained. For three days I couldn’t  speak. The enforced silence exaggerated my  slow and cautious approach to each day.  I started laying down in the afternoon, something I don’t normally do. Sometimes I’d  even sleep a bit. The piles and the to-do list grew a little every day, yet I recognized a  small voice from those silent days.  ”It will all get done.  Take care of yourself. It’s all  you can do now, and that is okay.”

It’s been a week now since the symptoms left, and my energy is coming back. The piles and to-do lists are dwindling. 

And I’ve become accustomed to the slower pace. The afternoon rests. Just sitting, and stopping the ‘doing’ and letting my busy mind empty itself. Listening to the wind, or whatever music is drifting over the neighborhood, or to nothing at all. 

Today, bills were paid, errands finished, many details taken care of. Late this afternoon inspiration came visiting while I sat, empty. Suddenly I was full of creative thoughts and words for a writing project that had stalled. I wrote it all down, slowly, ecstatic with the breakthroughs that had come, unbidden. It was a perfect addition to a productive day, a good day, a slow and amazingly full day.

Following the Thread

 There’s a thread you follow. It goes among /  things that change. But it doesn’t change. /  People wonder about what you are pursuing. /  You have to explain about the thread. / But it is  hard for others to see. / While you hold it you  can’t get lost. / Tragedies happen; people get  hurt / or die; and you suffer and get old. /  Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. / You  don’t ever let go of the thread.    

 —William Stafford, The Way It Is 

A Life Well Lived

  ”Don’t dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be…”

 —Leonard Cohen, from his song Anthem

 My neighbor  just turned 94. She gave herself an intimate party, complete with a catered  dinner. The  guests toasted her and shared stories of how she had influenced their lives;  one  friend wrote a  song for her and we all joined in. We sang Happy Birthday in  English and the  Spanish birthday  song Las Mañanitas. We all went home inspired,  and a bit more connected to what is possible in one lifetime.

 Though a bit unsteady on her feet, she still rides her horse as often as possible, and mentors her talented  young gardener in painting. Her small ranch is one of the most beautiful and  simply  elegant environments I’ve ever been in. Her eyes sparkle still at the mention of  anything to do  with horses or art. That is her secret; she’s been doing what she loves  the most in the world her  entire life. I once transcribed her life’s story; not once was  there a looking back, a regret, or a  pining for something different.

 Like the lush foliage of her garden, the great canopied pepper trees that shade her  property,and the magnificent horses that live there, she hasn’t held back from what is her natural calling-to be all that she can be with what she  was  given. In her case it’s been an illustrious career as a painter, an equestrian  extraordinaire, and a steadfast friend to many, many people. And don’t forget that steady twinkle in her eye.  Salúd. To a life well lived.

A Passover Transformation

 

Roasted Quail Eggs for the Seder

Several years ago during the beginnings of the spring season I was feeling lost, off kilter. My personal balance tilted more to the baser side than grounded, the usually relative quiet of my mind loud with whiney voices. Invited to three Passovers, I was truly ambivalent about the holiday. I have been to many Passover dinners, heard the story of the enslaved Jewish people, the refusal of the Pharaoh to grant them freedom. I always wondered at the intensity of the plagues, questioned what kind of God would incur such suffering on anyone. This year my feelings were amplified. I’m suffering here. So where’s God? This so called Source of All Things?

Then I learned about motzirah, what is described in the Torah as the “finding of nasty things”–Judaism’s version of doing personal inner work, searching for those aspects of one’s self that restrict, confine and imprison us as surely as any Pharaoh.

Suddenly I saw how some recent events had conspired to bring me to this place of rawness in order to recognize my own plagues, my own enslavement.

A life cycle change of letting go of mothering, and the stress of sorting out a complicated insurance claim fused together inside my psyche, setting off the fuses of old resentments and grudges that I thought had long ago been worked on and set free. But no. Inside my mind was a constant fireworks display of bad thoughts, dark dramas and worse case scenarios. I couldn’t shut it off.

Until the next morning. While sitting at my desk a sense of calm came over me, not unlike being becalmed out at sea when the wind disappears and the sails fall limply around the mast. The bothersome thoughts fell away and a clear voice spoke inside my head. “It will all turn out fine. All of this is happening now so that you can finally let go of these old resentments.”

The intense anxiety eased. Relief was palpable and I knew it was true. But the complications still remained in the insurance paperwork sitting on my desk. So faith had to take over. That evening our Rabbi spoke about motzirah. There is some comfort knowing that your personal dark nights of the soul have centuries of wise acknowledge-ment behind them. That wisdom got me through another night. Friday morning, after a phone call to an insurance angel, the paperwork mystery was solved for the moment (it later was completely settled in our favor).

At the first Passover dinner we came to the part in the Haggádah about the Pharaoh and the plagues. From a place of deep knowing I understood the infinitely layered metaphorical link of the Passover story. With the Jewish people suddenly freed, what remained was the ancient reality of a fearful and angry Pharaoh, of real hunger, thirst and sickness after swarms of pests and pestilence, the grief and loss at the dying of first-born sons. The Egyptians’ world had suddenly become restricted and confined in the same way their Jewish neighbors had been for years.

And in the same way we ourselves restrict, confine and imprison ourselves by our own thoughts, which are mirrored around us in our actions and spill over onto our loved ones. These personal plagues can be resentment, old anger, unresolved grief, or personal challenges such as acquiring discipline or getting rid of old habits like laziness, “Oh, I think I’ll go to the gym tomorrow.” I mention these only because they are the attributes of my own personal Pharaoh. You have your own plagues, your own Pharaoh.

My ambivalence is gone. I’ve learned God/Source of All Things is in the dark places as well as the light. I’m off to a Passover Seder; I’m eating my way to freedom.

 

Spring Renewal

Traveling in California at the beginning of spring brings up the spirit of renewal. I drop by an old friend’s house after years of being away; her hug is the same…bountiful and real. I take in the synchronicity of quick yet meaningful meetings, long dinners with dear women friends, and reel in the beauty of the world renewing itself one more time. I remember difficult times when someone promised, “This too shall pass.” It all does—the season, the insights, the hard times, the conversations—like the warm sunlight between rain clouds. Yet it all comes back in new forms…a new season, an inspired conversation, inevitable challenges, different sorts of connection.

Driving through the Sierra foothills in my little Kia rental car I am taken by the simplicity of the temperature dials…small turn dials like on the old radios, with easy to read icons. I treasure that simplicity— the ease with which I can access comforting warmth and refreshing coolness—may it follow me through these spring days. 

red-winged blackbirds perched along the fenceline—snowy peaks on horizon

white heron framed in blackness of round drainpipe—the yin yang of my thoughts

cold chases warmth as graywhite clouds shadow blooming hills—white & pink buds

The Vigilance of Kindness

Difficult is this constant vigilance


to be kind with words to self,


not I made a mistake,

instead what have I learned

and harder still to look yourself in the eye


in the foggy bathroom mirror,


teeth unbrushed, wet hair dangling,

and feel a faint strength rising


from that place called the heart,
fingers gripping

the cold ceramic smoothness of the sink,


your chest falling, rising,

falling,


suddenly aware of your breath

as it leaves and comes back,


leaves

and comes back,


signaling the imperceptible letting go-


save the fact of your smile,


its brilliance.

“How Can I Go Forward…?”

How can I go forward when I don’t know what way I’m facing?

How can I go forward when I don’t know what way to turn?

—John Lennon, from his song How?, in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006)

It is here that the coach/client relationship begins. From this place of ‘not knowing’ a client brings a desire to move forward, commitment, and curiosity to the table. The coach brings deep listening, compassion, questions, and structure. In this co-creative environment, the client’s inner wisdom emerges—alive with options, actions and well-being.

The Act of Discovery

…First is the knowledge
that it has taken a lifetime
to arrive at this place;
second is the conviction
that you are most alive
in the act of discovery;
and third is the fact
that observation changes
the thing observed.

—Robert Collen, excerpt from his poem Le Cri de Merlin

Copyrighted material. For educational use only.