“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” —Oscar Wilde

I often write about stories in this blog, how stories of the past can seep into the present, how our own and other’s stories can inspire an illuminating insight or keep us frozen in place, how these stories can be re-written. Lately the “old stories” and the accompanying old emotions have been popping up more than usual (friends and clients report the same).

What I’ve been observing in myself, when two old stories collide and become a heated discussion, is that what brings clarity, resolve, and open conversation is staying rooted in the moment and…

1. Being willing to listen to the other person’s side of things (however hard that may be);

2. Acknowledging them for their current situation/feelings/viewpoint, AND acknowledging myself by telling my view of what is going on (what I call the Double Acknowledgment tool), and perhaps most importantly, asking myself;

3.”Where do I live within myself that is large enough to hold my truth, stories and values, AND another person’s, while staying connected to both? “

The roots of the word evaluate come from the French verb évaluer: ”to find the value of.” Only when my value comes from within am I rooted, able to stand firmly and responsibly in my own knowing alongside a generous flexibility and compassion. This identity emerges from many sources, among them the rethinking of our stories with our whole-body brain; our intellect, our heartfelt sense, and our intuitive “gut” sense.

By asking this question, then listening to, and having a conversation with myself, I’ve found  a great deal of  this clarifying “work” with myself is to disengage my identity from another’s stories and perspectives, and step fully into my own, known-at-the-core identity, complete with my stories, values, and ways of seeing and being in the world. It is a reality check and constant conversation that grows stronger over time, requiring a fierce, vigilant evaluation of who I truly am, often in the midst of stormy emotions.

Lively, sometimes heated discussions that are creative, inspiring, and where everyone is heard and considered are one thing, yet too often the need to be exclusively right leads to disconnection, defensiveness, and misunderstanding, all of which can all too often turn into resentment and stalemate (the US government is providing a brilliantly devastating example at this moment). To paraphrase the Dalai Lama, do I want to be the right one or do I want to be happy? According to the Latin American saying ‘Cada cabeza es un mundo’ (each head is a world), having the only correct perspective at any one time is statistically improbable, if not impossible.

I’ve noticed this “practice” of being rooted within myself allows me to sometimes become more than the sum of all my parts, a presence that is felt by those around me (and myself) as a calmness and acceptance in the face of what is, a palpable spaciousness that allows for possibilities not yet in existence. The poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) described this state as making “our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life, because of our quiet.”

Those still waters of an owned identity are in essence an unwavering adaptability, a liquid state, flowing and ever-emerging, even as it continues to be an ongoing challenge. Able to withstand those occasional emotional storms with a bit more rooted grace, I’m becoming more skilled at circumventing others (fascinatingly enough the Spanish word for storm is tormenta) as I become more aware of, and quicker, to choose connection and compassion.

Seeing how things go together sustains me. The moment of such grasping is like a synapse that is fired and life-force is released…In such moments, we are sent back into ourselves illuminated.

Two Violet-Crowned hummingbirds* hovered outside the living room window. As I watched, one of them hit the window with a soft thud. I called the dogs inside, grabbed the small spray bottle of Bach Flower Rescue Remedy, and hurried outside. The tiny bird was alive though stunned and sprawled in the grass below the window. I sprayed the Rescue Remedy on the tip of its beak. It shuddered slightly as my finger touched its small body, and its tiny sharp feet grasped hold of my finger as tightly as any newborn baby. Keeping my hand on the ground, it wobbled there on its newfound perch, both wings limp.

I sprayed more remedy on my finger and touched the liquid bead of it to its beak. My gasp of surprise filled the silence when the filament of almost transparent white tongue extended out from its red beak to slurp it up. I raised my hand slowly, the bird’s small feet still firmly grasping my finger. I gently rubbed its amazingly soft white-feathered chest, then stroked its iridescent purple head and greenish-brown back feathers, amazed that it allowed me to touch it.

We sat there in the grass for several minutes, while it ocassionally fluttered its wings. It was so delicate, and so trusting. Still perched on my finger it ruffled its feathers. Suddenly I both heard and saw the familiar whirrrr of the hummingbird’s wings… it hovered above my hand, then by the window, then landed on a lavender plant a few feet away, a bit wobbly but upright.

I slowly walked over to where it was perched. It let me touch it one more time, and took one more lick of rescue remedy. Then in true hummingbird fashion it zipped over to another lavender, and then the waving plume of some deer grass. I watched it for awhile before going back inside, my day made inexplicably complete.

The other night at a dinner party I told some friends that those moments described God, though writing about it now I find the words aren’t accessible that describe the peaceful wonder inside of me as I held the hummingbird.

I’m not sure the words exist. The moment always will.

* Copyrighted photo of Violet-Crowned hummingbird taken by Brennan Mulrooney , tour leader and biologist.

Daily Bread

-for Steven

The clink of tin cups in the kitchen / rouses my ears. I close my book, / hold my place with a fingertip while / I listen: to the measuring cups, / little quarrels of half against quarter, / then the sifted hush of the flour. / There will be kneading, / there will be punching down, / and rising and rising again, / the press of increase constrained / by the small square box in the oven, / the immutable passage of time, / and finally a home and a hunger filled / with fragrant gold. / I return to my reading, but first / I thank the kitchen gods / for what marriage is: throughout this / immutable passage, these square / impossible constraints, these petty clinkings / of half against quarter, and oh / this needing, oh this falling and rising, / I am blessed / with a husband who makes bread.*

* from Another America/Otra America, Barbara Kingsolver, 1998.

** Photograph © 2006-2011 Steam Maker Bread Baker Company

“A paradox is not a conflict with reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feelings of what reality should be like.”

This photograph is one I took several years ago in Bhutan; it is of a large painted mural in the Punakha monastery. In the Bhutanese tradition, these four animals, called The Four Harmonious Brothers, represent friendship and cooperation.

In the spirit of these four creatures and the concept they embody, today I’d like to dedicate this post to the people who have lost loved ones, friends, neighbors, their homes, possessions, and parts of their communities to the tornadoes that have devastated so many towns in the Midwest and the South. The realities they face are monumental, and incomprehensibly, painfully real. Yet in that place of brutal and sudden change these communities are holding together. They are coming to each other’s aid. Despite the destruction, shock, and personal loss.

A client shared this phrase with me last week: “Yes, and…”

It’s a term used in improvisational theater, which at this very moment sounds like a fiercely apt metaphor for life. Improvise with everything you’ve got. With your entire being.

“Yes, this is happening, and…”

“You are definitely ready… to [plumb] the depths of your adoration for the privilege of being alive.” 

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, floods, hurricanes, forest fires, and tornados. Wars, revolutions, violence and unspeakable things. Social, economic, and environmental collapse.

World events effect us deeply, a body-mind-spirit, triple whammy impact that we often don’t figure into the equation of how we feel or behave, or that simply escapes our awareness altogether. These events seep insidiously into our daily lives, leaving us susceptible to what psychotherapist and author Miriam Greenspan calls the dark emotions: grief, fear, and despair. In her 2003 article in Ode magazine, Healing Through the World’s Hurt she writes, “Our world, so full of beauty and wonder, is also a place of unthinkable terror, ecological devastation, and a baffling, overwhelming mass of ongoing collective sorrows…our inability, both individually and collectively, to mindfully tolerate our grief, fear, and despair—emotions that are continually triggered in an age of global threat—is a crucial source of what ails us.” Eight years later, her statements are exponentially more potent.

As foreboding as those words sound, the dark emotions so easily aroused these days can be transformed, healing and enriching our lives in ways we can not imagine while in their grip. Grief into joy. Fear into gratefulness. Despair into faith.

Not in one day— it is after all, a heroine’s and hero’s journey, full of all the vicissitudes* of a human life. Yet it is possible. Having felt for myself the onerous weight of all three emotions, and subsequently, after much journeying, known the immense relief and freedom as that weight, transformed, slipped from my shoulders, I’ve also been honored to witness clients, friends, and family accomplish the same, seemingly Herculean feat. I repeat the transformation again…

Grief into joy. Fear into gratefulness. Despair into faith.

If these words so move you, it may be the time to begin your own journey, to embrace your emotions, the events of your life and of the world of which you are a part. Because you are not separate from anything that happens here on the planet. Hold them all close to your heart. Feel what it takes to live here, in this moment. Breathe. And breathe again. Feel the incredible privilege that Rob Brezny speaks of—this breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. 

Borrowing Oprah’s closing statement in her magazine—This I Know For Sure—this is what I’ve come to know; not think, not feel, but know for sure in my very cells. All the seemingly disparate pieces of one’s life relate to each other. This one life is linked to the lives of others. These lives make up the human community. Humans are intricately connected to, and an integral part of the natural world, all sentient beings. Pull one thread, anywhere, and the entire woven fabric of experience and circumstance shimmers and shakes. 

This post is dedicated to my friend Stan, who reminded me how important it is to celebrate what it means to be alive, and to Miriam Greenspan, for reminding me once again of how we are connected.

* vicissitudes: the unexpected and variable events of life.

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life, because of our quiet.”

The other day I acknowledged someone I’ve known for many years. It took the synchronicity of several events, conversations, and a Buddhist meditation to get to the quiet, “still water” place in myself that Yeats speaks of—a quiet that allowed the “ah-ha” moment to surface and lead me to a deep internal knowing—an acknowledgment was needed and most deserved. The knowing took me by surprise, and the time was now. It was like a line of dominos falling, click-click-clicking against each other, or a hallway of doors opening, one after the other, letting in light and the breeze of grace.

For acknowledgment is a universal human need. No matter your age, gender, race, culture, religion, or any other label, we human beings need acknowledgment like air and water and food. Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, created a list of these needs as one of the main tools in his work (click here to see the list). In my coaching practice and in everyday life, heartfelt acknowledgment is one of the most common deficits in people’s lives that I see.

In psychiatrist Anna Fels’ book Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women’s Changing Lives, she writes: “It’s nice to think that skill and excellence are their own rewards, but we are social creatures who need to be recognized and praised…” Her book is, among other things, about the lack of acknowledgment as women enter the workforce, yet her statement applies to all of us.

We mirror our innate worth as human beings each time we acknowledge someone. With each Thank you for… and I want you to know how much your…, we share our appreciation and gratefulness for the amazing, miraculous fact of each other’s presence. We strengthen the web of connection that keeps us all afloat.

The giving of acknowledgment is also a deficit. With the grace of the other day still with me, and the poignant reminder contained in Yeat’s words,  I invite you to take a moment and be still, to quiet the chatter that echoes constantly between your skull bones, and envision someone in your life that is in need of acknowledgment. Then go speak with them, pick up the phone, write a letter (!), or send an email. Text them if you must. Just let them know that one person in the world sees them for the kind, persevering, gracious, business-savvy, truthful, witty, irreverent, courageous, supportive, intelligent, stylish, creative, hang-it-all-out-there, or (fill in the blank) human being they are.

And make it a habit, like brushing your teeth. The deficit is huge. You can make a difference.

“Only one thing is necessary to write poetry: everything.”

—spoken by the character Atillio in the film The Tiger and the Snow (Roberto Benigni, 2005)

April is Poetry Month in the U.S., a time to celebrate the timeless art form that uncannily transcends cultural restraints and physical boundaries to reach deeply into our minds and bodies. The Balinese believe the four virtues a person needs to be safe and happy in life are intelligence, friendship, strength, and poetry*. Why and how poems affect human beings so profoundly is the subject of countless books and discussions; it’s the subject I explored on returning to college a few years ago.

Yet far beyond the reasons live the poems themselves. Composed of artfully crafted language that invokes people, places, experiences and images, a memorable poem is capable of eliciting the full gamut of human emotions. Poetry connects us to insights, memories, and myriad truths that can inform and open up our world if we are receptive and ready to hear its message.

Poetic language, with its metaphors, rhythms, and condensed form can soothe the human limbic system. When my brain is reacting, out of control with thoughts as prickly as the cactus spines in the photo above, the soothing sway of a poetic phrase can calm me—restoring mindfulness, responsiveness and a healthy perspective. Repeating those few words or few lines helps the sharpness of a situation recede, much like a mantra is used in meditation. When clarity returns, science tells me that the agitated area of my brain is being bathed with GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), one of the key neurotransmitters that calms my upset amygdala, a main component of the limbic system**.

Here are links to four poems that have come my way recently, surprising me with their beauty and relevance: Mameen, by David Whyte on Return, his newest recording of poems set to music; Q and A, by Linda Pastan, third of three poems posted on 2.8.11 @  www.poems.com ; Taiji, by Mark Nepo, posted on 3.22.11 @ threeintentions.com; and Sara in Her Father’s Arms, by George Oppen, found in poet Nick Flynn’s essay in O Magazine, April 2011 issue.

Perhaps in these poems you will find a word, a phrase, or a line that brings sanity to a crazy day. Listen to the poems floating on the April breezes. They are messages from fellow travelers. May your step be lighter, your thoughts more like blossoms than spines, and your heart a bit wild with wonder.

“Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” —Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine

* Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love. 2006

** Two books that speak about aspects of limbic system soothing: Your Brain at Work, by David Rock, 2009; and Mindsight, by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., 2010.

I left off writing here last December (just short of the winter solstice) with a note saying I’d return in a month with a new blog format. Obviously, I took my own poem to heart: to become bear-like / in these winter months / to slow down to a soft snore / to lumber willingly / into my cave—and have only now, three months later and after much Internet and soul searching, come to see that this blog only wanted a spring cleaning (less pages & some organization), and thus, a lightness to it.

Thank you to those who wrote wondering about the long silence. I missed showing up here every two weeks—those moments of observation and the subsequent wild surge of connection that happens in the fraction of a second, the desire to record it through the written word. Though the missing hasn’t overshadowed the necessity and appreciation of hunkering down these past three months. The blog (and I) just needed a rest, a recalibration, and as Julia Cameron writes in her book The Artist’s Way, the well of creativity needed to fill up again. Having let go of superfluous projects and pale imaginings over the winter, what is ready, able and willing to emerge now has ample room to do so.

It’s snowing outside at this moment in the northern California town of Nevada City (at home it’s 90 degrees F.). Welcomed as guests in our friends’ cozy home, we are lazing about on this blustery, sometimes rainy, sometimes snowy Sunday because the mountain passes out of town are closed. Zero visibility. Avalanche danger. So much for doing. It’s useless to fret about plans that the weather has no intention of honoring.

The daffodils, camillias, and budding fruit trees take the snow in stride—bending, not breaking, drawing on a deep resiliency and an unalterable desire to bloom—there is no turning back once this bursting forth has begun, whatever the weather.

So much is going on in the world at this time. Discernment is paramount. What is necessary for our well-being, and the well-being of those around us? What idea, project, intention, goal or transformation has been gestating during the winter months, and is now eager to be birthed and realized? Which ones need more time to develop? Can you feel inspiration and excitement rising like sap in your veins? How deep is your resiliency, your own desire to bloom?

Wherever you are, and whatever you’re creating during this threshold time called spring, may you embrace it wholeheartedly. May you burst forth with a vibrancy that shocks and delights.

Photo credit: Snow flowers by C Morley (found on the blog Designers Who Blog)

Note to Self in Winter

To become bear-like / in these winter months / to slow down to a soft snore / to lumber willingly / into my cave / to embrace rest and darkness / so I may rejuvenate and emerge / in spring / ravenous / to begin again.  -ngs

Le Cri de Merlin

It is winter, and you have come / alone to a clearing in the wood. / Close your eyes and imagine you are / Merlin, shape-changer and androgyny, / come to the forest Brocéliande. / So transformed in your inward being, / slowly open your eyes and look at / the clearing, circle of trees, / snow and shadows, and then / let all dissolve into turbulence / of color and form, intense / longing, and owl’s cry.

If you follow these instructions, / and if your heart is pure, / you will experience three revelations. / 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.

Look! It is winter, and you have come / alone to this clearing in the wood, / a familiar place you have never / seen before. Do not hurry to leave, / but when at last you turn away, / remember this, if you remember nothing else: / You are no longer who you were.    - Robert Collen in Burning World, 1997

WISHING YOU ALL THE BEST DURING THIS SEASON AND IN THE NEW YEAR!

It is on a threshold, at the edge, where we are most able to alter our understanding of the world, and of our own lives in it. —

Walking down a forest path on Whidbey Island in mid-November, I glanced up and saw this maple leaf pierced through by a thin twig, barely moving with the misty breeze. The path was thickly strewn with alder leaves, evergreen needles, and small pieces of branches coated with moss, evidence of a windstorm two nights before. The silence was palpable and deeply soothing. How this particular leaf had come to be suspended high above the others was a stunning picture of pure chance. It was impossible to predict its fate; would it hang suspended until its brittle skin gave way? Would the next storm blow it off its precarious perch? Or if I returned in the spring, would it still be there, faded to the color of parchment?

The day before my walk in the woods I had attended a gathering where the words threshold, uncertainty, risk, and vulnerability were used often. Those of us in the large hall surrounded by the woods I’ve mentioned were urged to be aware of times that we, like the maple leaf, are suspended awkwardly yet elegantly above where we normally would come to rest. I kept remembering Orr’s quote about a threshold being such an altering place.

A threshold is a place of transition, like the forest-encircled meadow I’d walked through that morning. It’s the place where trees root into soil, waves roll onto sand, where invisible breath turns to visible vapor, and old answers welcome new questions. It is also a dangerous, uncertain space where vulnerability reigns—the encounter between liquid and solid, open and concealed, wild and tamed, safe and risky, dark and light. As the word threshold also describes, it is a doorway where sometimes it is best to pause, and consider what one has just left, and what one is about to enter.

We are never immune to these transitional places. As Orr says, the threshold is ”…where we become aware that we are on the borderline between disorder and order…like standing at the brink of a cliff, or the edge of an ocean, or the beginning of a love affair.” A place simultaneously awe-inspiring and terrifying, where our senses and sensibilities are intensified, where we are awake and squirming with countless uncertainties and countless possibilities.

In this wild and uncertain season called autumn, where winter snows come early or temperatures vary by forty degrees in a 24-hour period, where the darkness envelopes and the desire to hibernate starts knocking on our bones and in our blood, pause in the face of uncertainty and breathe deeply. Occasionally, take a step back. Surge forward when the flow is beckoning. Stay open to the message that is wafting across the threshold. Do not, do not bolt the door against what is coming toward you.

*Gregory Orr, Poetry as Survival, 2002