Category Archives: Philosophy

The Church of Writing (30)

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It isn’t fair. I try reading other books about writing from my odd “moving to Mexico” collection. But how can any book follow Natalie Goldberg’s? I give it almost two weeks, plodding through the pages, duty and stubbornness combined, hope dwindling. I give up, return to the Ray Bradbury. I’d only read it once years ago, but already, in the first chapter, it makes me cry. It seems unbelievable how lucky I am, to have these two writers who talk about the writing process, who both move me to tears. But it’s a mystery. The other three books don’t touch me, not even Annie Dillard’s whose prose is so lush. So I wonder what it is. Is it like acting? Does the actor need to feel the emotion he’s portraying in order to affect the audience? Is the emotion of the writer able to move into us when we read their work? Is there some mix of mind, heart, body, spirit, the writer’s integrated presence, that hugs their words? Are our words infused, like magic, with how or who we were when we wrote them? Are we transported by a writer who takes us to a world of their own making because the writer was wholly planted there when the words flowed through them, feet buried in the earth? I think so. And I love the idea that our own energy might travel unseen with our writing, ghosts on a night train, lighting people up all over the planet. No wonder libraries are sacred. Holy houses, resonant with this collected energy, like centuries-old cathedrals, dust swirling in the air, caught by the late afternoon sunlight, the smell of old paper, the feel of warm wood beneath your palm, like a prayer.

Mudballs (15)

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It’s crazy hot. I’m dripping with sweat but reluctant to go inside. I’ve become attached to reading Natalie Goldberg and doing my “morning writing” on the patio, even on days when morning becomes late afternoon. Today she talks about being lonely, how Katagiri Roshi says we must stand up in it, not let ourselves be “tossed away.” I think of Bernardo. I saw him on the creek path last week. He told me how lonely he is, how women won’t engage with him because he is not wealthy, because he is short. I talked about how we often don’t get things we are too attached to wanting. It’s the way the universe works. I used my writing contests as an example, how I may be too attached to wanting to win. But my heart went out to him. Today my horoscope says that empathy is underrated but much needed, great for actors, parents. Teachers? Writers, too. But it isn’t always an easy gift. Empathy hurts. I know deep loneliness. Maybe without knowing I learned to stand up in it. I made my peace with it. Bernardo hasn’t, I don’t think. He’s hoping someone will come along to make it go away. It’s why I’ve always felt uncomfortable in our exchanges even though I like him and enjoy our talks. I sensed this, a kind of energetic grasping. Of course, there’s a hunger for connection, for physical closeness, too. It’s different from loneliness but a close cousin, all fruit of feeling alone in the world. Feeling connected to the planet helps. I miss walking every day for that, for the big picture connection. But even here in the courtyard I have my mountains, our palo verde, the birds, the moon, the wind that picks up now as I write, wanting to be included on my list. I feel lonely, yes, but not like years ago. Bernardo’s is a deep ache. I ache for him, for all of us, stumbling along being in bodies, saddled with the illusion we are all alone and separate, our odd human condition. We fumble, tumble into each other, mudballs all—stars inside us.

My “Duh!” Moment (32)

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Last week I had an aha moment. It dawned on me the challenges I’ve been having with my work are the universe’s way of helping me. So, my aha, my belated realization, was also a “Duh!” moment. I knew this, right? I’ve known this for years, haven’t I? I pray for help often, but I never ask for trials. I don’t say, “Please send me some really hard thing so I can learn and grow.” I ask for help—in healing, in changing—as though the powers that be might reach down, brush me with a stroke of feathers. Voilà. I am a new person. I forget I am required to do my share. I forget that healing, that changing, can be hard work. I’ve asked for help, for guidance in getting through a troubled time. And I never doubt I am receiving that help. But somehow I missed the whole part about how these challenges at work are the help. I forgot I asked for this. The trouble I am having is the answer to prayer. “Duh,” I say out loud. Sable’s ear twitches at the sound of my voice. His expression remains deadpan. And here I thought you were smarter than that, he thinks at me. “Duh,” I say again just for fun. But I am smiling now.

Something Big (19)

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I asked the woman who was doing a reading for me about her gift. I didn’t think she was clairvoyant, someone who sees things about us. She told me she’s clairaudient. I looked it up later in the dictionary:

clairaudience |kle(ə)rˈôdēəns| noun: the supposed faculty of perceiving, as if by hearing, what is inaudible

But in the moment I asked her if what she heard was actually audible. “Do you hear it with your ears?” She said she wasn’t sure. She was just so used to it, I think. She’s been doing this for over fifty years.

“I just hear a voice,” she said. And she told me we are in a key time for the ability to change. It seems between the winter solstice on December 21st and the summer solstice in June, we have a chance to truly change, to “flip the switch” she said, “once and for all.”

It’s good news–of course it is. But because of who I am the first thing I did was worry I might not succeed in spite of this rare chance. “Are you saying,” I asked her, “that if we don’t manage to change now we may not be able to later?” She said no, but it would be much, much harder.

She talked about how the universe is set to support us now. I balked, the disgruntled child, still stuck on worrying about failing. I told her it seemed to me the universe always supported us. “Not like this,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” During this window the universe is poised to support us like nobody’s business.

So. I wanted to be sure to pass this on. It feels big to me, capital B big, as though we might each step into who we want to be more fully than ever before. Happy new year, everyone.

Bittersweet (30)

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Melancholy
bends and twists
and bows
lilac after an early summer rain.
Touch it
smooth and hard
like sea glass.
Melancholy
a deep blue green
water
in Greece.
Melancholy
tastes like tree bark
like tea brewed from bitter roots
without enough honey
like artichokes.
It rings like chimes
in a light breeze
at dusk.

Psychic Ties and Parallel Worlds (1)

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The previous owners of our new old trailer home went back to Canada ten days ago. Since then I’ve felt my psychic responsibility for both dwellings. I agonize over my decisions for the trailer, line up fence contractors, research air conditioners online with Consumer Reports. I cry watering the bougainvillea here, ache when I hear the house sparrows chittering. I sit in our courtyard garden and savor sight and sound. I have dreams of future lushness in our new home, but for the beginning our life outdoors there will be stark in comparison, no trees, no hedge alive with birds. I’ll miss our big fan palm and our valiant pine tree. I’ll miss color and texture, bark and stone and hibiscus. I so hope the new tenant will take care of the lives we leave behind us here.

I lay in bed this morning while fierce winds had their way with our world and worried the teetering fence with the rotted post at the trailer may end up across the road, prayed if it fell it would fall inward instead. When I saw the fence between my landlord’s yard and ours had given way, my first thoughts were go now, move now, don’t wait. My next thought was how odd that this fence would fall over when I was worried about the one at the trailer. Was this some weird kind of mirroring, some parallel universe thing?

Birdbath props up the fence

When I walked over to check on the trailer, the fence there was listing but not down. I stacked more bricks against one side, wedged the bird bath against the other. Now it’s late at night, the wind still noisy behind our closed doors, but I don’t feel anxious. And there is another sweetness that came to me today. This afternoon, when I went to lock the trailer door, I turned back, compelled by a wash of feeling. “I’m looking forward to coming to live here,” I said to the empty rooms. I think it was the first time I felt it in my bones. I had a lopsided grin on my face when I turned to leave. There is life outside here, too. I passed the orange nasturtiums beside the propped up fence on my way out. I was still grinning when I headed home.

Anti Arizona (45)

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We were having breakfast together at my favorite place, Palm Greens Cafe, where once when they brought my food I commented about what a glutton I was being, and the kitchen staff serving me smiled an impish smile and said, “Yes, but a gluten-free glutton!” If I hadn’t already been charmed by the place, that alone would have won me over, stolen my word-loving heart. But when Corina told me she was considering Arizona for the next stage of her young wandering life, I think I went into some weird autopilot. I don’t remember half of what I said, only my gluten-free vegan pancakes with blueberries sitting untouched before me during my diatribe and the surprised looks on her parents’ faces across the table. I know I told them I didn’t want to spend one cent in Arizona because of their racist legislation and their lies. (I read one of the reasons they claimed to have crafted the anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant laws was because of increased violence along their southern border. But in truth, violent crime has gone down there in recent years.) I know I told them if I needed to go to New Mexico or Colorado from some reason, I would fill up the gas tank in Blythe and drive straight through their pretty desert state. I know my voice and my words were harsh, maybe shockingly so. I called Corina later to apologize for my vehemence. “I know it’s beautiful,” I said. “I can understand you wanting to go there.” But I’m still praying she’ll pick another spot.