I filmed three meditations on July 24th trying to get one clip that I could use to submit to the global project “Life In A Day“.  But the Universe had a different idea of raw footage.  Our camera decided that it simply couldn’t autofocus by the watergarden.  The heat made sitting on top of my stone zafu feel like I was squatting atop a dorm room hot plate.  And my hair was … well it wasn’t what I would have chosen for the hallmark of my existence.

Nonetheless, with the help of my son behind the camera and my daughter armed with the meditation chime, we made several videos to submit to this joint YouTube experiment.  I answered the questions they asked for, made the four sound bytes requested (clap, breath, one note and my “favorite sound“.)  I even submitted a little clip of my silly dog – what is Life without our beloved pets?  And even with my over pixalated and imperfect hair … I sent in an unedited meditation clip. For me that is pretty much … Life EVERY DAY.

Below is an edited clip from the first zazen sit of the day.  This was one I didn’t use for my entry.  Yet the sense of I AM and stillness was so profound (for me) that I thought I’d share with my Zen friends.

Sometimes we are just seeking Stillness. A moment when the mind falls away and the spaciousness of our existence can be apperceived. No matter what is happening around us, we can be Present to our True Nature. I invite you to take ten minutes and sit with me. Share in the solidity of my stillness. Relax. Breathe. And Let Go.

Namasté.

Most of the little lizards in our yard are the  Western Fence Lizard, also known as the Blue Belly lizards.  It is really quite striking to sit near my window in the morning and see one crawl up on the screen to bask in the sun.  The bright blue streaks against the mesh are remarkable and I revel in watching it breathe and twitch its muscles.  Every so often the little fellow cocks his head and peers into the room to look me right in the eye.  I stay very still to assure my guest that I have no mal intentions.  Though I occasionally slip my cell phone out of my purse and snap a few pictures because you never know when one might find its way into my blog.

What made this morning’s lizard encounter different was that this little lady (I presume) had yellow markings on her underbelly.  A quick Google search failed to confirm the variety of my morning visitor and of course, the yellow strips may have simply been another sign post for me to remember that I am playing in the lila.

Animal shaman wisdom for lizards would confirm the visit was most certainly a call to Zen as “Detachment from ego” was the first symbolic meaning for these animal spirit guides.  Transformation seems to be a key factor in these tiny deities.

But even beyond the magic and mysticism, these tiny creatures play an amazing role in transmutation.  In 1998, Berkley scientists discovered that ticks that carried Lyme disease were cleansed of the infection when they feed on the blood of the western fence lizard.

http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/0429/lizard.html

I guess it’s true … we never really know who are friends are.

The long days of summer have begun. I suppose it was about time perhaps, as it is the first week of July. This is the first week that my kids are working longer hours at summer camp and my grad student daughter leaves the house at 6:30 a.m. — pops in for a half hour lunch then is off again in grad school until 7:00 p.m  – sits down for a bit of dinner and then is busy at her computer with hours of homework for class … a very long day indeed.

For me the house is dauntingly quiet until my husband wakes up at Noon. And then it is only a the sound of a frantically barking dog excited to see another face after spending hours asleep on my lap as I waited for the morning crud to pass. It’s not until 2 p.m. when my teens come home that actual banter and badinage begins.

For me the morning stillness brings with it cellular memories of being an only child.  Though Mom often called it lonely child … And I did spend hours upon hours hauled up in my room. Waiting for something to shift, hoping for better days ahead, always watching the clock and doing the math … X hours until Dad comes home, or this many minutes until Mom goes to class.  Back then my sense of time was strangely woven into my understanding of how long one “I Love Lucy” show was.  So I new the passing of time as … “Dinner will be ready in two I Love Lucy shows.”  In my own way always watching the clock and waiting for the future to come.

Doing the math is my downfall. Watching the clock has always been a sign that I was upset. Even in my career as I tried to hold out and push this disordered body through one more committee meeting … I would watch the clock on my cell phone. “Only another hour to go”, I would think to myself. “If I left now, I still attended the important parts.” I tried to convince my ego. But most of the time I plodded through, trying my best and often failing, to keep my mouth shut during the discussion as to not make the agenda drag out any longer.

In college one of my professors told a story about a group of miners that were trapped underground. Only one had a watch and he became the official time keeper. “What time is it?” The other captives would ask. “Oh half past 2.” The man replied, when in truth it was much later than that. He always told the crew that less time had passed than had actually elapsed, because he knew they would be anxious with limited oxygen supplies and a diminished hope for rescue. But rescue did come, and all of the miners were found alive … Accept the time keeper. As the analysis went, he died of the stress of knowing how much time had actually passed.

I was in my early 20′s when I heard this story and decided that day I would take off my little gold tone wrist watch and forego being the official time keeper for the universe.

When my daughter was born, I began to become concerned about my lack of sleep and the numerous times we awoke each night. As a fix, I removed the night stand clock and vowed not to do the math. I would sleep when she slept (which ment going to bed at 7 pm at times) and wake up with her to nurse and play all through out the night until morning came. It worked wonderfully. Her Dad and I would turn on the VCR and catch glimpses of TV as he changed diapers, or snacked on microwaveable chocolate cake. It was like time became meaningless. It was always just NOW.

Over the years, clocks have snuck back into my consciousness. The microwave has a clock, as does the oven right below it (set about a didigt different from each other for at least 10 seconds for every minute). All of our cell phones have clocks, the DVD player has the time, our DISH network receiver has a digital display, my heart rate monitor has a watch, our laptops have the time and the list goes on. It seems every electronic devise in its dormant mode is set to display the passing of time.

In fact last night I had a dream that I was walking across campus in my former academic life, and just then my heart rate monitor battery died.  In the dream, I stopped and looked frantically for a watch battery to place inside and found all of these odd shaped lithium coin cells in my purse but none the one that I needed.  I remember waking up breathless at the frustration experienced in the dream state.

So here I am again … Doing the math. Three hours until my husband wakes up, five hours until the kids come home, seven plus before my housemate returns, ten hours until my eldest comes home for dinner.

If my body was stronger this morning, I could do some chores or busy my mind with a project. But these are the ‘waiting hours’. Where the pain is awake, the body is weak and the mind is filled with unproductive thought streams. I glance at the clock. I feel a tear slowly swell and moisten the edge of my eye. The June Gloom of southern California seasonal weather pattern has slipped into July and the sky is thick with overcast clouds. The cold damp air feels a bit like what I imagine the trapped miners felt underground.

I could wait …. And watch the clock. Or in this moment I can sit Zazen in the silence of an empty mind eternally in the NOW.

~Om~

Time is only relevant when we are in the middle of a story. Outside the drama … There is only this breath. Another tear forms in my eye as bliss and joy replace the need to know — What time is it?  And slowly the story fades away.

Photo courtesy of my darling daughter Patricia, a gift for me for Mother's Day

It’s the second Mother’s Day to pass that I grieve the loss of my mother.  She hasn’t died, to the best of my knowing.  She simply stopped calling, stopped receiving calls, changed her residence and likely her phone number either that or it is perpetually turned off for the last year and a half.  Without a word as to why, the egoic mind fills in the blanks with a myriad of motives and emotions.  “She couldn’t accept my wheelchair.”  “She felt I wasn’t doing enough to recover.”  “She never really loved me.”  And the beat goes on.  All stories.  None of them true, though each likely accurate.  I realize my conditioned mind will likely always stir the pot of cellular memories of mother.

In my enquiry I often wonder what it is that I feel I am missing.  Is it the present moment MIA-Mom or the moments she wasn’t present when I felt I needed her during my growing years?  Was it really my mother that I missed or Carol Brady, Shirley Partridge and Jaime Sommers combined into the ideal idol of the matriarch?

I see in my own children such strong longings for parental approval.  “Did I do good?”  “How do I look in these jeans?”  “I made you a cup of tea.  Am I your favorite now?”  We laugh and joke about my aloof and non-demonstrative nature, but at the end of the day each of my offspring know they are loved unconditionally, admired for who they are and valued as the unique light that they shine upon my path.

It seems our deepest hooks into suffering come from our closest relationship paradigms.  Like a big jigsaw puzzle we continue to try and see where it is we fit in within our family, our workplace, our religion, our politics, our existence itSelf in this illusion we continue to create each day.

As for Mom … I know in my heart that she and I are One.  My missing of the maternal is more about my material longings and misguided notions of my separate sense of self.  So as I quietly reconnect to my own EarthMother nature, I can sense the completeness and perfection in this moment as ALONE transmutes into ALL-ONE.

Happy Mother’s Day.

“To my mind, the idea that doing dishes is unpleasant can occur only when you aren’t doing them. Once you are standing in front of the sink with your sleeves rolled up and your hands in the warm water, it is really quite pleasant. I enjoy taking my time with each dish, being fully aware of the dish, the water, and each movement of my hands. I know that if I hurry in order to eat dessert sooner, the time of washing dishes will be unpleasant and not worth living. That would be a pity, for each minute, each second of life is a miracle. The dishes themselves and that fact that I am here washing them are miracles!”
-Thich Nhat Hanh

There are a thousand Zen stories about the dharma of doing the dishes.  From the mindfulness training expressed by Brother Thay above, to the metaphoric expression that life after enlightenment is much like life before the final awakening filled with laundry and chopping wood.  If the art of doing dishes somehow measured our progress along the path, I should think this week I have been in the carpool lane to Nirvana.  It’s been a dozen days now that we have had no kitchen sink, which also means no dishwasher.  So each of us have had the opportunity to roll up our sleeves (ok it’s southern California we don’t have sleeves to roll up) and place our hands in the warm water.

I must say the entire experience of the kitchen sink project has been one that brings my Zen teaching up close and personal.  From the groundlessness of not knowing when the plumbing venture will be complete to the present moment awareness of my dysautonmic body as I try and maneuver myself in front of a tiny barcounter sinkette off of the family room.   When I am feeling relatively well, I realize that I quite enjoy heating up water in the microwave and filling a small bowl with suds and taking my time with each item that I pick up in my hands.

On one occasion during a very warm afternoon coupled with some very messy dishes that would have wrecked havoc on the tiny sinkette off of the family room, I took a large bowl of hot sudsy water and an arm load of pots, pans and food preparation tools outside in the backyard.  As I copped a squat beside a green patch of grass and began scrubbing the tools of my trade (if I were a tradesman of any kind I suppose) I could feel this deep sense of déjà vu.  Not that I had ever sat in a field washing dishes by a stream before, but I could tell by some ancient cellular memory that somebody had.  My DNA danced as the sun made the soap bubbles sparkle and the cool water from the hose tickled the backs of my middle-aged hands.  This is how dishes should be washed. I mused to myself.

There are a lot of memories around dish washing that have tapped around my frontal lobes during the last two weeks (I realize it hasn’t been quite two weeks yet, but judging by the pace we seem to be locked into it will be some time still before we once again have running water in the kitchen.)  Growing up I remember my grandfather washing the dinner dishes often with a dab of Prell shampoo.  He use to hum a little tune that would have made Thich Nhat Hanh proud.

When I was 17 and having a dinner party of sorts, I asked one of the guests whom I had never met before if he would marry me and do the dishes every night.  He said yes and eventually became my first husband, true to his word.

With all of my hands on memories of cleaning dishes, I realize I had very little hands on experience with dishpan hands.  So there is some enjoyment in the novelty of the Art of Dishwashing that continues to change the way we prepare, cook and clean up after our meals.

And while I do enjoy the times when my body is up to the physical demands of washing a few cups and saucers, I also see that I have very little patience and much less Zen when I see that one of my teenagers has a collection of Petri dishes in their room or when I have to re-wash all of the dinner dishes the morning after because the quality control was sorely lacking from last night’s teen performance.  Though admittedly each of those scenarios still happens even when we have a dishwashing machine in working order.  I suspect it is one of those things that is in the DNA of teenagers to be head strong and haphazard.

I’m not sure I’ve reached the point of seeing the chore of dishes as the miracle of life, but I certainly see the opportunity to practice the teaching in each faraway bubble and sententious scouring.  For that I am very grateful indeed.