Moment to Moment - Etty Hillesum

...every moment gives birth to a new moment...

Life courses through one as a constant current in a great

series of moments, each having its own place in the day.

...whenever suffering thrusts itself upon us we must not
avoid it - but accept it.

Does that mean I am never sad, that I never rebel, always
acquiesce, and love life no matter what the circumstances?

No, far from it.  I believe that I know and share the many
sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being
experiences, but.....they pass through me, like life itself;
as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream,
and life continues...

...ought we not, from time to time, open ourselves up to
cosmic sadness?

Your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself.
You mustn't run away from it, but bear it like an adult.
Do not relieve your feelings through hatred, do not seek
to be avenged on all German mothers, for they, too,
sorrow at this very moment for their slain and murdered
sons.  Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself
that is its due, for if everyone bears his grief honestly and
courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.
But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and
instead reserve most of the space inside for your hatred and
thoughts of revenge - then sorrow will never cease in this
world and will multiply...

Etty Hillesum
From: Etty Hillesum - Essential Writings
by Annemarie S. Kidder

Etty was Dutch living in Nazi occupied Netherlands
during the Holocaust, and died in Auschwitz at the age
of 28 or 29. Her writings were taken from her journals.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
"walking in Divine shoes"

~

May all those observing Hanukkah
find peace in their sorrow...

 

 

The Troll in the Mind - Mark Nepo

We spend so much time
anticipating what will happen next that we miss
the whisper of Heaven that unfolds wherever we are.

Though I have known and survived
many forms of pain,
fear is the troll in the mind
that anticipates more.

And just as a loud noise prevents us
from finding the peace in the center of silence,
fear prevents us from finding
the inch of Heaven in the center
of whatever moment we are in.

Yet, no matter how much I've been through
and how much I've learned,
I can't stop the wave of anticipation.
No one can.

It is part of being human.

Mark Nepo
(a cancer survivor)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
 A dried rose petal with one eye
at the top and a big schnozz.
Looks like a troll to me :)

The Art of Suffering - Etty Hillesum

Most of us in the West don't understand the art of suffering
and experience a thousand fears instead.  Man suffers most
through the idea of suffering, and through his fear of suffering.
We cease to be alive, being full of fear, bitterness, hatred and
despair.  Don't we live an entire life each one of our days,
and does it really matter if we live a few days more or less?
There is room for everything in a single life.

When I say I have come to terms with life, I don't mean I
have lost hope.  It is a question of living life from minute to
minute and taking suffering into the bargain.  But does it
matter if it is the Inquisition that causes people to suffer in
one century, and war and pogroms in another?

Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in
what form it comes?  All that matters is how we bear it
and how we fit it into our lives.

I can sit for hours and know everything and bear everything
and grow stronger in the bearing of it.  And at the same time
feel sure life is beautiful and meaningful.  Despite everything.
But that does not mean that I am always filled with joy and
exaltation [about life and its circumstances].  I am often dog-
tired after standing in queues, but I know that this too is part
of life, and I know something inside me will never desert me...

We carry everything within us. God and Heaven and Hell and
Earth and Life and Death and all of history.  The externals are
simply so many props; everything we need is within us.  And
we have to take everything that comes; the bad with the good,
which does not mean we cannot devote our life to curing the
bad.  But we must know what motives inspire our struggle
[against] and we must begin with ourselves.

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and
the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable
horrors - it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty
whole and begin to grasp it better, if only for myself, without
being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together.

If you destroy the ideas behind [suffering] which life lies
imprisoned within, you liberate your true life - and then you
will have the strength to bear real suffering...

Etty Hillesum
Jewish Mystic of the Holocaust
from: An Interrupted Life

~

Wishing the Jewish community
a peaceful and light filled Hanukkah
as it comes to an end...

Embrace Groundlessness - Joan Tollifson

In our mental world, we worry about the meaning or
meaninglessness of life, we wonder about our purpose, we
judge and evaluate ourselves and compare ourselves to others,
we seek escape from the vulnerability and the pain and the
heartache that life inevitably brings, and we seek exciting and
pleasurable experiences that will thrill us and maybe also
enhance our self-image in our own eyes or in the eyes of others.
We go on long journeys, sometimes for decades, searching for
enlightenment, or the perfect partner, or the perfect place to live,
or the perfect career, or the perfect friends.

But meanwhile, right here, there is the utter simplicity and
 wonder of life itself - the sounds of rain, the freshness of the air,
the ache of grief, the taste and texture of this moment, just exactly
as it is.  And it never stays the same, for everything is always
changing.  The universe literally begins anew in each moment.
And really, this moment is all we have.  But we so often ignore
this vital reality, overlook or dismiss it.  We don't really notice the
wonder and the beauty of it, even the wonder and beauty in its
sharper, darker, more bitter and challenging forms.  We want
something else, something bigger and better, more exciting or
more pleasurable, or simply different.

As many of you know, I'm working on a fifth book now, a book
that explores death and growing old.  But it has another aspect
now as well, namely the end of my long search for transcendence,
and the embrace of groundlessness and not knowing - waking up
to the simplicity of being just this moment, exactly as it is. Not
knowing what all this is or why it's happening or what will happen
next.  Living in groundlessness, rather than desperately trying to
find ground in some transcendent metaphysical ideology - e.g.,
that Consciousness is all there is, or that Consciousness precedes
the brain and Mind precedes matter, or that awareness is ever-
present even after death, or that I am boundless awareness and
not a person, or whatever that transcendent ideology might be.

I could always see quite clearly that these were all actually beliefs
and not verifiable facts.  But sometimes, when self-doubt is a deeply
ingrained psychological pattern, we override our own intelligence
and insight and doubts again and again, and swallow what others
who seem more enlightened are telling us.  And sometimes, even
when we tell ourselves (and others) that our search has ended, we
are actually still seeking.

Yes, I can feel a sense of boundless awaring presence, the spacious
openness of here-now that has no center and no boundaries.  I can
feel this vast listening silence, and the emptiness at the core of
everything.  When I look, it is obvious that we can never experience
anything outside of consciousness, and that every experience is an
experience in and of consciousness.  But there's a metaphysical leap,
some teachers call it "higher reasoning," that moves from these
direct insights into the metaphysical conclusions I mentioned
(e.g., Consciousness is all there is, Consciousness precedes the
 brain, I am awareness and not a person, and so on.)

I can even sense into being the Ultimate Subject, that which
remains beyond everything perceivable and conceivable.  These
 were never just intellectual ideas in my head, there were felt
experiences, intuitive realities. So, they seemed real.  And they
 were real as experiences.  But that's all they were: sensations,
 intuitions, experiences.  And when mixed together with
 metaphysical ideas that I was imbibing from the Advaita world,
it was easy enough to arrive at the conclusion that I am boundless
 awareness, infinite consciousness, impersonal presence or
 the Ultimate Subject beyond all experiences - and it was easy to
overlook  the fact that I had taken a leap from direct experiencing
 into metaphysical belief.  And I'm not saying any of these beliefs are
 false,  only that they are based on what is actually simply another
experience, another sensation, another intuition, another idea. 
They have, through "higher reasoning," reached a philosophical
conclusion that is in no way verifiable as Ultimate Truth. 
But we cling to these conclusions in our search to avoid
groundlessness, uncertainty, vulnerability, lack of control, and
the reality of not knowing.  We turn them into Ultimate Truth.

Of course, when I was dispensing this kind if teaching, I would have
insisted that it wasn't "just another experience, another sensation,
another intuition or another idea." I would have insisted that it was
That in which all experiences appeared and disappeared.  It was the
unchanging, ever-present, ground of being.  And I could easily
experience it that way.  After all, everything appears in awareness.
It's truly easy to hypnotize ourselves or to be hypnotized by
teachers, and it's  so easy to slide over from direct insight and
experiencing into metaphysical conclusions and beliefs.  It's a subtle
line we cross, and we don't always see it, especially when we are
surrounded by a whole subculture that is reinforcing the belief system
and the assumption that some metaphysical idea is actually Truth.

In such transcendent teachings as Advaita, which come out of
Hinduism, one is no longer a mere mortal or a person, no longer a
vulnerable body or a vulnerable human mind, but instead, one is
boundless awareness, infinite consciousness, God - unconditioned,
indestructible, imperishable, free.  Again, I'm not saying this is all
untrue.  In fact, I feel that such teachings do point to certain realities
about life - that there is something right here that is  open and free
and unconditioned, and that the universe (or whatever this is) is
infinite and eternal, and that we are a momentary expression of
something much larger.  Death may be the end of "me" and "my
story" and my particular movie of waking life - I assume it will be -
but it's not the end of this larger wholeness of which "Joan" is a
momentary and ever-changing movement, like a wave on the ocean.
The fear of death comes from being exclusively identified as the
wave, and imagining the wave to be a solid, fixed, independent,
separate thing rather than a flowing movement of the ocean.

But if we go to the opposite extreme and deny the reality and the
preciousness of this body-mind-person, this unique and unrepeatable
wave that will never happen again in exactly the same way, and if
we try to identify exclusively as the whole ocean and not the wave,
we miss something very important.  We miss the actual living reality
of our life - the taste of tea, the sounds of rain, the smell of garbage,
a burning pain in the gut, the bright red fire truck streaking past,
the joyous companionship of a good friend or a beloved dog and
the grief when they die.  We miss the actual life of this moment;
the raw, unmediated aliveness of this very moment, just as it is.

Joan Tollifson

Pain and "The Way of Things..."

The last few days I’ve become acquainted with pain and “the way of things” – as spiritual teacher Ram Dass calls it - which sounds much nicer than the dismissive phrase - “it is what it is” - that I have often heard in terms of the way life goes.

Today I was supposed to take my mother for her eye surgery.  But as it turned out my sister and husband had to take on that responsibility when my back went into spasm last Friday night, after another 3 hour doctor’s appointment with my mother and an hour’s drive on either end.  It was a pain worse than any I remember.  It went up the right side of the spine and around the right side of the rib cage.  Despite self-massage, back rubs, heat packs, ice packs, stretching, energy work, trying to find a comfortable position, praying my muscles would release their grip, the pain remained intense.  I finally gave in to pain medication at 5:10 am Saturday morning - after no sleep, and playing musical chairs all night.  The medication knocked me out for a couple of hours, leaving me feeling drugged – but the pain returned.  It wasn’t done with me yet…     

In the ensuing days I speculated that this must be my unconscious emotional resistance (and not so unconscious) J contracting against life as it is.  On the other hand, I thought, it may have simply been a matter of body mechanics, sitting in the car, and those uncomfortable waiting room chairs.  And on the other hand, if everything is exactly as it should be, then maybe this was a larger Universal Intelligence (which I would like to believe there is J) telling me I didn’t need to be in control, on top of things, always available, feeling responsible; that it was time to let go, to release this old role that tends to keep me in knots and a little “wired” as my mother and sister have recently alluded to, suggesting that my “presence” was not necessarily “helpful.” J That was an interesting reflection in the mirror. J

Or – just maybe – for the moment - it was just “the way of things”: Life playing Itself out as it does with no hidden meaning, agenda, or conclusion…  And yet I do feel like I was given an opportunity here to see things differently  – about myself and my assumed roles; as well as seeing the need to take care of myself both emotionally and physically and not try to be super woman for my family.  I also became aware that no matter how one *tries* to be “present” or helpful, if it cannot be done from a deep place of Presence, and only comes from the place of personality/ego, then it’s best to just back out of the way…  In this case, I was literally “taken out” – for whatever reason.

Pain has an interesting way of bringing us to our knees, dissolving defense mechanisms, and our self image: those lofty *ideas* we have of ourselves, like being “spiritual” or “helpful” or “present”, demanding that we surrender to the moment as it is – to look at things as they really are, including ourselves and how others see us – and being willing to see the truth of it.  Although will have to say I wasn’t that philosophical about it at the time.  I had no higher thoughts of “spirituality.”  I was just a person in pain, in the immediate experience of pain, tyring to do my best to ride the wave: sometimes resisting the pain, and sometimes remembering to breathe into the experience, allowing it to be what it was in the moment.   Resisting, allowing, resisting, allowing, again and again and again, all the while taking my pain medication with gratitude J, until the muscles finally let go of their grip - yesterday.  *I* was not the one “letting go.”  No matter how I *tried* to control the letting go by trying to relieve the pain, it had its own way, and its own time evidently.

And so it goes…  Pain, family dynamics, and life in the moment…  The way of things…

Allow

by Danna Faulds

“There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado.
Dam a stream,
and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you
off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry you
to higher ground.
The only safetly lies in letting it all in –

the wild with the weak;
fear, fantasies, failures and successes.
When loss rips off the doors
of the heart,
or sadness veils your vision
with despair,
practice becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being,
the whole world is revealed
to your new eyes.”

~

Photo:

Rain on screen through window
looking out at the back yard

Sabbatical Moment - Rainlight...

We are in “monsoon” season here where we are supposed to get thunderstorms and showers every afternoon or evening.  It’s very localized, so sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.  But Saturday evening, before dark, we happened to get one of the “monsoons” J  The thunderstorm and rain swirled around us, leaving all the screens and windows covered with rain and raindrops.  The neighbor’s motion sensor light was on in his side yard.  So I grabbed my camera and caught these shots of light through the raindrops.  I completely lost any sense of self with its issues, and was just in the moment, enjoying a "sabbatical" moment. 

“…drink the pure silence.”

”…let your ear teach you
which way to listen.”

“…wait without waiting;
as if it were dusk.”

and “…look into light falling,
in deep relief…”

~*~

Quotes are excerpts from a poem I found on line
by poet Philip Booth
from Lifelines…

Art Day With Mom...

My mother celebrated her 84th birthday this week. We had her birthday celebration on the weekend – dinner and a home movie. And then I took her to lunch yesterday. We drove back to my place for a bit more of a visit; to give my sister a break from my mother, and to give my mother a break from my sister... We ended up spontaneously having an “art day.” It started with her saying that she was interested in knowing the medium that I work with. Really!? Interested!? I do not normally share my “art” with my mother very often. She has a particular and critical eye. But I figured what the heck. I felt secure enough in what I do – after all it’s just for fun – I mean, how could she “criticize” a simple vortex of color. There really aren’t any strokes or technique to criticize. It really is just a matter of perception. My mother has done some art in her life. She did wonderful pen and ink fashion drawings when she was in her teens and 20’s, then moved into oils, but left her art life behind to raise us kids. And she had never worked with Craypas Pastel Oil sticks before.

I enthusiastically showed her what I had been doing. I even demonstrated *how* I do what I do; enjoying the opportunity to instruct my mother :). Showing her how simple it really is, using color combinations, creating a vortex of color with different shades of colors, using the fingers and thumb to blend and merge the colors as much as you want in a circular motion, until it intuitively feels “finished” – until you are moved by it; explaining to her that it was just about color and movement, not making it *look* like anything in particular, and just seeing what emerges.

She patiently watched as I explained. I had assumed she wanted to do the same thing – just play with color and motion – making vortexes. I had forgotten how conceptual she is. For her, art isn’t art unless it *looks* like some *thing* - “like a photograph” she once told me… That’s a hard requirement and self-expectation to live up to, often leaving disappointment. She can’t relax and just have fun with it. So she gazed out the window and painstakingly attempted to draw/paint what she saw, trying to follow my technique. But it was a different kind of art and required a different technique, which I had no knowledge of. The technique I use was not appropriate for what she wanted to accomplish, and she had a hard time with it - said it was “labor intensive” - oh dear… For me, art needs to be fun, fluid, and from the Heart – no agendas, no expectations. It was obvious that we each had a different approach, a different way. And I had hoped to make this a “fun” experience for my mother.

But – we still had FUN together - really – something that doesn’t happen that often with us. Although she has softened a lot, she still pushes my buttons sometimes, and I imagine it would happen a lot more if I lived with her 24/7. But for now it appears we are on a voyage of discovery, both individually in art and together in relationship, which happens in its own ways and rhythms. And it only happened this time because spontaneity opened the door! We somehow just fell into “art making”… In losing ourselves in the silence of creativity we relaxed our stance with each other and opened the space for grace to appear – softening the space between us. Admittedly, this does not always happen. In this instance I saw the need to let go of trying to “help” with what she was doing – to not interrupt her process, or offer too many suggestions, but to encourage and support. I stood out of the way as much as possible, literally and emotionally, falling back into a place of open awareness, and just watched her do her thing. She was quite imaginative actually. She gave us a pond in the backyard!

It was an interesting exercise for me in patience, in presence, in just being in the moment, allowing Mom her creative space without judgmental interference; getting to know* how* my mother *sees* things, without labeling it, and just seeing her create the way she wanted to. It’s all about perspective – and relaxed presence – with each other and with our “art”…

So I’m planning another luncheon “art day” with Mom… Who knew creativity would open a door…

~

Presence to each other
is the door
to all belonging…

John O’Donohoe
From Eternal Echoes


We are cups,
constantly and quietly
being filled..

The trick is,
knowing how to
tip ourselves over
and let the beautiful stuff out…”

Ray Bradbury

"Simple Minded"

My mother is becoming more “simple minded” – meaning – she is showing clearer signs of dementia. She has been “showing signs” for several years, but it is more pronounced now. Within 5 mins she has forgotten what you have said, especially if it is detailed, has to be reminded over and over again, and is learning to write things down. The other day she said to me – after having to repeat myself several times – “I am beginning to forget things.” She has been “beginning” to forget for years now, but is only now just noticing the forgetting – or let’s say – is now accepting and admitting it. I think she’s known for a while, but could hide it. Well, she *thought* she could, but the rest of us knew. But she can’t hide it from herself anymore. And gets frustrated when we pick up on it, and doesn’t like being questioned in order to seek clarity.

In many ways her strong-willed, head strong personality has changed. That’s what personalities do, they change and in some cases dissolve… She seems more “simple” now – not asserting her power, her will, her motherly authority, her need to control; instead getting lost in herself, and lost in simple things, in simpleness. And I wonder if “she” is getting lost. I’m sure the fact that she can’t see well, or hear well has only added to her “simpleness.” And I wonder if this is such a bad thing – this simple mindedness that allows us to come out from hiding – and just be… But I also wonder to myself if one loses the awareness that we are more than our self, our personhood, (if one has ever realized that, if you know what I mean). And if we do lose that sense of inner Beingness - what then...

In some ways she is easier to be around because there are fewer “personality struggles”, as if this simple mindedness has allowed the veil of personality to drop somewhat – but not by volition. I see her vulnerability and fragility of mind and body – and I soften. I feel compassion for her, and yet frustration arises because her cognitive abilities and comprehension are slipping. She is less and less able to understand. She gets information wrong, and therefore passes on incorrect information, which tends to get everybody else’s wires crossed.

I feel compassion as well as anger and irritation when she can’t “get it”, or gets confused, or can’t get the words out. On the one hand I want to try to explain things to her so she can understand, and be understood, but realize it doesn’t do any good. She is incapable of understanding complexity, and her mind forgets. Her brain isn’t working like it used to. I understand that but it is hard to experience. Neither is mine for that matter. I am losing my words… I can describe what the word I’m groping for does, but sometimes just can’t come up with the word, which boggles my mind even more. How could I *remember* how to describe what a word does, but *forget* the word…. Strange brain… It is disconcerting to lose the ability to articulate… So we laugh about the fact that we are both losing our words, both forgetting. But the reality of it is, well, scary - this untimely “simple-mindedness” that creeps in over time as we age.

In Mom’s simple-mindedness I notice that she relies on things being as they always have been, how things used to be, on things being consistent, reliable, and gets confused when they are not. Don’t we all! And yet, she seems adaptable as well – able to move with life as it is, through her simpleness. Not a bad quality actually. Isn’t that what I’ve been trying to do all these years on a “spiritual path” – find the simpleness and simplicity of just living – just being. But I am *aware* that this is what I’ve been doing. And I know it’s not really the same. When the brain-mind starts to go it’s really a forced simpleness through a loss of connection somewhere in the brain, which means *her* reality of things doesn’t always coincide with actual reality. Well, neither does mine actually! :) And I don’t see that as “bad” either! :) It’s just what’s happening now…

My sister, you remember - the prickly personality, lives with her, and is having a hard time with Mom’s simple-mindedness. Her own brain being short-circuited through years of drug abuse and alcohol - is also forgetting; although insists her memory is accurate, which creates unnecessary conflict. She cannot adjust to my mother’s growing simpleness, and is short-fused. Mom is no longer able to be who she was, or the image of who we want her to be – the “mother.” That role is dropping as well. My mother was never really “mothering” in the sense of being the nurturer, the encourager, the emotional supporter. There really wasn’t much of a “heart connection.” The baggage and the woundings from all that are still there of course. But it’s really time to put that baggage down. In fact I think I already have, although I don’t remember when. It must have slipped out of my hands when I wasn’t looking. I realize there is no point in holding onto the baggage and trying to hold her accountable for old wounds that she can now neither understand nor do anything about. The time for discussion and trying to get her to understand, without creating more wounds, has passed. There is only what is…

I see that more and more. And I see that I am going to have to meet her in her simpleness - *her* reality – to accept her simple-mindedness – to allow her to simply be the way she is, without struggling against it, without closing my heart… I’m sure that will be a challenge for all of us - as we all slip down that rabbit hole of “simple-mindedness” together…

Paper Tigers

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh, my…..:)

My husband is returning from his 5 day trip to and from the Forest of Dramaland and a visit with DQ. It has turned out to be quite beneficial for all concerned, or so it appears - in the moment. Communication has been restored, relationships seemingly repaired – for the moment. And momentary cooperation has been established in creating a workable solution for the benefit of his mother. The door to communication has been pried open ever so slightly. A bridge of commonality has been created through focusing on a project that my husband and his sister can work on together - even with their differences – namely, finding appropriate solutions for the care of their mother. Interesting.

And through this we’ve seen that behind the blustery persona of drama and control is a fearful heart. I think we have known this all along, but it seems more clear to us these days. It is a fear-based game of power and control: fear of lack, fear of inadequacy, fear of losing control and power, and probably many other fears that are hidden behind a façade of drama, anger, fierceness, and threatening attacks – the realm of dramaland. But for all the bluster and aggression they are Paper Tigers. There is no substance really… Just fear.

For my husband and me this has been a call to conscious living - to authenticity - through awareness – through seeing what is behind the mask, our own as well as others. For me in particular it has been a reminder to step back into authentic Presence and just see - without coming to conclusions, without trying to control things from here – like the “wizard” behind the curtain pulling the levers - without defending, without getting into the emotional drama pit with them, but to just let the situation unfold. To not *believe* the stories, even the ones I’m creating about them in my own head, to not believe my assumptions of why they (his sister and her husband) are acting the way they are, to not project motive and intent, to not make *them* the enemy to soothe my own sense of rightness. So many lessons here, it may take a while to digest them all, after all there was a lot of ooey-gooey bitter-sweet chocolate and nuts that were consumed on this rocky road. I may have to go through withdrawal for my indulgence, as I find my own way out of the forest…. Some quiet time in Stillness and meditation sounds good right about now to get my bearings again – to drop down from behind my own mask of engagement into the Heart of Awareness again.

As Pema Chodron says: “It’s all raw material for waking up….. By the way we think and by the way we believe…, in that way is our world created. Life’s work is to wake up. You don’t have to transform anything. Simply let go of the storyline (the drama)….and find the tenderness that’s underneath…” – the Living Consciousness that we are behind the mask…

Peek-a-Boo :)