photo by Howard Thoresen

 

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

 

December 15, 2022

 

often when walking in the streets of lower Manhattan or on the promenade along the Hudson River 

a young father crosses my path chatting gaily with his son or carrying his daughter on his shoulders

pointing to the statue

or a young woman and a young man stroll beside me

their bodies entwined their eyes shining the involuntary smiles

and i sigh in the knowledge that i will never be a young father or a young lover

or i read about some young actor who at 23 has a resume as long as i had at 60 and a better

the scientist, the painter, the family man, the social worker, the deep sea diver, the marathon runner

when there arises in me a longing to have another life

to have been a different person

to live for a thousand years

i remember the stories of the yogis i read as a young boy—the siddhi of having more than one body and thus of working out innumerable skeins of karma which to them was a terrible task but to me sounds delightful

there arises another something that feels like a conviction “i am already doing this. all these bodies are mine, not just the human but the dogs and cats and cockroaches, the breakdancer and the ballerina, the blah blah blah

these are my bodies my pasts and my futures, i am life flowing through a million lives”

the guru said he had the power to enter the highest state at will and i think so do i

i have only to shift my eyes in one direction or another and i am all beings and all being

but it isn’t a trance, i don’t fall down or have to be taken care of by awed disciples

i can continue to meander and people don’t know that i am them or maybe they do

 

—Howard Thoresen

*

 

Dec. 17, 1834

There is in every man a determination of character to a peculiar end, counteracted often by unfavorable fortune, but more apparent the more he is at liberty. This is called his genius, or his nature, or his turn of mind. The object of Education should be to remove all obstructions & let this natural force have free play & exhibit its peculiar product. It seems to be true that no man in this is deluded. This determination of his character is to something in nature; something real. This object is called his Idea. It is that which rules his most advised actions, those especially that are most his, & is most distinctly discerned by him in those days or moments when he derives the sincerest satisfaction from his life.

 

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte, p. 132

*

 

#264  Compassionate Listening 

 

“Compassionate listening is crucial. We listen with the willingness to relieve the suffering of the other person, not to judge or argue with her. We listen with all our attention. Even if we hear something that is not true, we continue to listen deeply so the other person can express her pain and release the tensions within herself. If we reply to her or correct her, the practice will not bear fruit. If we need to tell the other person that her perception was not correct, we can do that a few days later privately and calmly.”

(from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh)

 

Recently in a discussion group, we have been experiencing a certain degree of ‘dialogue imbalance,’ I’ll call it. One or two well-meaning members have been imposing advice (and veiled judgment) upon others who are sharing their thoughts and feelings. This has caused those ‘counseled’ to withdraw and become reluctant to share.

 

We all need to express shared vulnerability, not impose answers, solutions, corrections or advice. Any and all of these evoke frustration and feelings of being misunderstood (and judged) instead of being heard. 

 

This can be a challenge. People want to help, and we are a solution-driven, solution-finding society. We believe that the best way to help is to find/give answers, when often the most meaningful help is simply…to listen. 

 

—Jude Russell

*

 

                    I Know Nothing

 

I know nothing about music, but when the piccolo 

got lost in the cave, and shadows began to weep, 

I wished I did. That way, I could follow the scales 

beading a dragon’s neck all the way to the tail,

melody oozing slow as honey from the strings 

weaving a shroud for the hangman’s daughter

after her singing silence robbed my sorry hoard.

I wish I knew the first few notes violas scribbled

to reveal how percussion crushed the grass bowing 

toward the river where the horns flowed fast.

And when the soloist turned her words to silver 

shining past my mind, I wished I could mesh

that lingering flame burning the English horn 

to sear my soul long after the concert ended.

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

Parts of Me

 

Part of me is ready to begin.

Another part is already finished.

 

Other parts—unknown—keep themselves to themselves.

 

Part of me is party to silent movies

playing for no one

at a drive-in theater in the sky.

 

We are all of us part of each other.

 

Part of me doesn’t believe that, though. Part of me stubs its toe

on trashcans in bowling alleys, chair legs in cemeteries.

 

Part of me is gripping its part of me’s head

like a housewife testing a melon, in market.

 

Part of me’s frightened of what I just said.

 

Part of me wants a lobotomy, but cries for its mommy

instead. Part of me’s still an egg.

 

Part of me’s already dead.

 

Part of me is the start of me. Part of me’s also the end of me.

Part of me part of me part of me.

 

The part of me that thinks it is smart of me

to write about all of the parts of me

is one of the very worst parts of me—take it from [part of] me.

 

Part of me tires of parroting you, pardoning me, petering out & catching the flu.

But part of me also revels in blue, resorts to leaving the zoo.

 

Part of me finds it hard to write

when part of someone else

is reading over part of me’s shoulder.

 

Part of me never knows how far apart

the parts of me are.

 

Part of me’s tired of faltering, and in the end,

the art of me consists of weaving together the far-flung parts of me.

 

Part of me parts the curtains and shows you all of me.

 

—Alex Tretbar

*

 

Sometimes I sit down to write a poem and sometimes I’m writing in my journal and something I’ve written seems like it could be a little poem. Here are some old and some recent examples:

 

What the Crow Said

 

“Caw,” said the crow

I didn’t say anything

I just wrote down what the crow said

*

 

My Retirement Plan

 

I’m waiting for the elves to arrive

with bags of gold

*

 

a guy drives by in a blue car

covered with cherry blossom petals

*

 

couple of guys

unloading mattresses

from a Frito-Lay truck

what the hell is going on?

*

 

last night I was playing miniature golf in my dream

*

 

cold night

sitting by the woodstove

the happiest man alive

*

 

holy holy holy is the bean plant

cup of coffee

the stuffed animals on the window sill

that have been loved unto baldness

the song sparrow

the sunlight

and even the man sitting at his laptop

failing once again to say the unsayable

*

 

Christmas Prayer

 

Thank you, Jesus,

for giving me this day off work.

*

 

the Buddha’s best sermon

was when he gave that guy a flower

*

 

Y’know those paperweights

with a little house

and little trees

and if you turn it upside-down

and then rightside-up again

it snows?

I’m sitting in that little house.

 

—Johnny Stallings

*

 

Marcus Aurelius vs. Marie Howe

 

I have been in the habit these past weeks of picking up Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and finding a quote to ponder for the day. There was one quote last week that became the center of my conversations with three very different people.

 

Look attentively on each particular thing you do, and ask yourself if death be a terror because it deprives you of this.

 

Wow. I was immediately struck by how profound this statement is. To me, this is a reminder to pay close attention and choose wisely how each day is spent. And then I started to feel a little insignificant. Marcus Aurelius, was, after all, an emperor, and wrote Meditations as a record for himself of self-improvement. Perhaps the idea of looking so closely through the lens of death robbing me of such importance is not for the everyday person.

 

I shared this quote with my daughter and we discussed my thoughts as I continued to chew on its meaning and she sat back for a moment and then said, “Yeah but what about What the Living Do?”

 

What the Living Do is a poem within a book of the same name written by Marie Howe. Howe wrote the collection of poems about her brother who died of AIDS-related complications in his 20s. The poem simply and eloquently reminds us that the everyday moments – both good, bad and indifferent – are what make up a human life. 

 

When I look back at my 48 years lived, which includes the birth of four children, a marriage, a divorce and falling in love again, these big life events are not what stand out to me. Life is driving through Delaware in July at sunset and seeing people in their Sunday best eating ice cream cones. Life is smelling the perfume my mother wore when she’d get dressed up and go out on the town – the scent taking me back to sitting on her bed as a child, watching her put her jewelry on. Life is listening to my son tell me casually about his day on the ride home from school, my heart filling up with his words, unbeknownst to him. And life is feeling butterflies on a morning walk through my neighborhood in summer as I resonate on the poem from my lover as I swiftly prance down the sidewalk, smelling every rose I can reach to stick my nose into.

 

The ordinary is the extraordinary. And when I look again at what Marcus Aureilus has to say, I think he understood this as well. It isn’t about what we do but how we perceive. It is in the looking that we can spot the miracles. 

 

What the Living Do

 

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some

utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the

crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the

everyday we spoke of.

It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the

sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in

here and I can’t turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the

street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday,

hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee

down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush:

This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you

called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the

winter to pass. We want

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and

more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of

myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a

cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat

that I’m speechless:

I am living. I remember you.

 

—poem by Marie Howe

 

—Nicole Rush

*

 

November 2, 2022  CALL OF THE HEART

 

The initial bedrock from which speech grows is the voice.

When the voice is born, before words and prior to sentences,

one’s desires are already beginning to sprout.

Being revealed is the possibility of the turning to another, of a conversation.

 

The voice precedes words.

The way the words of the prayer sound becomes their meaning,

paving for them a path to their destination.

It’s as if the melody of the prayer

lifts the words on its wings,

whispers between the pages of the prayerbook,

amongst the prayer shawls,

ascends from the place of prayer to the Holy Ark,

soars through the windows, out to the boundless skies.  

 

—from Prepare My Prayer by Rabbi Dov Singer

 

This causes me to think of infants, to wonder at the sounds. The process of self-discovery, of self-awareness; hearing the sounds, giving meaning, learning speech, communicating needs and wants. Primal, unyielding. With age comes inhibitions, filters, separating the sounds from the heart connecting to the mind. Struggle begins to communicate what is felt, using only words. And it fails—miserably. Life then moves on, striving to reconnect mind and heart. Each strives and finds a way, in time. Sound and heart rejoin; satisfying communication resumes. Heart and mind join as one.

 

This is the struggle, to communicate with heart and mind in one voice to convey deepest feelings, sensations to another. Reaching out with voice to connect, to be heard, to be seen. Finding others, uniting in common cause, raising voices on high, drawing close. We reach out, yearning to connect, finding our voices, expressing heart’s desires. Throughout life we continue to use voice and sound, still striving to communicate as we did when infants, crying out from the heart to the One who hears.

 

—Michel Deforge