Month: January 2020

The week I've been struggling with technology. I have so many boxes for my TV, it's ridiculous and a sign of the times. Multimedia means we're now entangled in all sorts of platforms (androids, iphones, a PC, a Mac, streaming video on a zip drive, DVD, Blu-ray, CDs, vinyl, bluetooth, wifi, Sirius, old-timey TV antenna) – and I've dealt with each of those media in the last week for some reason or other. I've replaced batteries in three remotes!

At times like this, I need a haiku written down on a piece of paper. I NEED IT.

The Prompt: Waiting

This week's prompt:

"It is when your practice is rather greedy that you become discouraged with it."
        – Shunryu Suzuki

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Famished for apples.
Just wait for what comes to you.
The Fall will feed you.

The Reflection

Don't try so hard. Easier said then done but you see it clearly in other people. It's a controlling desire: to get that thing out of the way, get it done already, tick that task off your lengthy list. So pleasurable to check off and cross out a list item!! But this is another requirement for patience. It's also a lesson in wanting too much, more than you really need (which is the definition of more than your share). You can hoard guidance and spirit as much as anything else. Let someone else cut in line. As a practice.

What have you got?

This week my friend Natalie and I were on the phone talking about perfectionism because we really wanted to reduce our anxiety and issues around our tendencies toward being perfect. My desire to work on this was mainly in response to reading the book Selfie by Will Storr. Culture today, with all its self-help books, podcasts, classes and all the reality "game" shows on the air seeking the most perfect singer, clothes designer, cook, survivor on some island of woebegones, has resulted only in a sad mess of narcissism. Well, that's not everybody, but it's a lot of us. 

Some people are driven by their negative self-loathing voices. I'm not that person. I'm driven by the high of doing something perfectly, like Mary Poppins. Early model. 

I'm that guy who will polish the silver appliances and faucets before a diner party. My house is a mess until the diner party, but everything must sparkle and be a full-sensory adventure of amazing-ness for my friends. It becomes controlling and ridiculous, with all due respect to Mary Poppins. I don't imagine I'm going to stop doing this but I'd like to tone it down.

But even our drive to reduce our perfectionism seeks to do it perfectly. It's a hard habit to break.  You see it when people first try to meditate and are convinced they're doing it wrong. 

I'm trying to acclimate to the idea that I'm a mess of imperfections in many tragic areas and these issues may not be resolved in my lifetime. I may end this life without having fixed my imperfections. And that's okay. 

The Prompt: Waiting

This week's prompt:

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."
        – Zen Proverb

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

The wood of knowledge
on the throne of readiness:
the cusp of blooming.

The Reflection

But giving up on perfectionism is not the same thing as giving up on yourself, giving up on growth and being better. It's just giving up control of when and how that happens. Another thing you can't control is when your epiphanies will come, when you will get those enlightened moments. I hate to use the word patience but it does involve waiting. A better goal is to forget the whole idea of self-improvement on a set schedule. If you relax into your life and take things as they comes, the teacher does appear.

And now…you.

When you have a big list of todos, sometimes you can't get them all todone and you have to just go with the flow. I was doing really well on my enormous checklist this week when two illnesses took me down on two separate days. Flexibility…it's what keeps us in the game of unpredictability! Not the same thing as giving in exactly, but a regrouping!

The picture top is of poet May Sarton in her office. I really love the look of a cluttered office! All that beautiful paper in toppling towers. So much work to do! How fun! Just this week I published a poem of hers online that pertains tangentially to the political situation in 2020. I have a page that's getting a lot of visits right now, an anthology of poems about dictators and political struggle.  This week I posted her poem "An Observation" which is very similar to our quote this week (how serendipitous!) but where this quote says be soft to be tough, her poem talks about an individual toughness needed for a gentle world. 

The Prompt: What is Strength?

This week's prompt:

"Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft, can you be extremely hard and strong."
        – Zen Proverb

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Roots and stem, then wind.
All across the valley floor
the tough plans disperse.

The Reflection

I love the Zen proverbs that are paradoxes, that ask you to accept the absurd contractions. And isn't that the magic of it all?

Go and get 'er done!

A lot of people don't like housework. Although I don't like vacuuming particularly and I never have time to do the full abode regularly, I don't hate doing it. I hate the looming pressure of it, but not the actually task. And I think this wisdom below has helped me in that area of "things the living must do," unless you hire these activities out to a cleaning service, to which I would say (unless you're old and ailing), too bad for you. 

The Prompt: Washing Dishes

This week's prompt:

"When walking, walk. When eating, eat."
        – Zen Proverb

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Focus of calmness
Mind for what the hand can hold
Chopping, washing, love

The Reflection

There's a kick to doing something mundane with purpose and concentration, something you first learned to do very long ago, like walking. Or something you learned when you were still forming into a person with an identity, like cooking, cleaning, mowing. It's fascinating to focus on your resistance to the task: what is upsetting you? Why don't you want to do it? How do you feel when you're doing it and why? Is another feeling an option?

Things like this seem mundane, but they can change your life.

You try it.

Well, so our backyard sprinkler froze and our living room flooded over the holiday. Good times. It's always something, huh? As I was thinking about this week's New Year's post, I found a list of sayings I once had when I lived in Litiz, Pennsylvania. The area has a big Amish and Mennonite population, plus a plethora of elder-religions of the Colonial era like the Lititz's Moravians and the nearby Ephrita Cloister (which you can tour and it's lovely). Plus all the existing Christian churches and you get a local tradition of them putting their wise sayings on billboards by the street. Churches everywhere have them and even liquor stores and auto mechanics got in on the action. Here's a list of funny sayings I collected:

• "Give Satan an inch and he will become a ruler." (very pertinent to our times in 2020)
• "Got beer"
• "Do your plains fail or do you fail to plan?"
• "As long as your eyes hear, your head won't swell." (wha?)
• "Do you own things or do things own you?"
• "Beer won't come to you. You'll have to come to us." 

I picked this week's saying from my list.

The Prompt: New Start

This week's prompt:

"Never let yesterday use up too much of today."
        – Neffsville Auto Center

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Another warm light,
the edge of the wide open:
the year's gray morning

The Reflection

January 1 is probably my favorite day of the year: it marks another beginning, a do-over, a clearing away of the bad karma (as if karma followed this Roman calendar). It's a time of new lists and new plans. And it always feels refreshing to me. 

Now: you.