Come to the Light, Carol Anne

Aleathia says:

     After my vacation in August I returned to work. Back in the ER for the 13th year. To say the least, it has become monotonous save the time I get to teach new nurses how to work in the ER. On my vacation, I enjoyed doing yoga and meditation daily, writing and sewing, and various other creative endeavors. My life has been about self-care and this journey to do something more meaningful.

     Going back to work in the ER felt like a prison sentence. I'm good at what I do and it isn't like the work doesn't have an element of excitement, but it is also very taxing emotionally to be "on" 12 hours a day, so I applied for a new job at Planned Parenthood. In my 20's, this organization saved my life when they found pre-cancer of the cervix and I was able to have surgery to remove it before it spread. At the time, I was working two minimum wage jobs with no insurance and had put off going to the doctor for five years until my boyfriend at the time, dragged me down there because he was tired of seeing me in pain. I had been looking for a way to repay this debt for 20 years.

     There had been several coincidental signs that pushed me toward applying at PP. I set about inquiring about financial things to see if I could even afford to make a change. I would have lost a substantial amount of money, but what I thought I would gain was time everyday to do yoga and meditation, daily writing time, a chance to participate in local things on weekends, holidays off, less driving and shorter shifts. This was all appealing. The only thing I thought I'd miss was my writer's group on Thursdays because I would have to work late in Hornell that night.

     I sent a resume and was emailed in an hour to set up a phone interview the next day. By the next week, I had a face to face interview. This interview changed my life.

     Let me set some background. I have been a Buddhist since 1997. I have been a nurse since 2004. Both of these things lend to the betterment of human kind. They are in service of uplifting life and having compassionate care for other human beings. These are distinct choices I have made in my life. I did not go in blind to this interview about the nature of abortion at the clinic. But I have long been a firm believer in women having the choice over their own bodies. Who am I to stand in the way of that based on my own belief systems? No one. I thought that I could handle such practices with all the death and tragedy I have seen in the ER in my lifetime. I said I could handle it, but there were a few things said in the interview that sat with me funny.

     I would have been responsible for things I could not have lived with in the termination of a fetus at 24 weeks. I'm not going to get into details because this post isn't about abortion, it's about choice and realization of limits. One of the interviewers said that helping women through that particular procedure was "rewarding." Excuse me? I don't know. Maybe the writer in me frowned at that word choice, but it jarred me and I couldn't get it out of my head. But they also asked me what I liked about my current job and I talked about this role I have as a Preceptor of new nurses and students. One of the other women asked me why I would leave that? I didn't have a great answer.

Here is what I learned:

Though I am tired of the daily grind in the ER, it is still important work. WE SAVE LIVES...as a team.

The stress of being on point all day is less heavy than the stress of knowing you'd taken lives instead of saved them.

I have a moral limit to the things that I am willing to do professionally. My heart is bigger and more tender than I give it credit for.

If I need to, I can live on less, but I don't need to.

I can make my life more simple by not running away from my responsibilities.

I could not have lived without my writer's group. They have given me back my love of writing. They teach me things both as a writer and as a human being. They are my friends. They are a second family.

I am a lucky and blessed woman.

I have an amazing boss who let me spread my wings towards a dream I thought I had and didn't try to stop me or make me feel bad. And when I found it wasn't the dream I had thought, she welcomed me back into the fold, knowing, someday there would be another dream.


This whole process was extremely emotional for me, but sometimes we need to take bold leaps to get a good look at the place we were just standing in. Sometimes we can see our nose in spite of our face.

Thanks for reading. Be kind to each other.

Aleathia

One Thought at a Time (how I lost my monkey brain)

Aleathia says:

This week I treated myself to acupuncture for the first time in 20+ years. It isn't because I had fallen out of faith in this practice, but living in a small town it is much more expensive than when living in a city. There were colleges close by and graduating students would be able to practice acupuncture on live people and it would cost the people only 10 bucks. That was an immense deal for someone who was living check to check and had no insurance. It was point of care health on a tight budget.

I decided to start going again because my Seasonal Affective Disorder has been getting worse and worse after age 40. I expected this year to be the worst with there being so much transition in my life. Change happens. I get that, but it doesn't mean that I can fully grasp it. The comfort in my life had come from the predictable nature of it even if it was adversity, it was consistently crazy and I could count on that. I went in to address the Seasonal Affective Disorder as well as my chronic back pain and fatigue/anxiety/depression. Because I was very willing, my acupuncturist decided to "reset" my whole system and work on the back pain. When it was done colors were brighter, I felt light as a feather, and strangely.....depressed.

It seems as if the session might be counterproductive, but it wasn't. I did feel very tired and out of sorts for the last few days. I questioned if I made the right decision to have this work done; I questioned who I was without the rapid fire mind I walked in with. I spent the last few days going against the grain of this supreme calm state my mind and body was in. I literally was a salmon swimming upstream...kicking and fighting this peaceful feeling. It took everything I had this morning, but I went for a walk. On this walk, to still feel productive, I brought one of the 9 books I am reading. Do you see where my life is right now?

I have been reading "The Sanity We Are Born With" by Chogyam Trungpa which takes a Buddhist approach to looking at psychology. I have tried reading Chogyam Trungpa in the past with little result because the information is quite dense though not hard to understand. Mostly, it is mind blowing and a girl can only handle so much of that at once. But over the years I have read many Pema Chodron books who was a student of Chogyam Trungpa. I decided I was ready to pick up with the lama was putting down.

While walking I read this passage:

"The ideal state of tranquility comes from experiencing body and mind being synchronized. If body and mind are unsynchronized, then your body will slump--your mind will be somewhere else. It is like a badly made drum: The skin doesn't fit the frame of the drum; so either the frame breaks or the skin breaks, and there is no constant tautness."

Sometimes a very simple paragraph will set you on a journey. This is common sense information, right? Body and mind on the same page = good times. What I realized this morning was that I have spent so much time in mental chaos and my body has been in a separate chaos. Two things cased in the same skin doing completely different things and I wonder why I'm tire all the time. Acupuncture cleared my mind. I have had a feather lightness to my body and a sense of emptiness in my mind that is foreign and has caused me to feel like I needed to create as much physical noise as I could muster to combat the silence in my mind.

This need to fill every moment of my day possibly comes from the last year of being single. I have always struggled with what people think of me or how they might judge me. I felt as if being single at this age meant I was used up with nothing left to offer. This is a hard pill to swallow when you know you are full of life and adventure and new beginnings. I was afraid to appear lonely even though I am rarely lonely. I imagined that I should feel lonely having spent a life in the company of others but I feel more full of life than I ever have before.

The mind thinks one thing at a time even if we think we are doing "two things at once" they are just single thoughts very close together. I need to remember this. I need to not fill my day so full that I don't enjoy all the things I'm putting into it.

Thanks for reading.

Aleathia

Balance: An Obsessive's Unicorn

Aleathia says:

So my friend said to me the other day..."you haven't written in awhile". Yes, I know. "It's brewing," I told him. It wasn't all together untrue, but I wasn't sure what I was brewing. I'm always brewing 12 things at once. Choosing is hard. Finishing is hard. Focusing often challenging.

Days before I started thinking about balance. As a Buddhist, balance is often on my mind. Finding the middle way the goal in all things. Just being can be more difficult than it sounds. One of the scariest things in Buddhism to me is "form is emptiness and emptiness is form". I am one of those people who loves things in little boxes or on lists or categories. It gives me a sense of purpose. It makes me feel safe. It is my woobie. But consumed by boxes, lists and categories one misses out on life and opportunity. I think this is in part why I chose Buddhism all those years ago. I recognized the lack of freedom in my life and the stand up nature to be brave enough to look at my own shortcomings and still maintain some loving kindness towards myself. This talk isn't about Buddhism, but about balance and discovery, though Buddhism is always present when these two things happen.

Anyway, I have been struggling through winter in Upstate NY. Grey, dark, cold, blah and repeat. February is a millstone and often my most isolated and the time when obsessive behaviors are their worst. To battle these issues, I have been listening to 2 Dope Queens comedy. They make me laugh and I can always use more of that. On one of their episodes they were bantering back and forth talking about exercise and noted that people who just talk about their workouts and exercising are so boring.

I stopped smiling immediately. Panic. Looking around in isolation. More panic. They were talking to me.

January was the start of my training for a section hike of the Appalachian Trail and it has been my obsession. I have tracked every work out. I talked about all my workouts so much so my kid retreats to her room every night instead of hanging out with me. I talked about it at work. When I was alone, I talked to my self about it and have spent much of my free time doing research. I make personalized oatmeals. In effect, I am going bat shit crazy in my house.

Having goals are so wonderful. It inspires ambition and gives direction, but when you have an obsessive personality things can derail very quickly.  I would not say I am OCD as it would be unfair to take such a label from those that are truly diagnosed. My house is a damn mess....an organized chaotic mess. I'm not overly concerned with germs. Everything does not have its own place. But I do have obsessive tendencies that can make me short sighted. I believe this comes from an early childhood of being hyper-vigilant and scared and having to grow up too fast. How many of your friends can say they were left in charge of a newborn baby with no parents in the house at 8 years old? I grew up real quick. I needed certain things to be in certain places for life to make sense. So at age 44 it is hard to begin to untangle the wiring.

So here I am having some balance and trying to not feel guilty about it. I skipped my evening workout tonight to take my kid to dinner and say goodbye to my future hiking partner and go to the bookstore. The two hours I would have spent at the gym were replaced with good food and laughter, hugs and smiles, and more fucking laughter. It was followed up with the nerd fest of non-fiction book reading with my 16 year old and exchanging information on the relationship of trees and the history of colors. That is a memory I get to keep. I wouldn't have remembered the workout past its notation in my training journal. I guess what I am saying is that balance is a struggle for me and always has been. But it's never too late.

Try something new. Give yourself a break from routine. Be nice to yourself when you don't reach goals when you planned to. Enjoy life. It sounds corny.  It is corny, but true. Oprah says "The most valuable thing you can give yourself is time." That's some gospel right there. Spring is almost here friends. We can make it....one obsessive day at a time.

Thanks for reading.
Aleathia

Sit. Stay. Heal

Aleathia says:

It is strange to wake up one day when you think your life is starting to go in the “right” direction only to find that you have rut a circle in the carpet moving in all the same directions. The last seven months I have imagined to myself that I was working on getting stronger and doing better things in my life.  I was exercising, doing yoga, meditating, drawing, writing, doing self help things, eating better, and keeping busy.  What happens when I stop? The world comes crashing in like a tsunami.

In the last few days I have had to admit to myself that I live in a constant state of distraction. This distraction lends itself to not being able to sit with myself and in all this pain I have been carrying around for years. I have some unnatural desire to be my own superhero. I want to save myself from myself, but that is not how it works. That road, for good or bad, is full of self-absorption and ego.

Three days ago I started reading Pema Chodron’s “Taking the Leap” which is a book that helps one to recognize the strength of old habits and fears and what they can do to you. More importantly, how it affects everyone around you and then the people around them etc. My one hurtful word or action is a ripple so far reaching you can’t even imagine it. If I stopped to think of that every time I did or said something, I might make different choices.

Today’s lesson was on shenpa or attachment. Shenpa is preverbal...that moment someone says or does something that tightens you up before you say or act after it. It is directly attached to the ego and who you think you are in the world and the more threatened you feel, the stronger shenpa gets. It is literally the charge behind your emotions.  It finds us when we are in places of discomfort and restlessness and boredom,

Understanding this brought me to tears today. I am so full of fear, unnaturally so, and maybe because this particular type of shenpa is so familiar I can taste and smell it. It is not unlike the analogy of wearing destruction like your favorite blanket. You know it is wrong but it is so familiar and comfortable. It gives a false sense of security.

In Buddhism, I have always heard of renunciation which I equated to “giving up” this way of life I am living. I was deep into practice many years ago when I found out I was pregnant. It had taken me a decade to have a kid and I felt supremely attached to this child growing inside me. I eventually moved from the city to a place where being Buddhist meant you were somehow strange and evil and outside the community. I stopped daily practice. I went back to it time and again sad that I didn’t have the courage to renunciate life and walk a road that might make me open and free. Over the years I have practiced more readily. I have found ways to practice invisibly, afraid others would judge me.

Today, after 20 years, I learn that renunciation isn’t about giving up things and ideas and preferences, but it is the act of releasing the firm attachment to them.  Pema writes that when we are able to let go a wisdom becomes accessible to us that is based in compassion for oneself and others that has nothing to do with our ego’s fears.

“Because of shenpa, you get attached to the self-image of failure”- Pema Chodron

Yes, yes I do.

The answer to this is simply Sit. Stay. Heal. Distracting myself from the pain of everything in this world doesn’t make the pain less, it makes it stronger and harder to peel back the layers to get to that sense of peace and openness.  I have been running at a breakneck speed from pain since 2014 when my mother died. It has all tumbled and spiraled into something that has marred and ruined many friendships and relationships in my life. In essence, my shenpa has left me alone grasping to things around me for a sense of self. Fear is such a powerful emotion. It is innate in us for protection from harm, but when we manipulate it and hold it and cherish it, it can destroy possibilities of freedom.

Today, I sit with the pain no matter how awful it feels. I can’t run anymore.

Aleathia Drehmer

Kava tea and Musings on Mara

Aleathia says:





Last night my good friend Annette asked Chloe and I to go to Ithaca to visit a kava tea bar. I had never really investigated this place though I had seen people come in and out of there on nights when I drove there to go to a concert on a nearby street. The kava tender was very knowledgeable and gave us some history on the drink as well as the properties and what it was used for.

This stuff tastes like bitter dirt even when mixed in chocolate almond milk.  We shared a large bowl which was about 3 coconut half shells worth. This was enough to feel the effects of it which make you very relaxed and euphoric.  It was like being on a cross of Xanax and Ecstacy while also making your tongue and lips numb. This worked for the show they had going called Harmonic Temple which was a sort of band/DJ trance hippie sort of sound with a light show.

There were the usual types of very energetic hippie dancers...some all over the place, some spastic, some doing dreaming moves on the periphery and a few others scattered about. This was very entertaining to watch and we all felt like we were in a nice place. After a few hours, Annette got up and started dancing and I soon followed as did Chloe. We danced for a few hours letting the beats take us over, letting loose so many things. It was an enjoyable time and something I had not done in years.

The morning after is another situation. Both Chloe and I, who tend to have very high anxiety personalities, felt sluggish and irritated and clumsy today where as Annette who has less anxiety had a fabulous day. My theory is that the contrast between natural state and kava root induced state was just too wide for me and my kiddo. I sort of enjoy the frenetic nature of my soul and today I have felt like a shell of a human. I am accomplishing all the things I set out to do but not with any fervor or desire. I feel like an automaton. I can't say that I will ever drink that again, but I will go and enjoy regular tea and some booty shaking.

Earlier in the week I was approached by a younger man who had some interest in getting together. It was an intense day of flirting which put me on top of the world and made me feel desired. I had not felt this way in a long time even in a committed relationship. I practically floated on air. We were supposed to hook up today, but it never happened. He never called. I never called him either. I feel like this was a test.

In Buddhism, there is a figure in the literature called Mara who is a demon that in the stories sends his most beautiful daughters to lure Siddhartha from his path. This young man, under most circumstances, would have tempted my pants off...literally. But because I had time between the flirting and the possible get together, I realized that fulfilling the temptation would come at physical and mental costs I was not willing to pay. I chose self worth over self pleasure. This is a turning point for me because most of my life I have felt like I had no worth and that the worth I did have was rooted in whether or not someone chose to have sex with me.

This is an interesting time in my life where I am open to the lessons being placed in front of me and able to truly make decisions about the direction of my life. I am speaking truth to myself. It is kind of refreshing.

Aleathia

No Time To Lose, Poem

Aleathia says:

The house is scattered with silence,
a passing of air that used to be my comfort,
now fails me.

This feeling chases me,
the sense of loss
and incompletion,
and I've no where to run;
no distraction strong enough.

I read from The Way of the Bodhisattva
and feel like a charlatan
questioning faith and existence
living in a veritable limbo.

A line strikes me across the face:
   "All of us willing to move beyond
our self-importance and find ways
to care for each other are considered
     the Buddha's heirs."

I weep.
Everything I've forgotten wells up
in the heart like a panic.

I sit on the floor
with a lion's heart
and monkey mind
feet together
noticing how old they look,
worn and wise, hands
not far behind.

The late sun falls in squares
on the faded carpet, my love's
shirt flutters in a breeze
as I sit with the demons
I've run from and contemplate
how to make it out alive
and full of heart.

Aleathia Drehmer 2016

Space, No Time

Aleathia says:

The other morning, after a long shift at work, I had a great conversation with my friend Tim as we waited for our time at work to be over.  I can't remember how we managed to slide onto the subject of concepts of time, but we did.

Tim talked about how on a daily basis, for just about all his life, he has had no concept of time.  He understands time counted, but its regimentation is lost to him.  He is one of those people that lives in space, not in time.  Further into the conversation he talked about how this made him feel like an outsider and how it challenged him to see things the way others see them.  Tim said he needed solid relationships to ground him to time.

My interjection to this conversation came from a Buddhist perspective.  In Buddhism, there is a base function of "form is emptiness; emptiness is form".  This is a simple sentence, but a drastically hard concept to swallow on a daily basis.  It requires one to let go of time and even sometimes space to live in a place that is built on the fluid idea that everything is connected, there is no beginning and no end.  Everything exists and does not exist simultaneously.

It seemed to me that those of us who try to live in some amount of awareness have a goal to live in a way that comes naturally to Tim.  He lives in the present with little worry of the past or the future.  I am one of those, for most of my life, who has been grounded too much in what was and what will be. When you live in such a place you have little time to be present with the life happening before you. You can miss the simplicity of clouds moving across the sky, bird song, laughter, small beauties and sorrows, and what other people are trying to tell or show you.

The American culture is one of having more....all the time.  We must go faster, get more, live harder. It is not difficult to get caught up in this or with people telling what you should achieve in your life. How many of us get bullied into living someone else's dream or expectation of us?

This idea of living in the present has been an achievement of mine. It has been an expectation that I want to live up to. Today I sat down to meditate and flipped to a page in the Dalai Lama's "The Art of Happiness" and came to this passage, aptly:

"Dealing with expectations is really a tricky issue. If you have excessive expectations without a proper foundation, then that usually leads to problems.  On the other hand, without expectation and hope, without aspiration, there can be no progress. Some hope is essential. So finding the proper balance is not easy. One needs to judge each situation on the spot."--Dalai Lama

To me, being able to have enough balance in which to achieve expectations comes from the balance and awareness of time and space.  Too much time leads to not being able to live in the present.  Too much space leads to lack of awareness.

This idea of time and space that Tim brought up has really struck a cord in me.  I was glad I was present in that moment and soaked in what he had to say. We all need more moments like that where we share the higher, spiritual knowledge that we house in our bodies.  It gives perspective and openness.

Aleathia

Healing Anger (one minute at a time)

Aleathia says:

Today I had intentions of writing about the race, but something more important showed its face.  I was vacuuming the upstairs after bringing up the empty containers from Christmas decorating.  I vacuumed in front of my shrine and wondered why I haven't been sitting more.  The holidays are always hard.  They bring up so many good and bad memories.  They bring up anger when they shouldn't.

Michael told me the other day that he feels like sometimes I need to meditate more, that sometimes he notices things get away from me emotionally and I am all over the place.  These times shift the mood of the house.  I am well aware of my skill to diffuse the house with whatever problem I am holding inside.  It seeps through everything subversively.  At the time I might think I am doing a good job of hiding it, but in truth my family just steers clear of me.  Hell, sometimes, I want to steer clear of me.

So after I put the vacuum away, I stood there looking at the shrine again.  The house was empty and silent except for the noise I was making to keep myself distracted.  I pulled my cushion out and sat down.  I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to sit for long (hip is bad from running and attention span of a gnat).  I said my dedication prayer and one of my texts caught my eye...."Healing Anger" by The Dalai Lama.  There was one dog-eared page in the book so I flipped to it and started to read.

What I read smacked me in the face and made me tear up, because the truth often does that to you.  Here is what I read:

"Genuine peace of mind is rooted in affection and compassion.  There is a very high level of sensitivity and feeling involved.  So long as we lack inner discipline, an inner calmness of mind, then no matter what external facilities or conditions we may have, they will never give us the feeling of joy and happiness that we seek.  On the other hand, if we possess this inner quality, that is calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if we lack various external facilities that are normally considered necessary for a happy and joyful life, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life."--The Dalai Lama

Now this portion did not make me tear up.  This part was affirming to say the least.  Sometimes I forget the most basic principles of living a good life clouded by distractions, failed expectations, anger, and jealousy.  These are the things that make me human, but do not make me happy.  This next part is what slayed me:

"If we examine how anger or hateful thoughts arise in us, we will find that, generally speaking, they arise when we feel hurt, when we feel that we have been unfairly treated by someone against our expectations.  If in that instant we examine carefully the way anger arises, there is a sense that it comes as a protector, comes as a friend that would help our battle or in taking revenge against the person who has inflicted harm on us.  So the anger or hateful thought that arises appears to come as a shield or a protector.  But in reality that is an illusion.  It is a very delusory state of mind."--The Dalai Lama

I realized at that moment that I have been in a state of anger for several years.  It hasn't been harsh enough until recently for me to see it in myself, but it is there.  My mother died a few years ago and part of me is not sad that she is gone because she micro-managed me all the time.  She constantly made me feel like I wasn't doing good enough or being a good mom.  It was a horrible feeling and when she passed, I knew I would never have to feel like that again at her hand.  But I was angry too. She died suddenly, most likely of an accidental overdose combined with sleep apnea, and she had denied us all a funeral.  Mourning was solitary and painful and full of so many questions.  Sometimes I am angry at myself for not letting her come to visit that Christmas before she died when we first bought the house.  It would have been the last time I got to see her, instead the last time was at a funeral.

I have leaned very little on my faith over the last few years.  In part, I think I have wanted to punish myself...to not allow myself a way of understanding and healing for everything in my life.  I am not sure I can carry those burdens anymore.  My anger is evident to me.  My lack of compassion for the world is painful and unbecoming.

My anger has also come at work.  I have to say that I have felt betrayed in some way.  This could be real or imagined, but my state of mind at the time didn't help but to further the anger along.  Deep down I have been hurting and hiding.  This is something I learned long ago when no one was ever there for me when I had times of pain, sorrow, and disappointment.  I knew that I could count on myself...that I always had my own back.

But now I have people that love me.  Michael always has my back...and my heart in mind.  He is a strength that I rarely tap into, because I am afraid of how ugly my insides are sometimes.  It isn't fair to him or to my darling child to hide inside myself.  It isn't fair to my co-workers who have had to put up with my very disconnected attitude.  Healing always starts from within.  A person has to be willing to heal, willing to let people in, and decide to see the light in the world. I think this is my time.  I hope this is my time.

Thank you for listening.

Fall Apart, Come Together

Aleathia says:

Yesterday was pretty interesting....unexpected.  My friend Vicki gave me a ride home from work because I wanted to make sure Michael had the car for his 5 am shift.  She drove me home after an uneventful shift at work and sitting in my driveway we had a good old fashioned bitch session. It didn't make me feel better or worse about what we were discussing until the end.

Vicki said to me that in the end we are not obligated to the manager or the senior leadership, in the end we are obligated to the patient.  We are obligated to take care of them and care for them.  I sat there with that a minute.  I took it with me while I ate breakfast, while I fed the dog, while I took a shower, and as I fell asleep.  It was there when I woke up.

That evening Chloe came home from her father's and was kind of douchey.  Before she went to bed I called her out on it and she told me that her father had wanted her to string the lights on the Christmas tree this year and she was super proud to be able to get to do it.  She told me that he proceeded to criticize how she did it and then in the end, in front of her, took down all the lights she had strung and put them back up himself.  She told me she went in the bathroom to cry and he picked on her.  His obligation as a parent is to nurture and love her.  His obligation is to take care of her.

We stood in the hallway having cleared the air and she went to bed more sure of herself and with the knowledge that our tree would be more fun and less stressful.

Later that night, Michael and I had a few beers and started talking.  I talked about what Vicki had said and about what happened to Chloe.  I told him I am at the point in my job where I hate going there.  I feel on edge and burnt out and brimming with compassion fatigue.  Michael was good enough to remind me that there must be something wrong with me, because the conditions at my job hardly ever change and that he notices sometimes when I am centered and feeling strong the job never matters, but when something is wrong, it matters a lot.

I sat there with it trying not to cry in the bar.

I love this man so much.  He never lets me fall on my face or take for granted that I have all the control in the world over how I see and move through the universe.  I feel lost and I am not sure why. I do know that I have jumped on the wheel of samsara again and so here I spin around and around getting no where.  It might just be time to jump off again and find a place to sit.

4/30/2015 The Light of Day

Aleathia says:

Life is such an interesting journey.  It is just as hard to navigate if you have a good head on your shoulders than if you don't.  One can never foresee all the possible permutations of each decision of each moment.  If you break it down, if you really were cognizant of each decision you might go insane.  This is awareness.  This type of awareness of every thing in this moment, every choice, every breath is what is supposed to move you forward to enlightenment.

I have been sick since Saturday and I am the first to admit that I am a miserable cuss when I am ill.  My poor family has had to suffer my own personal suffering this week.  In hindsight I feel bad about it.  I could have been more aware of my verbal actions and a little less "misery loves company".  But an interesting thing happened.  I walked the dog and came back miserable and short of breath and feeling a little angry that Michael didn't walk the dog for me because I was ill.  Yes, it was my turn, but I was looking for sympathy.  I came back to him watching a documentary on The Buddha.  It was the story of Siddhartha's journey to enlightenment.

I remember learning this story when I first started studying Buddhism in 1997.  It is a great story of struggle and understanding and of finding balance.  Michael is our resident theologian.  He is a man of deep thought and over his lifetime has explored more religions than I knew existed.  He has practiced some of them as well.  He is a fountain of wonder and knowledge to me.  After the documentary was over we started talking about the Dalai Lama and how he has people in the world who hate him.  We both could not understand the reasoning for it.  Maybe those people have their own struggles which bring these types of feelings up.  Michael was interested in the Dalai Lama's journey from Tibet though he wanted a perspective other than what I had to offer, but he gladly started reading the Dalai Lama's autobiography about his exile and his life.

I woke up today in severe pain after only sleeping 4 hours.  My chest didn't hurt as bad but my hip was so painful I could barely move.  I started thinking about how insignificant that pain is compared to what is happening in Nepal and Baltimore or any other place engulfed in suffering in the world.  I cried in the shower, not from pain, but from the fact that I have let myself ride on the wheel of suffering so easily.  The last year and a half has not been easy.  So much was left without closure with my mother's sudden death.  I have been fighting this battle by myself because I won't let anyone else stand by me.  I have gotten so out of balance.  I get angry easy, frustrated, and fly off the handle.  I cry without warning.  I have let myself go physically which causes two kinds of suffering.

This morning I said the refuge prayer and did prostrations and a mala of compassion prayers.  I feel like I found an old friend.  I feel like my best friend gave me back something wonderful when I needed it most.  Maybe I was just ready to hear it again.  Maybe I was tired of spinning uncontrollably.  Whatever it may be, it is a start.

"When we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that because of our noble intentions everything will be okay.  In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all.  Instead, we are encouraged to simply look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, all all that lives and dies.  We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness."--Pema Chodron

4/6/2015 Living Without an Agenda, poems of the day

Aleathia says:

Ok.  I spent the last two days sweating out fevers, body aches, headache, and abdominal pain on the couch.  I had to miss work which I hate to do, but every time I was up for more than 5 minutes I felt like I was going to pass out.  I slept over 14 hours yesterday and today I wake up feeling a bit washed out, but better than the last few days.  Back to the grind I go.

Today I would like to share an affirmation from Pema Chodron.  Her words often help me get through any of life's problems.  In the work that I do, Emergency Nursing, there is a high probability to get burnt out especially when I work nights.  It is easy to get jaded about the patient's that come in, because often we are treated like waitresses who bust their asses and never get a tip.  We often don't get thanked for waiting on people hand and foot, for wiping their asses, cleaning up their vomit, and making sure we send them out in one piece.  It wears on a soul and yes we get edgy and judgmental at times.  There was a case recently where I wasn't as compassionate as I could have been.  I wasn't mean, but I didn't believe the patient's opinion of the situation and that person ended up having something wrong with them.  I am the first to stand up when I make a mistake at work.  I feel bad that I acted that way, because I am usually very intuitive and understanding.

As I have been sick, I was thinking about this person that I wronged and today I read this passage from Pema Chodron:

"Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we're not entirely certain about who's right and who's wrong?  Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not make the person wrong or right?  Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are?  It is powerful to practice this way,  because we'll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again--to make ourselves or them either right or wrong.  But true communication can happen only in that open space."--Pema Chodron



The poem for 4/5/2015 had a prompt of "vegetable":

Warm Tomatoes on the Vine

My child's mind
is tenacious
unforgiving,
her world concrete
and literal
once the daily
imagination faded.

She speaks of her Nana rarely
though she knew her well enough
before she passed.

When my mother died
she didn't cry
and it crushed me.

Where had I gone wrong
that she didn't understand
the magnitude of what had happened?

Last summer, out of nowhere,
she began to sob about how
she would never get to garden
with her Nana again
or eat warm cherry tomatoes
from the vine while she smoked
cigarettes and drank beer.

She wouldn't get to learn how
to keep slugs away or when to plant beans.

I couldn't say a word
but hugged her tight,
let her have that moment
to feel her grief
I was sure hadn't existed.

Aleathia Drehmer 2015

April 5, 2015

and the prompt for today is "something not as it seems":

Secret Society

On the outside
he’s blunt,
often grouchy.

My daughter tip-toes
around him in these moods,
has learned silence a virtue.

She never mentions it,
she knows this is who he is...
intelligent,
impatient,
and analytical
knowing he is always there
to educate and keep safe
secrets she cannot tell me.

They don't hug.
Instead fist bump
and say niceties
to each other.

I can't ask for more
between my child
and a step dad.
I remember
so much worse
from my own
experience.

On Easter he brought her home a basket.
She was stunned and inside there was a card
that made her cheeks cherry and give him a hug.

Later I asked what was in the card
and he told me to never mind that.
“If she wanted you to know,
 she'd have shared. “

He smiled to himself.
He likes to be what people
           think he isn't.
It keeps us guessing
and always wanting
him even more.

Aleathia Drehmer 2015

April 6, 2015

OM-12/7/2014 Worrying Changes Very Little, Dalai Lama

Aleathia says:

Everyday is a learning experience.  Every moment I understand who I am in this life.  The navigation is difficult despite trying to make it smooth; despite best efforts.  I often turn to my faith when I feel the wheel of suffering spinning.  It spins constantly, but sometimes I have run so fast in circles that I notice it and have to stop.  I have to grab the brass ring and get off the go round.

"Because of our worries and our grieving and our self-inflicted torment, God takes away nothing at all.  We must pray about it."--Paul Gerhardt, German poet.

Dalai Lama:

"That is a beautiful thought.  For us, this means: if there are worries that we can do something about, then there is no reason to despair.  But if there is nothing we can change, then despair will not help.  So why should we worry if a problem can be solved?  If there is a solution, then we don't have to be afraid.  But when something cannot be changed, then we must yield to it.  Worrying just takes away necessary strength.  It is useless.  I usually follow this rule:  hope for the best and be prepared for the worst......When a hope is not fulfilled, this is not a catastrophe.  Life with its many possibilities goes on, and other wishes are fulfilled.  If we put all our eggs in one basket, then a failure may cause us to fall into a deep despair and depression, or we may even take our life out of disappointment.  But with the right attitude, no one needs to be this hopeless."

OM-11/30/2014 Rejoicing In Things As They Are, Pema Chodron

Aleathia says:

I am a creature of habit.  Habit is comfortable to most and it is when we move away from that comfort that learning happens, change happens, and most often personal dysfunction because we have continually done things the same way.

Having said this, change is hard for me.  I always welcome new ideas and changes, but even knowing they are coming throws me for a loop.  It breeds a sense of chaos in me like no other.  I sometimes even get depressed about it.  In essence, I believe I go through a grief process when large changes happen.  This turmoil is normally followed by laughing at myself for being unreasonable and pouty before I move forward fully embracing whatever change is on the table.

I was reading from Pema Chodron's "Taking the Leap" today under the section "Rejoicing In Things As They Are" and this seemed right on for the day:

"When we begin to see clearly what we do, how we get hooked and swept away by old habits, our usual tendency is to use that as a reason to get discouraged, a reason to feel really bad about ourselves.  Instead, we could realize how remarkable it is that we actually have the capacity to see ourselves honestly, and that doing this takes courage.  It is moving in the direction of seeing our life as a teacher rather than as a burden.  This involves, fundamentally, learning to stay present, but learning to stay with a sense of humor, learning to stay with loving-kindness toward ourselves and with the outer situation, learning to take joy in the magic ingredient of honest self-reflection."

OM-9/14/2014 Open Communication

Aleathia says:

"Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we're not entirely certain about who's right and who's wrong?  Could we have no agenda when we walk into, room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right?  Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are?  It is powerful to practice this way, because we'll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again--to make ourselves or them either right or wrong.  But true communication can happen only in that space."--Pema Chodron

This concept is pretty deep on the inside if you think about it.  We are a society driven by what is right and wrong and rarely do we linger in that space that something just is what it is.  Having a touch of OCD this free form approach to communication poses so many problems to me.  I am literally an old dog that will have to learn new tricks.

I have been thinking about my mother a lot the last few days. She and I did not see eye to eye most of the time and this was because our perspective on life has always been different.  She jumped into the fire and I have always waited until the smoke cleared.  One of us had to be right and one of us had to be wrong.

My goal this week is to try and communicate this way to see if it opens more doors than closes them.

OM-9/7/2014 Loneliness

Aleathia says:

For some reason this week I've felt incredibly lonely.  I have had people around me that I love and who love me back, but I can't seem to shake that sense of being utterly alone.  I have turned to my faith for understanding or clarification of what is really going on.  Sometimes I put a recording in my head that isn't true or warranted.  This is an old habit of spinning the wheel and watching suffering turn and turn.  It is preventable though sometimes I let it happen for unknown reason.  It feels worse when I try to dig myself out of it for some reason so sitting still in the pain of it is often the best bet.

"Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy.  Heartache is not something we choose to invite in.  It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down." --Pema Chodron "Loneliness"

OM-7/27/2014 Buddhism, 10 Precepts

Aleathia says:

Life, as we know it, is a series of decisions.  Each of these choices moves us down a slightly different path that we might not see veering left or right at the time of happening.  Each choice thus has a positive or negative action/reaction that effects everyone we come in contact with.

In Buddhism, one of the first things I learned was The Four Noble Truths.  Birth, Suffering, Old Age, Death. It is simplified, yes, but that is how I look at it.  Our lives are one long string of suffering.  Some seek enlightenment from this suffering and others just turn the wheel and keep moving in circles.  It is hard to live by the vows I took so many years ago.  There are 10 Grand Precepts:

No Killing (I do well with this one)
No Stealing (Never on purpose)
No Misusing Sex (I'm good and proper)
No Lying (I am truthful 99% of the time)
No Abusing Intoxicants (We shall talk about this)
No Talking about Others Faults (epic fail)
No Elevating Oneself and Blaming others (could still use some work)
No Being Stingy (this could use work)
No Being Angry (uh-oh)
No Speaking Ill of the Three Treasures (pretty darn good at it)

If I start at the top with No Killing it is pretty easy.  I have never been one to want to see things die.  I have tried to save animals and people at own risk to my own health.  It is no wonder I chose a life in healthcare though today's modern medicine it could be questioned if we do harm with all the medications and treatments rather than letting the body work itself out.

No Stealing.  Hmm.  I did used to be a pen klepto in a bad way, but I was never a shoplifter or an out right thief.  I think stealing is pretty shitty.

No Misusing Sex.  This would be sexual relations that hurts me or someone else.  I have to say that in the past I have done this, sadly.  I am human after all.  But I have never engaged in activities to directly hurt someone with malice.  These happenings would be in the younger years when I was rife with stupidity.

No Lying.  Oh my.  When I was 8 years old everything I said was a lie, on purpose.  It was a stand against my stepfather.  I was beaten for it everyday too.  He tried to break me and it never worked.  Eventually he gave up and then I quit lying.  I felt like I had won.  I didn't win much.  I have never been good at lying anyway.  I have one of those faces where it just shows up in neon.  My father chose my name because it means "Truth".  It is hard to get away from a name like that.  Honesty is always the best policy.

No Abusing Intoxicants.  Ok.  I was young once and did a fair amount of abuse, but after I had Chloe it really wasn't hard to put it all down.  I had responsibility.  Growing up in a house of addicts and alcoholics I was used to seeing what sort of life it would bring and naturally chose the other direction.  This isn't to say that I didn't drink along the way, but I wasn't abusive with it.  In the last year, in a stay of support for Michael, I have not had a drink of alcohol.  It is strange that I would miss it having never really loved it in the first place, but I miss that feeling of letting go sometimes.  I am fully aware that I am fully immersed in reality as it should be, but hell if I don't miss letting my hair down from time to time.  When Michael and I drank, at our worst, I spent less time with my kiddo and more time hung over.  When she started mentioning it, I knew there was a problem and quit drinking.  But why isn't there a middle road?  I have been an all or nothing person most of my life.  It is frustrating and lonely there like a self imposed prison.  This needs revisiting for the both of us.

No Talking About Others' Errors or Faults.  Oh dear lord.  Work brings out the worst in me in this aspect.  I do this all the time even though I know it is bad on a professional level as well as a spiritual level.  I am one of those people that can find the good in others when most people cannot, but there are some people that I cannot do that with and it creates a freight train of negativity.  I need to be better at this.  This concept feeds a few others and puts me in a vicious circle.

Not Elevating Oneself and Blaming Others.  I don't often play the blame game.  I'm pretty good at taking one for the team but I would be liar if I said that I didn't lay blame here and there.  Most of the time it is reactionary when I don't know what to do.  This requires a bit more thought and patience.

Not Being Stingy.  I have to say when I was younger I would give away everything I had to make other people happy or make them want me around.  Maybe that was giving with strings which isn't true generosity, but most of the time I felt good about the giving.  I am still that way in some aspects.  I do want the people around me to be happy, but in my older age I have gotten more stingy with everything.  I think my excessive generosity as a kid burned me more than once.  Burns leave scars.  I need to open my heart a bit more.  I have been contemplating this quite a bit.  I could give more of my time to a charity.  I could do some good.  I have a lot to offer.

Not Being Angry.  Oh Nelly.  This is a tough one, isn't it?  Everyone gets angry.  I have never been a fly off the handle angry person though.  I am the slow smolder take over the oxygen in the room sort of angry.  I bottle up until I can't take it anymore.  In the last 3 years, with Michael, he has been patient and encouraging. He helps me let it out.  I suppose I have fear that if I express my anger then the people around me would leave me.  This might be imagined or learned from my mother, but it is rooted deep inside me.  This fear is pretty strong.  I have been a woman without a voice for a long time; always with a burning ember.  I get angry mostly at work these days.  See the talking bad about others precept.  These two hold hands.

Not Speaking Ill of the Three Treasures (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha).  Oh, how could I talk bad about them. Never crosses my mind, ever.

This whole rant came about because yesterday Michael and I got to talking about how life has become a perpetual groundhog day.  We do the same things over and over.  We never let our hair down since we quit eating gluten and quit drinking.  I did not have to quit either of them, but chose to do this in a show of support to Michael because I love him.  What we have done is put ourselves in self-imposed prisons.  We have gone too far.  Now we aren't sure if we can even eat gluten or if in fact he has an allergy or if it was his gastritis.  We are going to try a controlled experiment with eating gluten when I have some days off (in case I'm in the bathroom all day).  We are doing this because these days being gluten free means having very few choices at restaurants and very few options of places to go.  We can't go on dates anymore.  We end up going the grocery store for our dates.  Boring as hell, right?  The drinking part is up to  him.  He wanted to quit for health and because he thought he was causing problems with us, which wasn't true in my view, but I supported it.

In the end, there has to be a middle way for all of it.  There has to be some way to survive in a proper way without feeling like life has halted completely.  The coming months will be interesting.  I'm looking forward to bending the bars.

OM-6/29/2014 The Importance of Pain

Aleathia says:

The Importance of Pain

"Before we can know what natural warmth really is, often we must experience loss.  We go along for years moving through our days, propelled by habit, taking life pretty much for granted.  Then we or someone dear to us has an accident or gets seriously ill, and it's as if blinders have been removed from our eyes.  We see the meaninglessness of so much of what we do and the emptiness of so much we cling to.

When my mother died and I was asked to go through her personal belongings, this awareness hit me hard.  She had kept boxes of papers and trinkets that she treasured, things that she held on to through her many moves to smaller and smaller accommodations.  They had represented security and comfort for her, and she had been unable to let them go.  Now they were just boxes of stuff, things that held no meaning and represented no comfort or security to anyone.  For me these were just empty objects, yet she had clung to them.  Seeing this made me sad, and also thoughtful.  After that I could never look at my own treasured objects in the same way.  I had seen that things themselves are just what they are, neither precious nor worthless, and that all the labels, all our views and opinions about them, are arbitrary."

Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap

This passage was especially helpful to me when my own mother passed and I faced looking through her things.  Many of the items sent to me were of no meaning to me, not like they were to my mother, but I could sense she loved them.  Loss is the great equalizer.  It sets the balance in the world and it wakes you up. There are still moments that catch me off guard for no apparent reason and I am put to tears.  Life is precious. Be thankful every day for the world around you.

OM-6/22/2014 Suffering and Happiness

Aleathia says:

"Suffering and Happiness" by the Dalai Lama

"We are each the center of our own universe.  We establish east, west, north, and south, as well as up and down, all in relation to our own location.  The self can be seen as the fundamental framework by which we understand and relate to the whole of existence.

Suffering, which we can think of as our own individual samsara, and happiness, which is our freedom from that suffering, stem ultimately from our notion of self.  My suffering results from my indulgence in self-centered behavior.  And that behavior propels me to act in ways that cause me more suffering.  I seem to go round and round within the cycle of rebirths which constitute my samsara.  My pursuit of happiness arises from my wish to be free from suffering."

OM-5/25/2014 Buddism, Change

Aleathia says:

My dog irritates me on the early morning walk so generally I choose to fill this time with words of peace and wisdom.  I listen to videos of Buddhist teachers.  Most of the time I can relate with what they are saying and the information is a good reminder of my already solid understanding of certain basic concepts.  Sometimes I listen to them and get a proverbial punch in the face.

Earlier in the week I listened to a talk by Pema Chodron called "Fearless Non-theism".  It crushed me in so many ways.  For 3-4 straight days, I listened to this talk and continued to be floored by it and reminded of how weak I am when we get down to brass tacks.

"Fearless Non-theism" by Pema Chodron

The great thing about this talk and most of Pema's talks is that you don't really need to be a Buddhist to get them.  This talk in particular expands across any gender, race, religion, political, and emotional barrier.  It is truth, raw stinky truth.

Here is the text if you want to get down to the nitty gritty:

The difference between theism and non-theism is not whether one does or does not believe in

God. It is an issue that applies to everyone, including both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there is some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. It means thinking there is always going to be a babysitter available when we need one. We all are inclined to abdicate our responsibilities and delegate our authority to something outside ourselves. Non-theism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves. We sometimes think that dharma is something outside of ourselves, something to believe in, something to measure up to. However, dharma isn't a belief; it isn't a dogma. It is total appreciation of impermanence and change. The teachings disintegrate when we try to grasp them. We have to experience them without hope. Many brave and compassionate people have experience them and taught them. The message is fearless; dharma was never meant to be a belief that we blindly follow. Dharma gives us nothing to hold on to at all.

Non-theism is finally realizing that there is no baby sitter that you can count on. You just get a good one and then he or she is gone. Non-theism is realizing that it's not just babysitters that come and go. The whole of life is like that. This is the truth, and the truth is inconvenient.

For those who want something to hold on to, life is even more inconvenient. From this point of view, theism is an addiction. We're all addicted to hope, hope that the doubt and mystery will go away. This addiction has a painful effect on society: a society based on lots of people addicted to getting ground under their feet is not a very compassionate place.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth. Suffering is part of life, and we don't have to feel it's happening because we personally made the wrong move. In reality, however, when we feel suffering, we think that something is wrong. As long as we're addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow, and we continue to suffer a lot.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.

This is where renunciation enters the picture, renunciation of the hope that we could be better. The Buddhist monastic rules that advise renouncing liquor, renouncing sex, and so on are not pointing out that those things are inherently bad or immoral, but that we use them as babysitters. We use them as a way to escape; we use them to try to get comfort and to distract ourselves. The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are. Renunciation is teaching to inspire us to investigate what's happening every time we grab something because we can't stand to face what's coming.

If hope and fear are two sides on one coin, so are hopelessness and confidence. If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path. If there is no interest in stepping beyond hope and fear, then there's no meaning in taking refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. Taking refuge in Buddha, dharma, and sangha is about giving up hope of getting ground under our feet. We are ready to take refuge when this style of teaching, whether we feel completely up to it or not, is like hearing something hauntingly familiar, like the experience of a child meeting its mother after a long separation.

Hopelessness is the basic ground. Otherwise, we're going to make the journey with the hope of getting security. If we make the journey to get security, we're completely missing the point. We can do our meditation practice with the hope of getting security; we can study the teachings with the hope of getting security; we can follow all the guidelines and instructions with the hope of getting security; but it will only lead to disappointment and pain. We could save ourselves a lot of time by taking this message very seriously right now. Begin the journey without hope of getting ground under your feet. Begin with hopelessness.

All anxiety, all dissatisfaction, all the reasons for hoping that our experience could be different are rooted in our fear of death. Fear of death is always in the background. As the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, life is like getting into a boat that's just about to sail out to sea and sink. But it's very hard, no matter how much we hear about it, to believe in our own death. Many spiritual practices try to encourage us to take our own death seriously, but it's amazing how difficult it is to allow it to hit home. That one thing in life that we can really count on is incredibly remote for all of us. We don't go so far as to say, "No way, I'm not going to die," because of course we know that we are. But it definitely will be later. That's the biggest hope.

Trungpa Rinpoche once gave a public lecture titled "Death in Everyday Life." We are raised in a culture that fears death and hides it from us. Nevertheless, we experience it all the time. We experience it in the form of disappointment, in the form of things not working out. We experience it in the form of things always being in a process of change. When the day ends, when the second ends, when we breathe out, that's death in everyday life.

Death in everyday life could also be defined as experiencing all the things that we don't want. Our marriage isn't working; our job isn't coming together. Having a relationship with death in everyday life means that we begin to be able to wait, to relax with insecurity, with panic, with embarrassment, with things not working out. As the years go on, we don't call the babysitter quite so fast.

Death and hopelessness provide proper motivation, proper motivation for living an insightful, compassionate life. But most of the time, warding off death is our biggest motivation. We habitually ward off any sense of problem. We're always trying to deny that it's a natural occurrence that things change, that the sand is slipping through our fingers. Time is passing. It's as natural as the seasons changing and day turning into night. But getting old, getting sick, losing what we love, we don't see those events as natural occurrences. We want to ward off that sense of death, no matter what.

Excerpted from When Things Fall Apart: Heartfelt Advice for Difficult Times,

by Pema Chodron, Shambhala Publications, 1997, pp. 38-45.

OM-5/18/2014 Buddhism, Anger and Patience

Aleathia says:

I this morning I wake to the blood curdling sound of our dog howling.  This isn't a cry of pain, but more of a hey guys are you getting up?  I have to pee.  I am hungry.

I am tucked nicely in my warm bed next to the man I love.  The house is quiet, save the dog, and the urge to just ignore my responsibility is great.  I get up and I am immediately disgruntled.  The dog and I had a rough time the day before.  He challenged me around every corner, made messes, whined for no reason, and would not leave me alone.  I carried around a resentment for him all day and night and woke with it this morning.

I suited up for the brisk morning air and put on his harness and leash.  I put my headphones on because I wanted to shut out the world.  I was in a grumpy ass mood because I had to walk this dog.  I wanted more time to rest, to be free from responsibility before the day started.  Then I heard this song:

Bonnie Prince Billy-I Came to Hear the Music

"The years become a moment in the ever-changing sand, Did God make time to keep it all from happening at once?"

Now I don't believe in God, but this particular line spoke miles to me.  It suddenly said to me "form is emptiness; emptiness is form".  I shut the music off and I said my morning prayer:

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly

I go for refuge until enlightenment is reached.

May all beings have happiness and the root of happiness,

be free from suffering and the root of suffering,

May they never be separate from the great happiness,

devoid of suffering, 

May they live in equanimity 

free from passion aggression and partiality.

After this I noticed the sun bursting from behind the clouds after many days of rain; the burgeoning river; the trees coming to life and the smell of flowers; the dew on raspberry leaves.

I realized at that moment that my problem had not been with the dog yesterday or today, but more rooted in the anxiety of having our first official house guest in our new home.  I spent the day cleaning and prepping so the house would look perfect for people I have never met before.  I was worried about what they would think of me based on how I keep my house.  I had to laugh at myself because in the grand scheme of things in the world this is something that doesn't matter, not to anyone.  It should not matter to me.  It should not have had power to put me in such a foul mood for days masqueraded as anger at the dog.  He does nothing but love me and find ways to gain my attention which I apparently had forgotten to give.

So today's lesson is about the bigger picture and patience and freeing myself from the need to be thought well of in a manner of social class.  My life is good, as good as I make it.