Awaken Engage

100 feathers in my cap. You may remember that when I hit 90, I conjectured that the only reason I might go for 100 consecutive days of writing, podcasting, and photo-essaying was for a metaphorical feather in my cap.

Well, make it 100 feathers in my cap.

I made it. It ended up mattering to me.

100.

I just love it.

100 per cent of the days for the past 100 days, I have followed through with one of the bigger commitments I have made in recent years.

I am so proud of myself. Beaming, actually.

Heart full of gratitude that I persevered when I didn’t want to keep going, when I was on the other side of exhaustion finishing a piece before the stroke of 12, when it felt like I had little to give, when I wondered why it was I was doing what I was doing.

I proved over and over to myself that I can trust myself.

And I am finishing well.

This was truly a project to discover my limits, determine whether or not I am really a writer and speaker and photographer, to determine whether or not I am a creative.

I am!

And in the process I have watched as this project has helped create the foundation of something that is rising from the beauty of ashes, following a familiar story line of being broken down and reshaped to be a more open, expansive, wise, beautiful, loving vessel…over and over and over.

Now, it’s officially time to close shop for the summer. My class load at the university has officially ended. Finals are graded. Grades are posted.

The semi-annual Integrated Life Retreat in North Central Idaho is next weekend and it is filled with incredible human beings who are coming together to rest, heal, connect, and grow. I feel so much gratitude to just be part of this!

Summer awaits. Full of plenty of down time, adventure with family, visiting our old stomping grounds in DC and NY with the kids, seeing clients, fine-tuning courses for the Fall 2024 semester, creating a new course (Developing Healthy Relationships - filled up in the first minute of registration!), getting my 200 hour Yoga Certification, getting another Mindfulness Certification, playing music, reading, hugging my kids, cycling, laughing with our family, coming together with extended family and friends, and soaking up every moment like it is the only moment…because it is!

Today, I had fun stepping back and looking at my writing, recording, and podcasting setup, recalling all of the early tweaks to get everything running the way I wanted it to — actually, learning what exactly I was wanting at the same time.

Sound equipment. Process flow. Setting up a podcast. Getting the podcast on all of the podcast platforms. Tweaking the sound equipment. Creating a musical intro and outro. Being intensely present and watchful each day for the next piece of writing to emerge. Sorting through my own photo archives for relevant visuals to help shape and tell the story. Finding the right formats for the website version, podcast version, FB version, and Insta version.

Learning. Learning. Learning.

What a wonderful journey.

100 feathers in my cap.

I made it.

It mattered.

It matters!

Peace

Each morning, I carve out time for a walk in the Boise foothills between morning routines with our kids and work. Over the past couple of years, I have walked these trails almost every day. It’s a ritual. And one I look forward to and bask in while performing it.

Walking the same trails every day has given me a deep appreciation for the rhythms of nature - what plants grow and when; where the sun rises at what time of the day; fluctuations in temperature; places along the trail that are almost always cooler; places along the trail that are often windy; higher elevation trails that are only accessible when the ground isn’t saturated; lower elevation trails that become hubs of community when they are the only ones in the valley we can use in harsh weather; the comings and goings of regulars; the sounds of migrating birds; the sounds of crickets in just one section of the hollow; the changing colors; the emptiness of the trails on windy, wet, cold days; the rush of footsteps and flurry of voices on the first couple of sunny and warm days; the changing of the shadows cast; the intensity of the heat.

It is a luxury to be able to perform this ritual with such regularity.

Most of the time, I am micro-attuned to my surroundings and I usually notice when I become a bit unconscious, whether from worrying about the day, re-hashing something someone said, trying to figure out my life, etc. :)

Last week, however, I must have been caught up in quite the dramatic simulation because it wasn’t until almost the end of the 1 1/2 mile hike that I tuned back in to where I actually was and noticed worms all over the trail.

A particularly wet storm had passed through the area overnight and the worms were seeking relief from their flooded homes on the dryer trails.

As I looked down, I saw worms everywhere, including one right beneath where my foot was about ready to plod.

I adjusted my gait to avoid smashing the little fella and my first thought was,

“How many worms have I stepped on?!”

I felt a bit of a punch to the gut.

As a general rule, I love contributing to the thriving of life. I realize the cycles of life, for sure. But, I also do all that I can to contribute to watching over, nurturing, protecting, and sustaining life. Where I can reduce harm, I do. Where I can promote life, I do.

I stopped. Looked back over my tracks and couldn’t see any obvious casualties but also couldn’t imagine that I made it through the worm mine field without stepping on quite a few of them.

Not to over-dramatize the event, my response was more meta-connected to the effects and consequences of living with a lack of awareness in general.

How many times am I in auto-mode?

How many times am I missing what is right in front of me?

How can I wake up from mindlessness more often and more quickly?

How can I live even more mindfully, lovingly, kindly, and wisely?

What woke me up in time to avoid stepping on this worm?

What wakes me up through the day?

How many of us are walking around mindlessly crushing worms?

How many of us are asleep most of the time?

What does it mean to wake up?

Is it the same for everyone?

Questions ebbing and flowing, I stooped down closer to the worm and realized that he had seen his last action anyway. He was quickly going to become a part of the trail, a part of the ritual, a part of the cycle of life that I have been walking through every day for two years.

Sometimes awake.

Evermore, so.

Peace

In Between Places

The thing
about bridges
is that they are
in between places.

On a bridge,
you’re not where you were,
you’re not where you’re going,
you’re not where you’re going to stay.
You’re just
in between places.

You can burn one.
You can build one.
You can avoid one.
You can cross one.

You can even be one.

The thing
about bridges
is that they are
in between places.

In between places
aren’t where you were,
aren’t where you’re going,
aren’t where you’re going to stay.
They’re just
bridges
in between places.

Peace

Photo:Tower Bridge, London || 7.9.23

Excerpt: "Each morning, I carve out time for a walk in the Boise foothills between morning routines with our kids and work. Over the past couple of years, I have walked these trails almost every day. It’s a ritual. And one I look forward to and bask in while performing it."

She drinks to remember that she is not the job she is doing.
That she is not just the job she is doing.
Near the bottom of each bottle, she finds possibilities and promise.
She drinks a little more to remember that it’s okay.
And a bit more to remember that it will be okay.
That the way it looks right now is not the way it really is or was or will be.
A drink or three free her from the boundaries of her mind.
Tomorrow, it will take a little more to remember a little less.
Perhaps there is another way.

He scrolls mindlessly to remember that he is not the job he is doing.
That he is not just the job he is doing.
Story after story, reel after reel, he finds possibilities and promise.
He scrolls a little more to remember that it’s okay.
And a bit more to remember that it will be okay.
That the way it looks right now is not the way it really is or was or will be.
An hour or three free him from the boundaries of his mind.
Tomorrow, it will take a little more to remember a little less.
Perhaps there is another way.

They consume to remember that they are not the lives they are living.
That they are not just the lives they are living.
Near the end of their savings, they find possibilities and promise.
They travel a little more to remember that it’s okay.
They eat a bit more to remember that it will be okay.
That the way it looks right now is not the way it really is or was or will be.
More and more frees them from the boundaries of their mind.
Tomorrow, it will take a little more to remember a little less.
Perhaps there is another way.

She studies. He exercises. They socialize.

She bikes. He boats. They ski.

She does this. He does that. They do this and that.

More and more.

Each day, it takes a little more to remember a little less.

Perhaps there is a better way.

Peace

Photo: Payette Lake, 6.1.22

For much of my life, I’ve been one of the shiny things in most social situations. Classrooms, trainings, workplace environments, parties, teams. In all of these settings, I gain early acceptance, credibility, and position. It’s not something I have tried to do. It just happens. There have been a few exceptions, but even in those settings, I eventually find myself with a seat at the tables of influence.

After the bonks to the head that kicked me off of the speeding train of a successful life in 2015, I feared that I would disappear.

And, to a large extent, I did.

I was no longer shiny or useful or the “me” that almost instantly attracted people, earned their trust, and had a place in their viewfinder.

I found myself alone. No table. No place.

Now that I am steadily advancing with my easing-into-vocational-life plan, I am finding interesting fears showing up here and there.

For example, I am teaching a Yoga Nidra class at an upstart yoga studio. It’s at 7 p.m. on Monday evenings. I’ve been at it for a month and attendance is super spotty. Hmmm… Every once in awhile I find myself asking, “Is there something I’m missing? Is it me?” I love doing what I get to do there, but I’m feeling my insecurities.

During the early months of this past winter, I partnered with a group to create what we thought was a spectacular event for this summer. It didn’t gain nearly enough registrations to become reality. I find myself asking, “Why? Was it me? Was I the weak link?” Again, the failure to launch and accompanying fears flushed out some of my insecurities.

Now that classes at BSU have finished for the Spring semester and final grades are in, I am noticing that a part of my identity is also coming to a close until next Fall. The classes I teach there fill up within the first minutes of priority registration. They have waiting lists. They are highly regarded by students and often described as some of the best classes they have ever taken at the university or anywhere, for that matter.

Strangely, I don’t find myself asking, “Why? Was it me? Was I the reason?”

I just love what I get to do and who I get to be while I’m doing it. The doing is an extension of being.

I get to show up, be present, set the table, and watch a group of hungry human beings feast on food that helps them wake up and live well.

Surprisingly, the flushing out of my insecurities in the first two examples is the most important of these examples. It isn’t what I enjoy most. But it’s what I value most.

Seeing my insecurities and feeling them deeply has served to remind me of who I really am and of the deep interior work that happened through 8 years of concussion recovery.

I am reminded of who I found out I am when I seemingly disappeared from most people’s lives and they disappeared from mine. When I disappeared from the identity of my vocational life. When I disappeared from most roles that gave me a sense of identity.

I am reminded that I still get trapped in trying to become someone, something, somebody to prove my worth and value to myself and others.

And, as these situations flush out these insecurities, I remember words that brought light into the darkest times of my life.

Words like,

“I am liberated from all becoming and live in the power of being that I am.”

Nothing to prove. Noone to become. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

Liberated.

Liberated from trying to be-come someone to prove something to someone.

Free from that bondage.

Free from that illusion.

Free from the illusion that my classes at BSU make me any more who I am than the failures do.

Liberated from all be-coming.

Living in the power of being that I am.

Living present to my self and the world.

Living as I already am, not trying to become someone by doing something.

And I am so thankful for these seeming failures that bring up fears.

I get to meet the fears with welcoming, loving presence. I get to love on them like I love on my kids when they are scared and want to be seen, heard, held, and feel like they belong.

Rather than being compelled by fear to try to be something else or prove something, the fear reminds me to return home to who I am.

I am liberated from all becoming and free to live in the power of being that I am.

Liberated to keep trying, to keep failing, and to keep loving what arises.

Liberated from being defined by success.

Liberated from being defined by failure.

Liberated from being defined.

Liberated to be.

I am that.

That I am.

Peace

There are evenings where finding words becomes a sort of adventure. Like when you get in your car and drive into the desert of the upper Great Basin until you can’t see a soul or a dwelling or a trace of civilization in any direction.

You stop, get out, and start walking.

Any direction will do.

In no time, what looked like a barren landscape, what looked like the same thing for mile after mile, what looked uninhabited and uninteresting, changes almost instantly the moment you hear your footsteps on the ground, feel the the wind whirring about you, and find your eyes lose their focus while the whole body and mind get swept up into something so grand and old and mysterious that there isn’t anything happening anywhere else.

Time stops. The sense of time stops.

The 360 degree vistas and open skies swallow up every worry and tension and thought.

And all of a sudden there is room in you.

In fact, “in you” gives way to just “you” and you are expansive and able to hear echoes from west to east and north to south. You follow the sound of messengers’ voices who have been waiting for you to shed one skin of separation after another and feel the ever-increasing boundaries of your is-ness stretching past the places where the echoes arose.

You move with effortless ease across the landscape caring not for when or where or how.

It all fades away into awe.

Awe.

Swept up in awe.

You are swept up in awe, remembering who you really are.

Peace

Photo: Idaho || September 2018

I find comfort in routine and consistency even if I also love spontaneity and following the winds of intuition. As I finish my teaching assignments before the summer break, I’m finding myself wanting to fill up the blank spaces and places in my days that for the past 9 months have been filled with vibrant interactions with groups of students in whom I delight and have grown to love.

There’s a rather large hole and, as I said, I think I’m tempted to fill it up rather than take time to feel what the space is like when not occupied.

Wow. Yeah. There is something deep in those words that just called out to me as they found their way into my awareness.

Take time to feel what the space is like when not occupied.

Yeah.

Even though I’ve been wanting to fill the hole - the previously occupied but now unoccupied space - with stuff, with the next thing, with plans for summer and the fall semester, with activity, I am encouraging myself to just let it be for awhile.

To let it be and honor what I - what we as a community of learners and practitioners - just experienced.

Perhaps stating it as an intention is important:

I take time to feel what the space is like when not occupied.

I like that. It resonates and it also flushes out its opposite.

I don’t have words for any of this incredible teaching and learning journey, really. I’m still reading Finals and journals and finding myself awestruck and thankful and humbled. Over and over and over.

With each Final that I click on, with each student’s name, I pause and let it soak in that this is the last piece of their writing that I will experience and respond to for awhile, if ever again.

I treasure what I get to learn from them and what I have learned on the short but transformational journey we have been on together.

“Wow” is the word that keeps finding its way up from my heart and out my mouth.

Wow.

I am in awe.

Over these past 9 months, I rode my bike along the Boise River on my way to class and each day I would always find a spot to coast, close my eyes, stretch out my arms and hands, open my heart, and feel the air and the sensation of gliding along effortlessly. Immense gratitude filled my whole being as I thought about the long days and nights and years when we weren’t sure what part of vocational life I would be able to engage in with any sort of consistency.

The beauty has come from the ashes.

The beauty is coming from the ashes.

The beauty has come from what is no longer there, from the space that the fire created.

A clearing.

Space to be.

Space to be together.

Wow.

Peace

Some days it’s I’ve got it all together.
Other days it’s more trying to hold onto and pick up what’s falling apart.
Some days feel easy and clear.
Other days feel uphill and cloudy.

And it’s not just days.

Some parts of days are this.
Other parts of days are that.
Some parts of days are calm and warm.
Other parts of days are windy and cold.

And it’s not just parts of days.

Some times of days are this.
Other times of days are that.
Some times of days are vibrant and optimistic.
Other times of days are lethargic and questioning.

Some days and parts of days and times of days are this.
Other days and parts of days and times of days are that.
Some days and parts of days and times of days are rising.
Other days and parts of days and times of days are falling.

You don’t really know what you’re going to get.
You don’t really know what is going to show up.
You don’t really know how it’s all going to come and go.
You don’t really know.

When you know that.
When you know that you don’t really know what’s coming and going,

That is when you know.
This is when you know.
Now is when you know.
Now is when you know the grace to be.
Now is the grace to be.
Only now is the grace to be.
Always now is the grace to be.
The grace to be.
The grace to be.

Now is the grace to be.

Peace

Photo: Boise Foothills, 10.17.22

I seem to have entered this world with a strong bent for nostalgia. I don’t ever remember not feeling wooed by longings for the past, even feeling nostalgic about the present because it was heading into the past.

Perhaps my natural propensity for feeling all the feels so intensely is why I struggled mightily to finish a great book or a great movie or a great series. I am notorious for watching 3/4 of a show and being pretty much done with it. I love the exposition, rising action, conflict, and even a bit of the climax, but I’m not really very interested in resolutions and endings. Endings are connected to those deep, deep feelings of loss that nostalgia seems to bring into the present.

I’ve avoided finishing many things because I enjoyed the process so much that I really didn’t want to get to the destination. Once it was clear that the process was almost over, I lost most of my interest.

Almost two decades ago, when I graduated with my Masters and my clinical license, which was a beast of a Masters and 4 digits of supervised clinical hours, I chose to take a job assignment across the country rather than having to walk through a graduation ceremony and deal with a party that signified the end of a stage of life.

I was constantly trying to get to the beginnings that ends signify without having to feel and be with the endings.

But the end of something is worth celebrating. It is something worth feeling. It is something worth our welcoming and loving presence.

In fact, I have learned that the end of something needs to be celebrated, commemorated, felt, observed, and experienced to really move fully into the beginning that is here and now.

I had a lot of loose ends to tie up once I began to face my discomfort with endings, with closure, with what amounts to a sense of grief and loss even in times of intense happiness.

It wasn’t until recovering from my brain injuries that I learned and experienced that every “thing” arises with its opposite. It’s commonly referred to as the Law of Opposites. But I had no idea that this existed and, for the first 38 or so years of my life, I operated under the assumption that I could get the “thing” I wanted and avoid its opposite altogether.

I tried to isolate the enjoyment and happiness of the process from the feelings of sadness and loss that naturally come with finishing the project.

I tried to move from one stage of life into the other without completing the former.

So much of the past 8 years has been learning how to be with life as it is as I am.

Not trying to control life. Not trying to escape life. Not trying to bend life to my will.

But being with life as it is as I am.

Vibrantly. Presently. Potently.

This includes being with the sadness that closure naturally brings.

Today, our Peace and Well-Being in an Age of Anxiety class at Boise State met for our 2 hour final.

We spent time last week reflecting on and discussing how we each relate to closure.

And today’s final was designed to be a time of bringing closure to our experience by honoring the time we have been together and giving a blessing to the new beginnings that are also here.

We began with some movement, some honoring of our voices, and then I asked each student to select a small rock from my personal collection. Each of these rocks stood out to me at some time when I was in nature and I picked them up, pocketed them, and added them to a jar that sits in my office. They may not be significant to anyone else, but they caught my attention, I chose them, and I carried them with me. Today, I was able to display these rocks across a table and invite this incredibly special group of students to choose the one that caught their attention and carry it with them.

Rocks in hand, we then engaged in a silent mindfulness meditation, listening to the ebb and flow of the singing bowl before each student presented a 3-4 minute piece of their personal writing from the course. While they spoke, we passed their rock around, held it, and were invited to say a blessing of some kind.

Something like: May you be healthy, may you be safe, may you be happy, may you live at ease. Or, whatever came to mind and heart.

At the end of our presentations, we held hands in a circle and said thank you and bless you and goodbye to this experience.

A sense of closure.

Prior to class, as I was bringing each student into my heart during my meditation practice early this morning, I felt waves of gratitude co-arising with waves of sadness. I truly love these individuals and am sad that our time has come to an end.

The sadness doesn’t mean it shouldn’t come to an end. It’s just sadness. It’s just the opposite arising as opposites do.

And, like all things arising in awareness that are calling for our attention, it just needed me to observe it, feel it, acknowledge it as it is, and accept it as it is. Or, as Rick Hanson says, “Let it Be. Let it Go. Let it In.”

It came and it went.

All day. Even writing this, I feel the ebbs and flows.

Allowing life to be as it is as I am.

It is profoundly centering, grounding, and powerful to be with life as it is as I am.

Profoundly different.

Nostalgia is replaced by appreciation and gratitude in the present rather than a departure from the here and now into the wishing that then was still now.

Somehow, being with life as it is as we are transforms every moment now and in the future.

There ceases to be a huge reservoir of sadness and longing trying to get our attention because we already gave it our attention and it can freely flow and come through and be on its way.

When the heart stays open, there are fewer and fewer dams of emotions that have to be built and tended to out of the fear that something in life will breach them and become an unmanageable torrent in which we get washed away.

Truly profound.

I will leave you with words not my own but words that are also familiar and wise and true. The first are the words of one of the students in our class who agreed that I might share part of their presentation from today:

“I have noticed myself building trust within myself since this class. In these short few weeks, I have felt security and a sense of wholeness from within. I've learned to sit across a coffee table with my emotions. Based on my background and trauma I never thought I would even get a glance at these feelings, let alone feel them from within. I knew my past came with the responsibility for me to do extra work and part of me never thought I would get to this point in my life. I have felt the contentment of staying open and I never want to fully close again. I have noticed a huge shift in my perspective because of the newfound feelings that were always inside me. I became very attuned to what no's feel like in my body and where I held my anxiety. I know what pain feels like in my body but now I am continuing to learn what calmness, peace, security, wholeness, love, and liberation feel like inside of me too. Now, for some of the first times, I have felt a full body yes.”

Truly profound.

These words wonderfully pair with a Mary Oliver poem that I had chosen to read at the end of our class time today:

“A Voice from I Don’t Know Where”

It seems you love this world very much.
“Yes,” I said. “This beautiful world.”

And you don’t mind the mind, that keeps you
busy all the time with its dark and bright wonderings?
“No, I’m quite used to it. Busy, busy,
all the time.”

And you don’t mind living with those questions,
I mean the hard ones, that no one can answer?
“Actually, they’re the most interesting.”

And you have a person in your life whose hand
you like to hold?
“Yes, I do.”

It must surely, then, be very happy down there
in your heart.
“Yes,” I said. “It is.” (from _Felicity_ by Mary Oliver)

Yes. It is.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Peace