Category Archives: Change

I forgot to tell you…

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I forgot to tell you about all the magic we’ve been seeing on our morning walks. This week, it was two beavers, one on each side of east McMurry Pond. Two herons flying together, floating east along the Poudre River. A dog park full of tennis balls. Fog and a light mist softening everything until the sun comes out and warms it away.

This morning, Sam wanted to see another beaver so badly, was so sure he’d see one again that he barked at a log in the water. That happens sometimes, doesn’t it? We want something so badly, want so much for it to be true that we see a beaver when it’s only a piece of wood floating in the water.

The sun has been orange first thing in the morning. Sometimes it’s pale, and other times it’s lit up like the ball of fire it is. Everything green is turning yellow, orange, brown, and gray, so when the golden light of the sun reflects off the turning of the green, it feels like we are walking in a dream.

I forgot to tell you that Dexter is feeling better. We’ve stopped giving him the anti-inflammatory, (although if he starts to get worse again, we might try another type, because that therapy did seem to help, except for the trouble this particular one gave his belly). He still “maybe might probably but we don’t know for sure” have cancer, but right now, in these moments, he is happy, whole, and so loved. We have decided against doing a CT scan (the next step we were offered) because it would require him being under anesthesia again, cost $2000 (wth?!), and:

  • the results still could be inconclusive
  • the scan might reveal “something,” but it might be unclear what exactly that something is
  • it might confirm the cancer, give us a very expensive picture of it, but the treatment for that type of cancer isn’t a cure, doesn’t result in much more time, and the time you get might not be good quality, so isn’t something we’d do anyway (for this cancer, this dog, this family, it wouldn’t be the right decision)

So we continue to live with the uncertainty–which isn’t all that different than what life is always like, the nature of things as they always are. We never really know, can’t be sure or certain about much of anything, and everything is constantly changing. Impermanence is the only thing we can count on, so for now, we are knowing just that.

I forgot to tell you that I bought myself flowers. They remind me that while impermanence is real, that death comes to all of us, sometimes quickly and without warning, life is so beautiful.

I forgot to tell you, kind and gentle reader, that you don’t need permission, you don’t need to earn the right to be who you are and do what you love. You were born with it, that light and deep knowing, that thing that is yours to manifest, that only you can embody, that only you can do and be. There’s nothing that needs done first, no mastery or skill to be learned before. You can take the one, tiny step right now, walk right into the thick of your life, stand in the center. All you have to do is decide, start, begin.

And, I forgot to tell you this:

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Resolve: Mid-Year Review

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On this, the first day of the second half of this year of Retreat, I have been reflecting on what I’ve experienced so far, and contemplating what’s to come. My word for the year was Retreat, with the clarifying words being rest, practice, balance, and transformation. Retreat, a time to remove myself from the usual expectations and obligations, to study and practice.

My life, my experience, my path in the last six months has been 1000 shades of love, 1000 shades of weird, 1000 shades of magic. Sometimes, I feel like a starfish caught on the beach, moving as fast as I can but my progress barely perceptible to others, or like a butterfly just out of the chrysalis, slightly confused about my new state of being, sitting on a branch waiting for my wings to dry. I am utterly transformed, but exactly the same. I am as I always was, but suddenly awake, and in that way so completely different.

image by peter harrison

Through all the classes, blogging and regular features, writing and meditation retreats, workshops, books, challenges, practices, the genuine and constant effort of the past six months, I feel a little like I’ve been in graduate school, earning a Master’s of Arts in Wholehearted Living, a Master’s of Science in Applied Practice, a Master’s of Fine Arts in Loving. My teachers and guides have been Susan Piver, Andrea Scher, Susannah Conway, Brene’ Brown, Laurie Wagner, Jen Lemen, Jennifer Louden, Rachel Cole, Patti Digh, Geneen Roth, Anne Lamott, Julia Cameron, Jamie Ridler, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Pema Chodron, my dogs, and so many others, along with an amazing group of fellow students on the same path–many of whom I’ll be meeting and connecting with at the World Domination Summit later this week.

room with a view

I still struggle with perfectionism, with lack of self-care and self-love, with being gentle with myself and present with my experience, and yet so much has changed. I don’t suffer from the crushing depression I did for so long. I’m not riddled with anxiety and stress. My path is no longer muddled by confusion or lack of clarity. Surprisingly, much of the transformation has been remembering who I am rather than becoming something else, about getting clear about the purpose and superpowers born into the world with me, a repeated mantra of “This is me. I am enough and I have enough. This is who I am, wise and compassionate and powerful.”

I still struggle to rest. I know intellectually how important it is, that I can’t give what I hope to from a place of overwhelm or exhaustion, that self-care is really just another way of ensuring the quality of my offering–but I long to know this in my gut, in my blood and bones, deep in my heart, to embody it fully. To practice it in the same way I do so many other things that are essential, that I do regularly without having to apply any special effort, like making 1/2 a cup of coffee in the morning, feeding and walking my dogs, or writing morning pages, these things that happen each and every day, no question and no matter what.

dexter and sam know how to play

Since rest is still an issue for me, balance has not been achieved–I find it for brief moments, but it’s not yet sustainable. I still work too much, which means I don’t eat or sleep or exercise or play like I should. Practice, which is deeper and richer (yoga, meditation, writing, reading, dog, walking/hiking, and love) is helping me to contemplate, consider, creep my way towards a middle path, a middle way. I have confidence, curiosity, and more clarity than ever, so there’s no despair or smashing myself to bits about it, (most of the time, anyway).

I’ve experienced so many things I wished for, longed for, imagined and dreamed about–my sense of what is possible has been expanded and reinforced to such a degree that I can start to relax a bit, sink into being, into the present moment, into “this minute of eternity.”

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~Rumi