not native fruit

happy little christmas

...aka Ephiphany, Orthodox Christmas, and probably some other titles, including January 6th.

I managed finally to get out to see my dear friend Elizabeth on Tuesday and found her in very good spirits.  Her internal organs are all sound and so it is only the bone cancer that needs to be addressed.  There are amazing new treatments for the condition that rebuild bone, remove pain and restore mobility, so we have high hopes!

She looks like such a nice lady in the photo below, but in reality, up until just a few years ago, she climbed trees on her property to prune them, got up on the roof to clean it routinely, and gave the most amazing body-work treatments you ever had!  One very strong lady.

Independent too.  It's a privilege to know her.  I met her when Amma first came to Berkeley, and becoming her friend was one of the major stepping-stones in my feeling at home here.

 
Me, with our friend Leo, waiting for the shuttle bus and trying to keep warm on our way to one of Amma's programs in San Ramon in November.  One of the things I like about Amma's programs is that there's always a certain element of 'roughing it' - it's never an experience of pure comfort and luxury!  The November visit this year was exceptionally cold, so if it were to be put to a vote, I would vote to hold the November retreat and Devi Bhava in a hotel - thus eliminating the 'roughing it' element perhaps, but we would still have that during her summer visits.

In this photo, I can most definitely see how I'm aging.  It's okay, it's a natural part of life.  I don't take any hormone replacement because I am sensitive to estrogen - so it would not be a good idea.  I'm feeling healthy and that's the main thing, right?  Isn't our friend Leo a positive soul?  He is visiting from Mexico, and was great fun to host in our home.

vedanta

I haven't been on the website for the past month because we've been really busy. We had a wonderful friend staying with us from two weeks from San Miguel d'Allende in Mexico.  He lived up here in the Bay Area for about twenty years but decided to go home a few years ago.  Home happens to be a very beautiful, magical place, and we're glad for him, and also glad that he can come here to visit from time to time.  He plays guitar beautifully and gave me a lovely recording on CD that someone spontaneously did during a cafe gig in San Miguel, so while the recording is not perfect, it is indeed very spontaneous like everything else about Leo.

We also had a visit from our spiritual Beacon, Amma, which was enchanting and intense at the same time.  After her visit, I recalled that a number of years ago Amma told me that if I wanted to study something I should study Vedanta.  At the time I felt a lot of resistance to that suggestion and persuaded myself that I didn't really want to study anything.  (My original question to her had had to do with going for a Ph.D., mostly because I didn't know what else to do with myself, frankly.)  Well, long story short, I've managed to enroll myself in a Vedanta class, and getting back to the study - yes, I've 'studied' before, but in a desultory sort of way - so I'm making the real effort now.  The only trouble with the study of Vedanta is that it makes me feel so peaceful and content that I have little motivation to contribute to the blog.

In other news, a number of close friends of mine are seriously ill.  One elderly friend was diagnosed two weeks before Thanksgiving with end-stage metastasized bone cancer.  They're still trying to find the source, which will determine treatment and prognosis. She is just as 'live' and chipper as ever - this woman is a phenomenon!  And much loved by many, a sort of 'spiritual teacher' in her own right.  So, I've been involved in trying to make her life more comfortable, procuring a wheelchair and walker, (although these have since been replaced by her health-plan), and making arrangements to get help for her with shopping, meal prep, driving, etcetera. 

I think I mentioned that my friend in Idaho is on hospice, although she seems to be in what they call 'a plateau,' which means nothing seems to be progressing at the present time.  She enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday, which makes me feel happy, and I'm hoping she'll have a good Christmas too. 

Then on Monday night of this week, another friend phoned to tell me the doctors think she has breast cancer, and so she is going to be undergoing further tests.  At the very least she has been also diagnosed with a degenerative bone disease, so one way or another she is not well.  You'd never know it to look at her, she's a little beauty and has a delightful personality.  Another one everyone loves. 

Another friend and co-worker of mine has been going through the end-stage with her father who died on Thanksgiving.  He had a brain injury and the treatment did not work to restore him, so they had a very intense month which ended with his death.  I substituted with her client for that month, so I was very busy with so much extra work. 

Then there are my various clients, two of whom are also in straits at the moment.  So, all in all, it's been a very busy time with many needs to be met.

amma season

i've been absent from the weblog in recent weeks because i've been all caught up in 'amma season' - that wonderful time of the year that is better than school letting out, better than ski week, better than any holiday i can name - that time of year when amma visits the bay area from india.  we all had a fabulous time, and are still savoring our enjoyment of our time with her as she moves on her way across the country.  tomorrow will be her last day in los angeles and from there she will travel to santa fe new mexico.

as part of my service to the community this time around, i've published a new e-magazine called 'amma's forest dwellers' for old-timers, retired persons, contemplatives, hermits and the like - all of whom used to be called 'forest-dwellers' in the old folk-tradition of india.

i've also been reading Karen Armstrong's 'The Spiral Staircase.'  Years ago, I read her first book, 'The Narrow Gate,' about her time in the convent back in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  'The Spiral Staircase' tells her story after leaving the convent and eventually writing her best-selling books, such as 'A History of God.'  I found 'The Spiral Staircase' an engrossing memoir, plus entertaining (for example, her charming stories of Jacob), intriguing and educational (her description of her health issues), and I appreciated her articulate personal sharing.

i've been playing my dulcimer in the evenings more, as a part of my spiritual practice.  Toning and singing are even better, really, but i feel charmed by the mellifluous tones of the dulcimer.  like to feel the vibration under my hands and where the dulcimer lays flat across my lap.  my blue lion really truly does make exquisite sound.  very conducive to meditation.

spring wind

it was a single city block
or two,
clean, neat and orderly,
set aside
as a memorial park
dedicated
to something of significance
that had happened long ago,
in revolutionary
philadelphia,
the park a place
of inexplicable peace
in the chaos of the city,
now its young trees
grown tall and stouter,
more steadfast
in recent years.
beneath a clear blue
cloudless sky,
dark narrow trunks
like upright soldiers
topped by bare branches
putting forth
new buds
of leaf
in the swift keen air
of Spring
(verging on a warmer
current, just),
freshening my mind,
and my heart lifted
as if on wings.

was that the promise
of you I felt,
way back then,
when I was young,
before I even guessed,
or imagined?

silent eloquence by nina marshall

I fail to find a verb or form a phrase
that I consider worthy of your praise.
Does there exist sweet melody or rhyme
that’s fit enough to sing your song sublime?

In awe of you, the painter’s brush lies still,
the poet shyly puts aside his quill,
the violinist lays away his bow,
and flute sits breathless, basking in your glow.

Your silent eloquence sails height profound,
and conjured symphony without a sound.
With polished art, your glance articulates
the grace that elevates to supreme states.

My mind rests blissfully inside your silence
and radiates an inner soul alliance.

 

 

*     *     *      *     *
i try not to bother you all too much with my devotion to my wonderful satguru, amma, whom i dearly love.  but i just had to post this poem by remadevi nina marshall, who is herself a musician and a long time resident of amma's ashram in india.  not only is this a beautiful poem, but it expresses the spiritual intimacy that amma is capable of, and which each one of us feels, each in our own way.  i would not have dreamed that such an experience might be possible, and i truly felt as if i had found 'fabled gold' when i met amma.  that was twenty years ago, and the experience continues on.

darkness

darkness,
at the hub of things,
don't let me forget you.
darkness,
womb of every thought,
don't let me shut you out
with light.
silence,
in the darkness,
our true home,
welcome me,
comfort me,
center me
in all that we are.

*    *    *

i'd like to say a brief word in prose here about darkness.  a spiritual-minded acquaintance of mine once said that my love of 'darkness' scared her.  her spiritual tradition favored light.  it seems to me now that some spiritual traditions demonize the darkness.  therefore people might get the totally wrong idea that i am somehow singing the praises of evil-doing, which is far from the case.  i do believe that our misapprehension of darkness might be at the root of more evil-doing than we care to admit, since so much of that is done in the shining, blinding light of day, in the shimmer of success, wealth and glory.  we often can't make peace with the darkness and the silence, and seek something else.  but then there's all kinds of wrongness and some of it is darkness-bred, too.  but evil-doing is not partial to either darkness or light, it makes use of both and itself operates on another principle altogether.

some of my happiest memories have to do with darkness.  the darkness of the ocean at night.  driving along the old two-lane road that skirted the beach in south jersey, with the sparse colored lights in the distance, before and behind, of tiny resort towns with their small modest boardwalk piers.  the only sound was the soft soughing of the waves, and the tiny distant lights were white, yellow, occasionally red, green or blue, trailing out into the sea. well, it was another time and place.

the darkness of my childhood garden at night, lit by stars and fireflies, ringed by the black canyon of our brick two- and three-story houses.

now, the darkness resting on the trees outside my bedroom window, their leaves lit only by the moon.

one of the things i particularly have loved about my spiritual beacon, Amma, is that while she can radiate intense decibels of light, she also has a profound darkness about her.  her skin and hair are dark, true, that's part of it.  she is mysterious and unknowable, that's another part of it.  but perhaps especially, for me, it is that her story has so much darkness in it.  she grew up along the seashore in south india, in a place without electricity until perhaps the late nineteen-seventies, and then very little of it. there was the poverty and 'ignorance' of the fishing-folk she grew up among. the 'darkness' of living in a remote, primitive, unknown little place in a swamp.  yet she grew and developed her intensely compassionate and wise spirituality in that desolate marginalized place.

for so many years, she sang devotional songs at night in the family shrine-room, and still to this day, she walks along the seashore there at night singing her spiritual songs.  the workshop of her spiritual life was the darkness of the night and of the vast and unknowable sea. 

when i visited amritapuri during its early days, i too had the chance to experience the qualities of her home-place, and i am sure that this helped me to evolve in terms of my own relationship with darkness.  but that's much more than i can write here, today.