sunset

This week at daily headspa we were blogging about "West." We made space for it today, which is what happens with the topics at dh on Sundays, with a poem by Paul.

I thought about posting a picture of a sunset with the poem, but I was hoping people would picture their own.

However, sunsets are beautiful things to share, so I've posted a few on flickr from a recent trip to Queensland. Not the most fabulous sunset shots ever, but a variety and each with a quiet beauty, I think.

Here's one, and a link to the flickr gallery.

line of drops and ant

line of drops and ant
Originally uploaded by ozpiratequeen19

Man's (sic) life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.
- Socrates



return to daily headspa

my personal 9-11 trivia

On the day, I ate breakfast at my kitchen table in Cleveland. The table was a family antique; I had brought it up from Orlando when I separated from my husband and set up my own, new life in Ohio. I wish I could remember what I ate.

The next year, on the anniversary, I woke up and opened the door of the little homemade cabin on a tiny rock island off the coast of Vancouver Island, BC and smelled the Pacific ocean, just a few steps away. I'd found the vacation rental on the internet. A friend had asked, after I'd paid the full payment and not just a deposit, sight unseen, "But how do you know it really exists?" It did and I wrote in the guest book about 9/11.

Another year I stood in the wind looking at the Irish Sea, my feet sinking into the white sand of a small Scottish island.

The next year after that, the person I changed my life with the same year we all realized, like so many people in the world had been forced to know before us, that life is short - well, we were each tethered to an ipod, a dual jack with two sets of headphones. We listened to Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" and marveled at the way the central Australian desert hills looked like a cityscape, but rounded.

This year, I woke up and made a cup of tea. Organic English breakfast tea, the same tea I drink every morning. I wrote my morning pages. Later I might plant those snake beans someone gave me a couple of days ago. Some gardening would be good.

And at 11:00 a.m., I'll bring some people together for a meeting. A simple lease will be signed, but it's the parties to the lease that have me reflecting this morning. We'll be there, the representatives of the non-aboriginal church. And they will be there, the representatives of the aboriginal corporation. They will sign a lease to use a building on land that was theirs. We will accept their payment for the use of a building that we built on land that was theirs. The terms are generous, well beyond fair and yet. and yet. There is still an element of us and them and a sad inherent irony. My 9-11 anniversary hope is that somehow this is "power over" inching its way towards shared empowerment.

Happy B'day, PA Lutes

We're talking about trivia on daily headspa so here's a little family trivia.

My grandfather, my mother's dad, was born on September 9, 1909. He didn't live to celebrate this special birthday, but we remember him.

Philip Arthur Lutes, here's to ya.

Routines I have loved

Routine is our topic for this week on daily headspa. I have a love/hate relationship with routine. Some routines make me feel safe and productive. Some make me feel trapped and like a stupid fool who can’t get off the wheel, out of the cage, out of her own head.

And some routines I have truly loved.

I loved the routine of my dad waking me up at 5:30 in the morning every day during my last year of high school so we could go for a run together. I didn’t act like I loved it then, I was down right mean and ornery on those mornings until after the run with the endorphins had kicked in (and I had run circles around the old man). But now that he’s gone and my knees are gone, I look back on that time as one of my favorites.

I loved the routine of washing dishes in the kitchen at Iona. Keeping my hands going while the conversations rambled and ranged from sex to politics to faith to someone’s grandmother’s black forest cake recipe. I loved the routine of calling up the suppliers to the “wee island,” having to chat for a while before placing the order; getting to know the women and men on the other end of the line slowly through a bit of banter and talk about the weather and the ferry crossings.

And right now I love the routine of evenings here in Darwin, when the sun finally stops strangling all of us, dropping us into a breezy patch of shade where we can sigh a survivor’s sigh, “Whew, made it,” and celebrate the fact that our hearts didn’t explode nor our eyeballs pop out in the heat of the day.

Although I would still say that I prefer adventure to routine, these are some of the routines that give life rather than suck it dry. And for that, I am routinely grateful.

dancer's perfection

On daily headspa this week we're posting about Practice. When I think of practice and its rigors, dancing and dancers immediately spring to mind. Although dance is one of the most accessible forms of expression - one can move to the rhythm of their own drums - the art of dance is so incredibly demanding.

Who should come up in these thoughts but Michael Jackson and we have shamelessly posted about him today. Well, about practice but with MJ as a reference point. Serendipitously, it led me to a quote about practice from Martha Graham, one of the greatest names of modern dance. She said, "Practice is a mean of inviting the perfection desired."

I'd heard of her but wanted to know at least a little more and found this in the wikipedia page about her:

She invented a new language of movement, and used it to reveal the passion, the rage and the ecstasy common to human experience.

And this quote from her:

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

I'm not a dancer. Maybe I'm not even an artist. But I resonate with "a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive..."

If my art is to enjoy myself, to truly engage in this one wild, precious life (thanks, Mary Oliver) that is mine...then I invite its perfection with daily practice.

unsticking with giggles

Today on daily headspa we posted a video of some kids in Finland making sticky buns. It was about having fun with the topic of "stuck" and we were thinking sticky thoughts. But what I really loved was the giggling. Now that's a way to get unstuck. Have you giggled today?

something completely different

On Thursdays at daily headspa we aim to do something with the weekly topic, which is "stuck." Saturdays are meant to be fun, but feeling as stuck as I do I couldn't wait to have a little fun. We posted this sketch from Monty Python about two bored airplane pilots having a go at the passengers over the intercom. The post is titled after a signature phrase from the troupe - "and now for something completely different."

Do you ever feel like doing something completely different just to get yourself unstuck?

It's what I do when I'm feeling stuck sometimes, because "stuck" in my experience is usually equal to "bored." So I bust out at the seams. If I can't untie my hands, I start working with my elbows, you know what I mean?

The worst case scenario is when I'm not in a position to bust out even just a little - I let social norms restrict my bid for unstuckness and freedom from boredom.

I've been in a workshop for two days. It wouldn't have mattered much if it had been the best workshop in the universe, me sitting in a circle of people talking for two days makes me feel my entire life is on hold and I'll never break free. How many times did I want to say the stupid thing, but held back or said something sensible "for the good of the order." Meanwhile, what about my dis-order, the feeling of holding back wild horses all the time. Sigh.

The trick is to know what is completely different and socially acceptable, or at least the consequences of which are acceptable to oneself. A life's work perhaps?

stuck in the middle with you

We're blogging about being stuck at daily headspa this week. I'm feeling so stuck, I'm stuck with nothing to say about being stuck. Except that stuck sucks.

I could think about what it takes for me to get unstuck. Some of it is so passive: something needs to happen that draws me out. But that makes me feel, well, passive. And stuck.

We played tennis again today. Movement and thinking about some one thing, like this shot and that one and the next, helps me get unstuck.

Sometimes I wish I would remember the magic of movement when I'm feeling stuck and there's a pile of dishes to be done or one thing on the to-do list that could be knocked off in a few minutes. When I'm stuck, it feels like if I do anything it won't be the right thing so I wait until I know what the right thing to do is but the stuck feeling blocks my perception. Perhaps sometimes doing something is in fact the better move.

Action-reflection-action...some kind of unstuck formula in there I think.

playing at presence

Saturdays on the daily headspa blog are about playing with the theme of the week. We've posted a really great little video of some people playing on gymnastic rings set up in Venice Beach, CA (at least, that's where it looks like they are).

I love play and yet sometimes I can't figure out why people do the things they do for the sake of doing them. I have never been a "hobby" sort of person. There is something so great about losing yourself in something that is essentially non-productive. Today we played tennis. It isn't productive. I'm not going to be the next Venus Williams. It was exercise, and it produced great endorphins and a sense of well-being (and some frighteningly sore muscles that promise more pain to come). But it was really just fun.

I wasn't present at every shot. Sometimes I thought about how I'd forgotten that tennis has been part of my life for a long time. Back in the day, I took lessons at a club. And played at summer camp. And on the high school team. How can you forget all of that? So I spent some time walking to pick up a stray ball wondering about all of that, remembering those feelings. And feeling the way I used to when the sea breeze picked up back home and brought that salty sunshiney smell across the courts, just like tonight here.

Every once in a while, in the sweet spot, I was totally there. And that was good enough. For Now.

isn't it ironic

Is this ironic: this morning I was gardening and listening to a podcast about being in the present moment through meditation. I'm wondering about the irony of doing two things at once, one of which (gardening) lends itself completely to the topic of the other (meditation). So I was neither gardening nor meditating, but some other thing that is a conflagration of these. Oh my.

Being in the present moment is our topic this week at daily headspa.

present moment fireworks

On daily headspa, we're blogging this week about being in the present moment.

Today is Territory Day in the Northern Territory of Australia, a day marked with copious amounts of fireworks. You can only buy fireworks up here for the few days leading up to today. I have no idea how long people save up the cash to buy the stockpiles they do.

It's challenging to settle into the present moment with bangs coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once!

No different than thoughts, really. Not that my thoughts are as exciting as fireworks, but they are just as random and just as distracting.

I played tennis today, which is a fantastic present moment activity. I love the concentration of it. In that sweet spot moment, all is now and I'm totally present. Sweet indeed.

thinking spaces

Make a Smilebox postcard

I had fun creating this little game for the daily headspa blog. Paul posted quotes from each of the famous architects whose work is featured in the little slideshow from Smilebox.

We're talking about "the space we make" on daily headspa this week. Just before posting this, I was sitting and having a cup of tea in the lovely space we've been given to live in while we work here in Darwin. The house is on stilts, with louvred windows. Each window frames a vision of tropical green growth, somewhere half-way up the palms and right in line with the bulk of the frangiapani and mango trees. The early evening light was coming through the slats of the windows, making it all golden on the dark jarrah wood floors. Very peaceful, very lovely. It is a privilege to make this space our place for a time.

is it empty?

In the explorations of "empty" we've been doing this week at daily headspa, we've been putting empty up there as a good thing. Empty space between structures - good thing called "Ma" in Japanese. Empty space that helps you appreciate what is there when you put it back.

And I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's book "New Earth" during this week, which is all about emptying the ego and being present to the Power of Now (not incidentally the title of his other book, the one that Oprah really loves...because Oprah loves him you've probably heard lots about him but I provide the link anyway)

And (as if my brain was full enough on empty), I've been continuing to think and dream about a readers' retreat that we'll run sometime in the future.

So it all adds up to this living question: what makes this dream not an empty dream? (because an empty dream is not a positive thing in my mind)

To me, what makes this not an empty dream is what it is doing for me in the present moment, on two levels.
1. even if that particular dream in the future never becomes the now, the growing and knowing of it now is a real thing, and fulfilling
2. dreaming, and some of the anxiety it provokes (will it ever happen? am I smart enough to "make" it happen? what does the future hold for me anyway?), is an opportunity for present moment awareness if I realize what I'm doing. Awareness is the key to presence

So I'm going to bed now to dream full dreams...

oh to be empty

I would like to be empty of:
1. vague and nameless anxieties

So, I'm practicing awareness and presence. When I get those wobbly feelings, I notice them. It does seem to dissipate simply by observation. Then I get to say whether I want to hang onto them or not. And since I don't, I don't.

Well, that's the idea anyway. It does work, when I remember to do it. So I am feeling emptier.

among the many satisfying things

satisfying things in my world today:
1. a decent run for an old lady with arthritis
2. beer after run
3. the meeting ended
4. reading a good email from a friend describing how she spent her birthday beautifully
5. seeing an old friend and being reminded of a beautiful place and time

These are some of the things that keep the strangely persistent sense of gloom at bay. What on earth is that thing, anyway? It's like I can't see the forest for the trees right now or something. But these are good trees, so that is some consolation and I appreciate it.

According to buddhism we are both awakening and ignorance, not necessarily in equal measure but they do seem to slosh around together inside me in varying mixtures. Satisfaction for me has something to do with getting that mix to be lean enough to run smoothly. Clearer, cleaner mindfulness with less ignorance. In each moment, I adjust as I am able.

so I rambling into Saturday night...

complete satisfaction

I am completely satisfied with the dinner I just ate: leftover potato salad, haloumi cheese, beer.
I am completely satisfied with the meeting I just attended: turns out there are many more people opposed to the new marina development that will destroy a gorgeous section of mangroves than for it: that is satisfying to me and the process of community consultation is satisfying.
I am completely satisfied with the card we got in the mail from a dear friend today. Love snail mail (this card actually had a picture of a banana slug on it, but close enough.)
I am completely satisfied with a busy day coming to a quiet close. One more meeting tonight at 8:00 p.m. and then off to..
I am completely satisfied with the new mattress I bought yesterday.

May your list of complete satisfactions be long...

no satisfaction

In actual fact, I don't know what was satisfying today. I'm supposed to be posting about one satisfying thing in my day to go along with our "satisfaction" topic at daily headspa this week. Today's post over there was "no satisfaction" and that rather fits my day.

It was a day of doing things that needed to be done - US taxes, sorting out some other money things, buying new mattresses because every day on the old ones we wake up more tired than the last. We had a chance to talk through a project at work with a colleague. That was good.

Of course I am grateful to have the money to buy those mattresses; to have money to sort out; to have earned money on which to pay taxes. I'm grateful to have been able to do things - health, safety, abilities intact.

But what was doing all of that stuff satisfying?

What would have been satisfying?
1. completing a project - oh, wait, I did mail off an article that was due today so right on time
2. creating something beautiful
3. laughing with a friend
4. reaping some reward from a previous effort
5. solving a puzzle
6. discovering somewhere
7. making something myself so I can unhook a bit more from the money trap

the satisfying thing today? being satisfied with no satisfaction.

self satisfied?

Our post at daily headspa looking closely at the notion of self-satisfaction has me wondering if my entry here today ought to be about something I'm satisfied with in myself today. Or is that too hard to claim?

I'll give it a try.

I am satisfied with the way I clarified something in a meeting today at work. Instead of letting a questionable assumption about who was going to do what just hang there, when I could feel it was muddying the waters (mine at least) I spoke up. Like I would probably have experienced in many other (most?) workplaces, I felt a real pressure to let it slide and not show my ignorance. But I figured it was better to clear it up now then when expectations aren't met down the road or I step on somebody's turf by accident. I feel satisfied with myself for braving it.

Whew. That's it then.

satisfaction 101

We're blogging about satisfaction at daily headspa this week. I'm going to think about it everyday...and write about each day's little (or big) satisfactions here. Whatcha got? You can join in!

Today's satisfaction: canoeing the mangroves with our friend Bill.

Later in the week I'm hoping to attend a meeting to learn more about a proposed development that will build over/eliminate the particular area of this distinctive ecosystem where I was canoeing today. I am going to dream tonight of how sweet the satisfaction would be if that development plan was stopped by the power of the people.

Because today it was so incredibly satisfying to look at trees from the angle of gliding over the top of them in salt water. I mean, is this not the most amazing plant in the world? Well, pretty amazing anyway. Or what about the satisfaction of spotting that kingfisher amongst the branches and leaves? Or fairy gliding the canoe on the outgoing tide to take us across the river back to the landing? Or watching and waiting to see if that flock of red tailed black cockatoos would really fly right over the top of us. Or the sound of the splash when the sting ray jumped and only Bill saw it.

The satisfaction of knowing that this world amongst the mangroves has nothing to do with me, the human. It is its own world and is intrinsically meaningful because it exists not because someday it might be a marina. Maybe saving this place will be as complicated as finding our way out of the tangle of trees this morning, but it would be very satisfying indeed.