Author: bondjanet

“I love you for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart, and passing over all the foolish, weak things that you can’t help dimly seeing there, and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful belongings that no one else had looked quite far enough to find.” (”Ich liebe Dich” by Erich Fried)

There is, temporarily at least, an awesome spider web suspended across our livingroom window — glinting rainbows suspended on silvery threads that stir ever so slightly in the morning breeze. Not having seen its construction, I’m puzzled by two messy-looking segments directly above and below each other. Unlike the uncannily precise lines radiating around the rest of the web, one segment in particular has threads that crisscross each other like untidy shoe-laces. This, in turn, reminds me of last week’s blog that I concluded with: “Only Connect”.

Since writing that piece I had something of an epiphany. I had been thinking in terms of connections between people, and how one needs to weave a web of friendships that help withstand the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. But subsequent readings and reflections revealed that the single most important connection I can have is with my innermost self. My inner guru, as it were.

Because I was experiencing a peculiar sense of disorientation and upheaval (read: pervasive anxiety) during a hectic trip to Vancouver, I undertook to center myself with readings on equanimity in Sharon Salzberg’s Lovingkindness. The following reminded me of navigating the city:

“Most of the time, our hearts and minds respond to the ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows by careening back and forth, over and over again, between elation and despair, the violent movement for and against what our experience is. Or we respond with denial in its many manifestations: indifference, repression, not noticing, muffled anxiety, feeling disconnected.” (italics mine)

Salzberg observes that this “violent movement for and against” our experience arises from a need to control the uncontrollable, and offers a consolation, of sorts, in the humble acceptance of “what is”:

“As we begin to understand this, we move from a mode of struggling to control what comes into our lives into a mode of simply wishing to truly connect with what is. This is a radical shift in worldview.”

My radical shift in world view was liberating. While in the city I witnessed so many instances of suffering that, at first, I couldn’t wait to escape to the solitude of the mountains. But my inner guru realized that, rather than an escape, what I needed was a way to embrace events unfolding around me, unflinchingly, as in Emily Bronte’s “No coward soul is mine.”

No coward soul herself, Salzberg continues: “When we become willing to experience everything, the confidence and certainty we once sought by denying change we can find by embracing it. We learn to relate to life fully, including the insecurity.”

I was reminded of one astonishing way to embrace insecurity when I re-joined an eclectic group of ocean-swimmers dubbed the “Jericho Dolphins”, for their Saturday morning swim. Water temperature 14C degrees. The only criteria for inclusion in the group, as far as I could tell, was the willingness (some would say foolhardiness) to expose oneself to the elements with a daily — as in year-round — ocean swim. While I wore an entirely inadequate 1.5mm wetsuit top, (I left my flippers at home, deeming them “uncool”) I observed the only concession a few swimmers made for the frigid temperature was some neoprene bathing caps that I sincerely wished I had on hand.

But these are not fool-hardy people. Very accomplished in their various fields, they bring not only a wealth of education and training, (in Cold Water Immersion, among other things) but something equally valuable to an ordinary layperson: the compassion, empathy, sympathetic joy and equanimity that Fried is describing in his poem. Each in their own time and way has shared their hopes and disappointments, challenges and victories, joys and sorrows, and all have found healing in that vast, impartial ocean. And in the support and camaraderie of an exceptional pod of “dolphins”.

On this particular morning, I too experienced that healing power. With one patient swimmer holding back to accompany me, I fell far behind the others. Through blurry goggles I could pick out their fluorescent Swim Buddies (inflatable buoys that alert boats etc. to their presence) as they rounded a small barge in the near distance. My heart sank when they looped back towards me, only to head for another ’goalpost’ in the form of a blue boat, with talk of further markers beyond that. An inner voice warned me that I was figuratively (if not soon literally) in over my head, so I called out to the others that I needed to turn back for shore. The ocean swallowed up my voice, so I hesitated in a limbo of not knowing which way to go. Then, as in an actual pod of dolphins, a swimmer looped back to check on me. Giving me her Swim Buddy, she accompanied me right to the beach, then waited (like Flipper, I imagine) until I’d walked steadily back to the club, and then swam effortlessly off to join the others.

Later, in the hot tub and locker room, there were friendly ’debriefings’, including the messy bits of our lives, like the wonky segments of the spider web. And some good-natured teasing, about my “accessorizing” with a half-wetsuit, among other things. Even some tough love: “it’ll be what it’ll be” one swimmer sagely, but kindly, commented when I’d shared a particular problem.

In sum, I went home with a renewed sense of capability, of having done the thing, as Eleanor Roosevelt would say, that I thought I couldn’t do. Along with renewed determination to embrace the changes, unknowns and opportunities ahead of me.

And equally determined to get myself a fancy 4/3mm wetsuit and Swim Buddy before I ever take that particular plunge again!

“The world is too much with us, late and soon…” William Wordsworth

Getting around the city of Vancouver now freaks me out. It didn’t use to. Of course, it doesn’t help that my eyesight has declined dramatically since last I drove anything but a golf cart. (And no, I don’t actually golf). Thankfully, I do have glasses, so they’ll have to do until cataract surgery comes to the rescue. But really, cataract surgery? What is my world coming to?

The fact remains that, after so many months huddled away in safe, (aka small, out-of-the-way) places, the task of navigating the “new normal” in the city where I’ve lived for thirty plus years is daunting. Nightmarishly so. The unfamiliarity of even regular haunts has shaken my confidence greatly. A simple visit to a go-to restaurant requires us to mask up, provide proof of vaccines, a picture ID, and then dine in a plexiglass cubby that reminds me of the carrels at Cameron Library back at university. Of course it becomes routine after the first couple of days (or weeks, in my case), but a part of me rebels at the idea that this is now what passes for routine. Where’s the fun in it?

Places that already intimidate me — medical and dental clinics, hospitals, labyrinthine parking lots, are made more so by the new protocols. One has to wind one’s way around stanchions (a word I’ve just learned) like those at an airport; follow the yellow arrows marked “in” for one door and “out” for another; sit or stand on this spot and not on that; sanitize hands; get temperature checked; don designated masks. Yesterday at the doctors’ office the greeter? gate-keeper? instructed me to throw out my mask and replace it with a strikingly similar one of hers. Seriously?

After my appointment, in a streak of rebellion, I ’followed’ the arrows backwards and triumphantly walked out the “in” doors to where my hubby was waiting in the car. Nobody came after me. There was nobody within fifty feet. It felt like I’d successfully robbed a bank. Simple pleasures. Aside from this small victory though, I find it hard to see any humour in what passes for daily interactions. But life is rife with absurdity.

After meticulously following the numerous instructions necessary to get a coffee at the corner café, we wandered outside to sit at a table that hadn’t been wiped since Joe Who was prime minister. There was, however, a charming centerpiece — a bottle of hand sanitizer. Guess it’s a “clean-your-own-table” kinda place. And then, after running the gauntlet to visit the doctor’s office I head out into a street blocked by a mob of shouting, sign-toting anti-vaxx-anti-masking-ex-essential-health-care workers defending their right to spread — if not COVID variants C,D and E, then a vitriolic chorus of “THIS IS NOT THE LAND OF THE FREE!” or some such rhetoric. Join the club.

But that’s not the topic of this blog. I just got sidetracked – as the ancient Greeks would say – on my way to the Agora. Actually the expression goes “a funny thing happened on my way to the Agora”, but, as I said earlier, I fail to see the humour in the forty-eight hours I spent in the city. So instead, what struck me as an important theme is a strategy for putting the “hum” back in the “drum” of redundant daily activities. If Martha Stewart can establish an empire out of domestic drudgery, I think I should be able to leaven the heck out of vaccination passports that somehow can’t be had, despite dutifully having gotten vaxxed. And when was “vaxxed” even a word? My nemesis, aka spellcheck, didn’t bat a digital eye at it.

In sum, I think I’m having an existential crisis. As with all of COVID-19, I have to admit that I also didn’t see this coming. I cooked and baked my way to fifteen extra pounds while sheltering-at-home for the first blurry months of the pandemic. I hobby-gardened, played ukelele (badly), took virtual classes, zoom-talked, taught yoga and blogged (but drew the line at getting a dog). And as I said, I got vaxxed. And I thought that would be that. We’d all learn something positive to take away from this weird blip in human history and then we’d GET ON WITH IT, ALREADY.

So I started reading about existential crises and came up with a quote from philosopher Blaise Pascal:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

I don’t know where to go with that. I don’t know anyone who has spent more time in a room alone than everyone-I-know has this past year and a half. However, I found a faint beam of light in the following comment by Thomas Ligotti: “Without meaning-charged emotions keeping your brain on the straight and narrow, you would lose your balance and fall into an abyss of lucidity.”

I’m not entirely sure what he means by this, but it points to a significant component of the human experience: meaning-making. Every thinking human being has got to find reasons to get up in the morning. Reasons, or meaning, for why we do what we do. And these reasons need enough emotional investment to power us through the actual doing. I went swimming this morning because I know the exercise calms and clears my mind. I took a chai tea and housewarming gift to an ailing friend because it made us both feel better; I cooked a healthy dinner, and shared half of it with my neighbor because I could relate to her uber-busy day. I posted a photo on WhatsApp and enjoyed a lively chat about recipes, as much for the connectivity as for ideas of what to eat. And now I’m blogging a kind of message-in-a-bottle to anyone who, like me, needs people. Needs relationships that give life heart and meaning. And to whom one can reach out after a couple of hairy, new-normal days in the big city. Sorry Mr. Pascal; I disagree. Sitting quietly alone in a room ain’t for me.

Which leads me to conclude this blog with the epigram of E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End:

                 “Only Connect”. 

Please do. Me to me. You to you. You to me and me to you. And lots of other people, too. We’re counting on you.

“Sometimes life guides us and sometimes we take life by the horns. But one thing is for sure, no matter how well organized we are, or how well we plan, we can always expect the unexpected.” (Brandon Jenner)

The other morning I watched a squirrel dangling head down from a branch of the fir tree outside my window, adeptly dislodging cones that made a loud plonk on the metal roof of the shed below before bouncing to the ground, from whence this industrious rodent could properly deconstruct them and “squirrel” their seeds (pun intended) away for the winter. Meanwhile, from the comfort of my bed, I wanted nothing to do with the coming colder months.

Witnessing this squirrel’s intensity of purpose prompted me to consider how proactive I am about preparing for what lies ahead, on so many levels. While I wasn’t exactly a ’dab hand’ at earning Brownie badges, I seem to have adopted their motto: “Be Prepared” to a fault. “Be Prepared” as in imagining the worst case scenarios and making contingency plans for the latter. (If not also creating self-fulfilling prophesies.)

In practical terms that translates, for example, to having everything from bandaids to antihistamines to two pair of goggles, a couple of bathing caps, a tube of defogger, a UV shirt, a ball cap and perhaps roll-up visor, at least two pair of sunglasses — for bright and dull light — and for the past nineteen months, a couple of masks that get coated with sand and sunscreen, oh, yes, a tube of sunscreen or two in my beach bag, in addition to a separate bag holding my flippers and snorkel gear, and perhaps a 1.5 ml wetsuit top, hood and gloves, depending on the time of year. Oh. And also a change of clothes in case I emerge from the pool, lake, or ocean feeling cold.

All this preparation prompted one of my swim buddies to recommend I hire a gear sherpa, a caddie who could hand me the right piece of gear to help get myself in-and-out of the water expediently. (She also couldn’t resist pointing out that, despite these contingency plans, I never seem to have a swim cap that stays on, or swim goggles that don’t leak or fog.) I was crushed. To think of it — I’ll never get a latent Browie badge for swim-preparedness, despite my best efforts. This being the case, what does it say about how prepared I am for the changes brought on by my current age and stage. The winter, as it were, of my life?

Some of you, dear readers, may be slightly ahead, or behind me on this aging trajectory, (or not even in the same ballpark, in which case you can stop reading) and you may have varying degrees of command over your faculties, but ultimately all of us are confronted with our mortality. Autumn presents me with this reality more so than even my birthdays, because it coincides with other endings that I lament keenly. The carefree days of summer fun with children, and now grandchildren, segue into school schedules, homework-that’s-way-above-my-pay-grade, and a plethora of extracurricular activities. Aka less and less time to spare for me! You’d think I’d be past all that by the time I was seventy. And I am. To a large degree. But as a veteran mother and now grandmother, my mental calendar-keeper is still traumatized by September. Also June and December. Like my bushy-tailed neighbor, aka squirrel, if you just tuned in, I get a little frantic about planning for the coming winter ’famine’.

But I see a message in the glorious yellow maple leaves falling languidly to the ground, across the deck from me. The tree cannot resist this annual shedding of its finery any more than I can resist the inevitable decline in my memory, reflexes and energy. The clouds drifting across the robin’s-egg-blue sky cannot resist the motion of the wind. Or the mountains resist the coming coating of snow.

But there is one advantage that I have, which is to exercise my power of choice. The capacity to choose my attitude to whatever is happening. Accept “what is” and perhaps recruit my imagination to make the changes as positive as possible.

I can lament summer’s end, or embrace “soup and sweater” weather. I seldom crave a hearty stew any time from June to September, but nothing whets my appetite better than a slow-cooked beef daube on a rainy weekend in November. Just as the seasons of the calendar bring with them certain welcome pleasures, so too there are seasons of my life that offer both consolation (for my figurative loss of leaves), and hint at new discoveries just out of reach. Unexpected encounters, adventures, invitations and ideas that might come into my life at any time. The kinds of changes that I would welcome, instead of hiding under the covers from.

So for the time being, I’ve revised my “be prepared” motto to “expect the unexpected”. A variation of “plan for the worst and hope for the best”, only without devoting too much time to the planning and instead investing energy in best-case scenarios. Or simply believing, as in the old Beatles hit ”Let It Be”…“There will be an answer, let it be-ee.”

P.S. I almost dropped a very loud F-bomb when the third unsolicited political-candidate-call interrupted the writing of this blog on ’expecting the unexpected’. Oh, the irony…

E’onipa’a…i ka ’imi na’auao (Queen Lili’uokalani)
“Be steadfast in the seeking of knowledge.”

The other day, September 2nd, marked the birthday of the last (and only female) reigning monarch of Hawaïi, Queen Lili’uokalani. This tidbit was posted on Instagram by Kona Bike Works, and my hubby helpfully sent notice of it to me, thinking I might find her, and her motto, an interesting topic for this week’s blog. After some research into her life and works, I felt inspired to do justice to a Queen who has, in the West, become little more than a footnote, or Instagram post, in Hawaïian history. Not so for present-day Hawaiians. With a little investigation I came to realize that the Western translation of Lili’uokalani’s motto, that of being steadfast in the pursuit of knowledge, does not do credit to the broader meanings embedded in her message. Or their continuing relevance to the people of Hawaïi.

For one thing, her motto was penned at a time of great personal duress: after only two years on the throne, Lili’uokalani was forced to abdicate her queendom and country to the unilateral — and some would say illegal — annexation of the Hawaïian islands by the United States. When certain Hawaiians raised an insurrection, the Queen was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years of hard labor in prison. This was soon commuted to nearly a year of house arrest. Still, it was a dramatic fall from grace, by any standards. 

This is not the place to comment on those historic events, but I was fascinated to learn how Lili’uokalani persisted in a quest to recover her sovereignty, and how, even under such adverse circumstances, she led a productive, purposeful life that left a lasting legacy for the people of Hawaïi. She wrote a great number of songs and poems, notably “Aloha ’Oe” or “Farewell to Thee”, which has become a common cultural symbol, and authored an autobiography Hawaïi’s Story by Hawaïi’s Queen. 

Written during her imprisonment, the book documents the course of events that led to her overthrow, and, together with Aloha ‘Oe, has become an unofficial rallying cry of the current sovereignty movement in Hawaïi. Among other things, her efforts contributed — in part — to a posthumous apology from the U.S. government. In the 1993 Apology Resolution, it was acknowledged that “the native Hawaïian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands…” (Wikipedia). 

What is significant to me about all of this is the message of conviction and persistence that is embedded in Lili’uokalani’s songs and letters, and especially in her motto: “E’onipa’a…i ka ’imi na’auao.” To better understand her message, I was compelled to delve more deeply into the actual language the Queen used to express her views:

“Onipaʻa” is a combination of “oni”, or “to shift”, and “pa’a”, which means “to set solid”. Literally translated, then, onipa’a means “fixed movement”. Seemingly an oxymoron, this concept was explained metaphorically by one Hawaiian source as the seaweed that clings firmly to the rocks below, and yet sways to and fro with the current’s ebb and flow. It could be interpreted as Lili’uokalani’s steadfast belief in the rightness of her cause, as well as her resilience to ride out the era’s shifting political currents. In sum, she had the courage of her convictions, but was also willing to listen and learn, which is a skill-set which we could all use, and which relates to the latter half of her motto: “’Imi na’auao”. 

According to one description: “‘Imi na’auao’ means to seek enlightenment, wisdom and education. The quest for knowledge and enlightenment is an essential factor to get you where you want to go and reach your goals!” (Sep. 14, 2011, Jon Kimoto – KS Blogs). 

Hence the oversimplified translation of Lili’uokalani’s motto might expand the “search for knowledge” to include a “quest for enlightenment, wisdom and education” which, again, are values one might well embrace. 

I may be guilty of cultural appropriation, but to me a broader view of Queen Lili’uokalani’s motto might read: “be grounded in one’s core beliefs and values, yet remain open to new information and interpretation, in the pursuit of enlightenment, wisdom and understanding”. And, I might add, “with an openness to other ways of knowing”. I have always been drawn to investigate the complexities of the Hawaiian culture and language, to explore the deeper meanings embedded in simple expressions like “aloha ’oe”, “onipa’a”, and “’imi na’auao”. These deeper meanings point to Indigenous ways of relating to the world within and around them, so that an understanding of the latter might inform my Western-oriented education, and expand my POV. 

Author Lilian “Na’ia” Alessa addresses the dichotomy between Western, scientific ways of knowing, and the traditional, intuitive wisdom of Indigenous cultures: “Western science and Indigenous worldviews are often seen as incompatible, with the Indigenous view usually being far less valued by society at large. But an inside look at Indigenous ways of knowing shows that they offer unique and dependable insights, in precisely the areas where Western science is often weakest.”  

She continues: “Western science excels at unraveling the unseen — our medical technology a testament to this precision — while traditional knowledge reveals the dynamics of larger systems, particularly animals, plants, and habitats, and the wisdom of our place among them.”

It comes as no surprise to me that my Western education was lacking in some key ingredients. After several years of studying Western psychology, I noted that the latter made no mention of a soul journey, or the evolution of consciousness, which is why I long ago gravitated to Eastern psychology, philosophy and spirituality. Though not conclusive in the way that scientific experiments and results can (usually) be universally replicated, the Eastern approaches to the mysteries of our existence point to an inward journey, and to being one’s own laboratory. Not to do so risks living according to our instincts, or cultural conditioning. Neither of which lead to anything but a caricature of ourselves, a weak intimation of what we have the potential to be.  I’d rather embrace Queen Lili’uokalani’s philosophy, in hopes that my legacy will inspire and motivate people to remain steadfast in their search for enlightenment, and reclaim sovereignty over their own “life territory”. 

P.S. I was going to reward myself with a chocolate peanut butter cup when this blog was done, but I ate it half way through. Maybe even closer to the beginning…

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.” (Richard Carlson)

Years ago, a mother’s helper taught our grandchildren a game called “Rose; Thorn; Bud”. (She also taught them how to do the “Fork Wave”, but I’ll save that for another day.) The “rose” represents something you want to savour about your day. The “bud” represents something you learned, and the “thorn” stands for something that you would prefer not to have happened. I like to think of the thorn as something that made me dig a little deeper, as actual thorns or slivers often do, perhaps to discover a bud — aka learn something — if not find a silver (or rose-y) lining.

On family holidays we often play this game at the dinner table — with everyone participating — which gives us all a snapshot of each other’s day. Occasionally during the day I’d overhear one of the grandchildren say: “This is my rose.. “(thorn, or bud, depending on what’s happening in the moment) as if to remind themselves of what they would later share at the table.

I thought of that game earlier today, on a boat ride with a few somewhat overactive grandchildren. To put it mildly. The word “thorn” came to mind as I witnessed their juvenile antics, (also “wine”, “beer” and “Prozac”) so that, as soon as we docked, I promptly drove home to collect my thoughts and write about not sweating (I typo-ed “swearing”) the small stuff!

But at the same time, I was reminded of a comment my eldest grand-daughter made when I asked her to suggest a topic for this week’s blog. She had just seen a film in which the protagonist was re-living the same day over and over again (surprisingly, it wasn’t Groundhog Day — one of my favorites) until he or she learned to appreciate the small things in life. Her suggestion was to write about paying better attention to the small things. Coming from a fifteen-year-old who lives with some of those excitable tykes, this struck me as the perfect occasion to take her advice. There was so much more to savor on that boat ride besides the clamour of four boisterous youngsters.

The choppy ripples of the sage-green lake spangled with sunshine too bright for my eyes. The extravagant plume of water spraying up behind a speeding jet-ski. A cloudless French-blue sky crisscrossed with helicopters and float plane traffic. The undulating fringe of evergreen trees skirting the gray shale and dirty snow of Armchair glacier. Even the gassy smell of exhaust as we slowed the boat through the no-wake zone was redolent of so many summer days spent on or by the lake, any lake. Soaking in all these sights and sounds; alternately feeling the stiff breeze on the water and the still heat of the dock; enjoying all the sensations that will fade in a couple of months; accepting all the pluses and minuses of a well-spent summer.

In no time I had forgotten the irritations of the boat ride and was plunging into preparations for a big family dinner. Something I take great satisfaction in, despite the chaotic way it is consumed at the table. The advice to appreciate the small things compelled me to pay closer attention to the dinner setting; a centerpiece of pedestal candles alternating with random bits of greenery from the garden, arranged in an odd assortment of small vases, made the table eccentrically festive.

The important priority, as it has always been, was gathering and “breaking bread” with the family. A second priority has run parallel with the first, and is that of tracking my footprints in what I call leading an examined life. In fact, the point of the latter has been to better relate with the former. To lead by example. To establish a spiritual practice and gather tools like the rose-thorn-bud game, that better enable me to deal with the everyday challenges of life in family and community.

With respect, then, for family and community, it behooves me to set standards and expectations about how I want to behave, decide what kind of person I want to be, what sort of legacy I want to leave. More often than not, it is in the small things that I most practice what I preach. Because, as Richard Carlson would say, most of my time is taken up with the small stuff. But that small stuff gradually adds up to a sort of living legacy, one that will testify to the integrity of my beliefs.

In a book called “What Does It Mean to be Human” (Franck, Roze, Connolly), Arthur Lang, a noted sociologist and author, shares his belief in leading an examined life: “To live is to write one’s credo, every day, in every act. I pray for a world that offers us each the gift of reflective space, the Sabbath quiet, to recollect the fragments of our days and acts. In these recollections we may see a little of how our lives affect others and then imagine, in the days ahead, how we might do small and specific acts that create a world we believe every person has a right to deserve.”

After all, to quote from the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not all right, it’s not yet the end.”

(Except in this case, which is the end of this blog on not sweating, but actually savoring the small things…)

“Everything, not just some things – but everything – is workable”.
(Pema Chödrön)

A couple of decades ago I volunteered at Covenant House, a half-way hostel for street youth, located near Vancouver’s downtown east side, or DTES as it is known in social working circles. “One of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods, the DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues including disproportionately high levels of drug use, homelessness, poverty, crime, mental illness and sex work.” (Wikipedia) Yikes.

Along with a friend and fellow yoga student, my role was to run a weekly crafts program for the teens temporarily residing at the center. One option we offered was journaling, surprise surprise, as a way to help the youth vent their feelings and perhaps process some of the many stresses that are endemic to life on the street. One youth, a well-spoken and seemingly highly intelligent teen, described how he came to be staying at Covenant House. His dad and step-mother had moved him and his much younger half-siblings onto an isolated country property, survivalist-style, where he lacked a social context or stimulation for his brighter-than-average mind. He explained: “One day I just got so frustrated that I took my computer outside and blasted it with my twelve-gauge. After that my parents didn’t think my siblings were safe, so they sent me away.” Okaaay…

At a loss for words after hearing this ’confession’, I can’t now remember how I extracted myself from the conversation, but the incident left a profound impression. As a mother, and would-be youth counsellor, I felt unequipped to offer the support I felt this troubled teen needed.

Thereafter, I set out to better prepare myself for dealing with such emotionally challenging situations. Laterally, I learned the balanced breathing exercises that I sorely wished I could’ve offered to that alienated youth. At the time, I certainly could have used such a practice to settled my agitated mind! From a friend who practiced mediation and conflict resolution, I learned of another effective technique that follows these guidelines:

1. Give each person the time and space to express their feelings without interruption, advice or judgment.
2. Acknowledge that each individual has a right to their feelings, whatever they may be.
3. Once an individual knows he or she has been heard, and acknowledged, the emotional memory can be more easily dissipated, and the individuals themselves can be recruited to find novel solutions, or options for going beyond their current problems.

I call this “going meta”.

Wikipedia explains the term as follows: “Meta (from the Greek μετα-, meta-, meaning “after” or “beyond”) is a prefix meaning more comprehensive or transcending.”

Another definition that appealed to me reads: “People talk about “going meta” as upleveling, stepping out of something to observe it, typically because there’s something unresolved at the lower level.”
(Jeremy E. Sherman, “Everything You Can Do, You Can Do Meta| Psychology Today Canada”, January 8, 2020)

What is often at the “lower level” is a perception, bias or story that frames the situation in a certain way, and fails to consider the bigger picture, or enquire into what details might be missing. Including an exploration of how these biases and prejudices came about in the first place — Sherman’s “something unresolved at a lower level”. Though it sounds convoluted, going meta about one’s preconceived thoughts and ideas is a practice of thinking about thinking. In yoga we are encouraged to question how and why we think what we think; asking ourselves “how do I know this is so?”, and “is this idea authentic to me, or did I take it on blind faith from other sources or people? Is it part of my past conditioning, and, if so, can I move beyond all that?”

Depending on how hard and fast I hold on to an opinion or belief, it can take a tremendous effort to let go, stay open and receive new information, particularly if the latter contradicts something to which I have formed a strong emotional attachment. Which is why, as in the case of the homeless youth, I find it vital to bring in a spiritual practice. Find some way to dissipate the emotional energy that could be blocking my capacity to see clearly and respond calmly. As suggested in previous blogs, journaling and balanced breathing are two invaluable tools that anyone can use to become less emotionally invested in a particular answer or agenda.

Why is this important?

Because it is our best hope of freeing ourselves from an endless circle of cause and effect, a cycle of knee-jerk reactions or unrealistic expectations predicated on an unexamined past.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche explains it thus:

“This kind of freedom cannot be created by an outsider or some superior authority. One must develop the ability to know the situation. In other words, one has to develop a panoramic awareness, an all-pervading awareness, knowing the situation at that very moment. It is a question of knowing the situation and opening one’s eyes to that very moment of nowness, and this is not particularly a mystical experience or anything mysterious at all, but just direct, open and clear perception of what is now.”

It is this open and clear perception that gives us what Eckhart Tollé calls “the Power of Now”. The power to respond to people and situations, no matter the provocation, with clarity and patience.

And leave the twelve-gauge on the shelf.

“Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold,”

(T. S. Eliot, “Two Choruses from ‘The Rock,’” The Waste Land and Other Poems)

The other afternoon a friend and I went for a standup paddle on Green Lake (a glacier-fed lake that is actually swim-able after such a warm summer) in the now 34C degree heat. So much for my freezing feet! Armored up with a water bottle, SPF 30, a UV shirt that I soaked before we set out, a big floppy hat and sunglasses; I felt happy and refreshed after a leisurely paddle. With the hat flapping down around my eyes, I had only limited vision as I climbed up the steep path that leads from the lake to the street. As I picked my way carefully up the irregular stone steps, the thought occurred to me that “one step at a time” was a good mantra to repeat as I transition into life in B.C. Not gonna lie, the first couple of days of cold and rain, and the general strangeness, had me itching to get back to the place that, for the past nine months, felt familiar and safe. But we don’t grow where we are too complacent. At least, I don’t.

Prodded on by a need to feel productive and engaged (didn’t I write a blog about that harsh inner taskmaster?) and needing some sense of direction, I’ve been pondering my next steps with a greater-than-necessary sense of urgency. It may even be a character flaw, this need to be occupied and achieving – if not great things – then at least something that justifies my existence. Something that ticks the boxes, or answers the perennial question of “what am I doing with my life”? In my usual manner, I went searching for a clue as to what my next steps could, should, or ought to be.

In what struck me as fortuitous, even serendipitous, I came upon two readings that addressed these existential questions. In today’s Daily Om blog, Madsyn Taylor wrote: “When our next best course of action seems unclear, any dilemmas we face can appear insurmountable.”

She then suggests: “The first step in overcoming any obstacle is to believe that it can be overcome. Doing so will give you the strength and courage to move through any crisis. The second step is to make a resolution that you can prevail over any chaos. Enlist your support network of family and friends if necessary.”

Ironically, my “network of family” is the chaos, more often than not! And, historically, I have always thrived on it. However, after months of relative isolation I struggle to get into the rhythm of life outside the bubble that was Hawaïi. Though hardly a crisis, this first week in B.C. has been disorienting. A part of me wants to crawl into a cave and integrate any changes that I see in myself and my surroundings, to reflect on what has become clear to me, as Walt Whitman would have me do, since last I was in this ’country’.

To sum up Taylor’s column, the advice I gleaned was similar to something my indomitable mother used to say: “Do something…even if it’s wrong.” Though this is strikingly similar to what I encouraged my would-be writer friends to do in last week’s blog, and while in my books doing something is infinitely preferable to doing nothing, Swami Radha, in Time to be Holy offers a different POV:

“When you go through times of difficulty, it is necessary to sit back and wait. Don’t act” … “Even if you have to hold on by your teeth, your fingertips, or your toenails – just hold on. Wait.”

Swami Radha is referring to the difficulties one encounters when trying to lead an examined life, what she calls cooperating with one’s evolution of consciousness. And she believes that tracking one’s footprints is the best way to achieve that evolution. It is tempting to abandon such a contemplative path and simply engage with the shifting circumstances and developments of the everyday. And indeed we must do that too. But the Swami would have us do so with a view to responding, versus reacting to whatever happens. She would have us understand how our choices and actions have affected the world around us, so we could adjust or change our trajectory, if necessary. And she would have us resonate with something that transcends the mundane. Our spiritual journey, as it were.

In reference to the “getting and spending” (as William Wordsworth would say) that preoccupies so much of Western life, Swami Radha writes: “That’s the question that is always there. You always have to go a step further, and ask, “And then what? What happens after I have that? What is the next step?” Indeed!

Having reflected on what these esteemed writers have to say, I’ve concluded that, no matter how credible the authority, the responsibility to choose my next steps ultimately falls to me. One authority might have me act, and the other might advise me to wait patiently for the path to be revealed to me. Fantasy artist James Christensen describes it thus: “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” (James Christensen, The Art of James Christensen: A Journey of the Imagination)

It is through tracking my footprints in my journal that I can see where my past choices — or visions — have led me, and only by taking my next steps carefully, as I did climbing those stone steps up from the lake, can I avoid making unnecessary mistakes. No doubt mistakes will be made, anyway; nobody’s perfect. The key is to reflect on the latter, along with any victories, and continue building on a combination of action and reflection that is informed by a vision of who I might become. One step at a time. Satisfied that I have sufficient light to secure the next foothold.

I just wish I had a better flashlight…

“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind – you are the one who hears it.” (Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself)

The other night as I was exhorting my two dinner companions to “just do it” — just commence the writing projects we’d talked about when last we met, I had the sudden thought: “Yikes! Today is Thursday” (which in fact it was not — it was still Wednesday) “and I haven’t made any progress on my blog! I haven’t even started it yet! I have no clue what to write about”. And thus the maniac in my mind started winding me up. The very thing that had inhibited my friends from getting on with their projects was exposed as the voice that tries to sabotage my own progress.

I had advised my friends not to wait for inspiration, but rather to sit down with pen in hand (or computer, tablet or iPad), and note down whatever came to mind about what they were hoping to achieve. Which is what I’m now doing. Not because it’s particularly brilliant or refined or enlightened, but because it’s the only way I can get past the mental guard at the gate of my creativity. This guard or obstacle is what Michael Singer calls our inner roommate, or “maniac inside”, the part of the psyche with which most of us identify and on whose commands and opinions we most rely. At our peril.

So how does one “hear the maniac and do it anyway”? In discussing this with some other friends I learned about the term “energy activation barrier”:

“Imagine waking up on a day when you have lots of fun stuff planned. Does it ever happen that, despite the exciting day that lies ahead, you need to muster some extra energy to get yourself out of bed? Once you’re up, you can coast through the rest of the day, but there’s a little hump you have to get over to reach that point.” (”Activation energy article”, Khan Academy)

Now quadruple that effort when you don’t have lots of fun stuff planned…

Newton’s 1st law of motion also relates to this effort: “If a body is at rest then it will remain at rest unless it is acted upon by an outside force”. Therefore, the cause of inertia is resistance because an object resists changing its state of motion [or rest].” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

In simple terms, most humans resist change. The more a habit or routine becomes comfortable, even mechanical, the more strongly (however unconsciously) we resist changing it. This could be a habit of constant movement and activity, never staying still or reflecting on our actions. Or it could be a tendency to remain rooted to the spot. Heels dug in. Not budging. As it is in physical states of energy, so it is in our mental, emotional, and dare I say spiritual, states. Regardless of how strongly we may desire to shift out of our current patterns, the inertia of our habitual way of being in the world has the pull of a very strong magnet. It’s not my imagination that it gets harder and harder to start a blog as time goes on. Each blog I write is an exercise in transcending the maniac in my mind that says “It’s a waste of time. I’ve got nothing to say. Nobody reads it anyway.” This could well be the case. But my experience with breaking previous energy activation barriers, such as transcending my resistance to swimming in the ocean after a shark incident, or biking on the Queen K Highway, anytime, has taught me that to “just do it” is the only way to get through it.

Knowing that this tendency is not exclusive to me, that it is in fact universal, even scientifically proven, gives me the incentive to set goals that require barrier-breaking motivation and determination. Because they’re there. Knowing I would run into a heap of resistance to the idea of blogging for fifty-two weeks in a row was sufficient motivation to “feel the resistance and do it anyway”. And now I must leap over another barrier which is that of being jet-lagged and disoriented after a nine month ’sabbatical’. As foreshadowed last week, today’s blog is coming to you from Whistler, where it is currently 14 degrees C to Kalaoa’s (Kona, HI) 26 degrees C., and the skies here are a moisture-laden grey. This is a cause for celebration; I’m grateful that these cooler temperatures and rain may help douse the fires that are burning throughout B.C. But my feet are freezing.

In truth, the abrupt change in climate, altitude, surroundings and routine (or lack thereof) are creating an inertia that’s derailing my attempts at writing. But I’m not going to listen to the voice that suggests: “Let’s just give this week a miss.” The fact that it is Monday and I’m still figuratively twiddling my thumbs is why I’ve just given the title of ’Inertia’ to this blog. And told myself to just move on. Trust that the energy to break through this particular barrier will carry me to a conclusion, if not an insightful and elegant one, then at least something that says “Enough, I’m done!”

Yup. That’s all she wrote, folks.

“It suddenly occurs to me that the transition I’m caught up in is NOT the transition from a pre-to-post COVID world, it’s from a pre-to-post COVID me! The concern is not what I will encounter when I return to B.C., but who, what and how I will be.” (Blog post #16, A Yogini at Large March 8, 2021)

It was mildly disturbing to discover that I had already posted a blog on “Transitions” several months ago. At the time, hard as it is to imagine, I was focused on my return to B.C. later that month, before the end of our six-months-less-a-day that we are allowed in the States. Due to another outbreak of COVID our March departure was delayed, and now I am fast approaching a new departure date. Eek.

As plans go, I will be in Whistler to post Blog #38, which, in the meantime, allows me to observe how my mind and body adjust to the reality of leaving Hawaïi. Poorly, as near as I can see. This “difficulty with the dismount” as they say in Olympic gymnastics, is not something that has been mitigated with age. Judging by this morning’s headache, upset tummy and tendency to distract easily from the task at hand (don’t I need to wash my bike, hem those pants, fold those towels and call a repairman about that squeaky kitchen fan?), I can see my ’chicken-with-her-head-cut-off’ tendency running rampant. While all those other chores are legit demands on my time and energy, it is only by writing my blog that I can address what is happening in my mind and body.

To aid my understanding of what’s been going on internally, I searched for the Hawaiian term for transitions, because I appreciate how the Hawaiian vocabulary often builds on a story of how that term came to be, or how it applies, culturally speaking. In my internet search for the equivalent of “transition” or “transformation”, I found the word “Ho’ololi”. According to the Hawaiian electronic library Ulukau, “Ho’o” means “to try” and “loli, to change”. “Hoʻololi i ka manaʻo”, means “to change the mind”. (Or more literally — and realistically — to try to change the mind). I’d really like to change my mind about transitions. I’d like to shift the dead weight of resistance to “what is”, to something more positive.

Martha Beck, a favorite life coach and author, offers an intriguing perspective on how one’s “internal wiring” can aid or inhibit one’s ability to transit from one activity or program to another. She describes two groups with very different attitudes towards timing. The first —monochrones — lead well-structured, punctual, and schedule-driven lives, wherein time is “fixed, rigid and absolute”. By contrast, the second group — polychrones — “see time as loose and elastic”. They have a fluid sense of time and can get so absorbed in what they’re doing that they tend to lose track of meetings, schedules and deadlines. Beck writes:

“Entire cultures can be polychronic or monochronic. In a polychronic country, dinner may continue throughout the night, and appointment times are suggestions, not space-launch absolutes. But First World cultures (except maybe Mediterranean ones) are extremely monochronic. Our high-tech society requires human synchronization on a massive scale: Huge numbers of us must show up at precisely agreed upon places, at precisely agreed upon times.”

I am unarguably polychronic, and Hawaii, as far as I can see, is a polychronic culture, which suits me to a ’T’. Which also explains why I have great difficulty leaving. Not only have I dug deep roots in a relatively short time, absorbed in all things garden as never before, but I also find I am more in synch with the casual spontaneity, the organic flow of life on the Big Island. Locals and tourists alike are familiar with the term “Hawaiian time”, which differs greatly from the monochronic culture of the mainland, where, until COVID interrupted the supply chain (among other things), one could reasonably predict a correct ETA for everything from mail delivery to garbage pickup to subway trains. But for those of us who can’t always ’keep up with the plot’, as the Brits would say, (you can look it up) changing course in a major way can be disconcerting at best, and traumatizing at worst. Beck even uses the term “transition trauma” to describe how difficult it is for a polychrone to disengage from whatever has arrested their attention:

“Although disengaging feels to us polychrones like having our molars pulled, transition trauma is brief (it goes away as soon as you’re engaged with the next activity), and it’s much better than most alternatives”. (Aka getting fired, losing friends, or suffering feelings of extreme inadequacy.)

The trauma for me in going back to B.C. would be losing the more laid-back approach I have adapted in the past nine months; losing track of the simple joys of puttering in my garden (which one grandchild egregiously calls “Meme’s farm”); and instead feeling a need to compare and compete (if only in terms of needing someone to show me who, what and how to be).

As fate would have it, I concluded Blog #16, with a clarion call to my future self:

“Unlike Alice waiting to be told who she is before she will leave the rabbit hole, the “me” who emerges from the detox that is COVID has to be informed by my own vision of who, what and how I want to be. And not only informed, but inspired and motivated, as Gandhi would say, to be the change I wish to see in the world today.”

It seems ironic that my next blog, #38, will be double the number of blogs written since I first explored the topic of transitions. Or transformation, as the Hawaiian dictionary would have me say. What has become clear to me since then is that to stay engaged and focused in the present moment, as any good polychrone is wont to do, may mean I miss the odd deadline, but I won’t have time to second-guess or dread whatever’s coming around the bend.

Now if I could just find where I left my head…

“It takes courage to say yes to rest and play when exhaustion is seen as a status symbol.” (Brenee Brown)

The other afternoon I asked one of our grandsons (whom I think is an old soul) what I should focus on for this week’s blog. His response was succinct:

“Doing nothing.”

He followed this with the observation that: “We’re never really doing nothing when we say we’re doing nothing.” Then he went off to join his friends to “do nothing” while I pondered his thought-provoking comment.

Shortly thereafter, an Instagram post from Brenee Brown (as quoted above) was the “second witness” to a message re: learning to take it easy. Hmmmm.

The “third witness” was an email from a good friend who wrote: “Of course you’re tired. Need I remind you that you are always exhausted being with your grandkids, pretty much at a nonstop pace, I’m guessing. And I hate to mention the part about tiring more easily at our age, but I just said it.” Sheesh!

Finally, I opened my Daily Om blog to a post extolling the virtues of napping: “Though judged by many as a pastime of little children or the lazy, the need for a nap is a trait that all mammals share and an acceptable part of the day in many countries.”

That decided it.

The theme for blog #36 became “rest and play”, or “ho’omaha a pa’āni. “Ho’omaha: to give oneself a break”. “A pa’āni: to frolic, joke or play a game”. Pretty self-explanatory. Think footloose and fancy free. The way one dreams that island life should be. And often is. For those wise souls who have what David Brooks calls “a settled philosophy about fundamental things”. In order to join those savvy folk, I think it bears considering the cost to body, mind and spirit, of keeping oneself constantly busy.

I disagree, however, with Brenee’s observation that “exhaustion is a status symbol”. (Our daughter has five kids and is running on fumes most of the time. I don’t think she’d be amused). However, I do see how a pattern of being constantly busy sometimes runs unchecked in my own life. Surrounded, intentionally, by active, motivated and accomplished people means I am confronted, on a regular basis, with a “compare and compete” mentality. My own, that is.

I can’t count how many conversations start with a friendly “So what have you been up to today?” which spurs an urgent inner need to share something praise-worthy: “I biked, paddled, sailed, swam, did yoga, hiked, practiced banjolele, harvested tomatoes etc. etc”. Maybe not all on the same day, but still…

I now understand how this internal pressure to constantly tick off boxes can contribute to the exhaustion that Brenee Brown talks about. I actually tried to convince the few adult members of our family who are visiting us in Hawaïi to participate in a discussion about what we learned “before, during and after” COVID. A group dialogue re: “What adjustments have each of us made? What adaptations do we plan to retain? What things no longer serve a useful purpose? What has to change?” And behind it all looms the elephant in the room: “What to do now that the pandemic is ’over’”?

I recognized the down-side of this desire for a ’post-COVID growth inventory’ when I read Anna North’s Vox article titled: “Lockdown was not a sabbatical. Don’t worry if you haven’t grown as a person during the pandemic”. North noted that “The pandemic gave rise to new, weird kinds of productivity discourse”. A “water-cooler” conversation that might previously have exchanged work-place goals and objectives among office mates, has lately shifted to the domestic arena. The pandemic ushered in a host of internet offerings aimed at ways to productively fill our erstwhile work days. Those fortunate souls who sheltered at home got to live vicariously through social media. Communicate through Zoom. Were inspired – or exhorted – to start new hobbies, catch up on our reading and/or neglected household chores. Or choose from countless online courses. For me, personally it was an opportunity to start composting, herb gardening, banjolele playing, exercising obsessively, and of course, blogging. Busy, busy, busy. And that was before five grandkids arrived.

North’s article was further helpful in letting me know that I’m not alone. She quotes David Blustein, a professor of counseling psychology at Boston College as saying: “An obsessive focus on productivity is part of late-stage American capitalism”. With the result that, during the pandemic, “This productivity ethos has gotten transported into our hobbies, it’s gotten transported into our relationships, into our physical and mental health.”

Guilty as charged!

My idea for the family discussion was a telling example of how Blustein’s “productivity discourse” had pervaded my own pre-and-post COVID approach. Far from freeing me/us from the need for measurable productivity, Anna North observed that the post-COVID discourse was simply “shifting toward the idea that the pandemic should have been a learning experience, helping us optimize our skills, our lives, and ourselves for post-pandemic living”. Same s**t, different pile.

And the antidote to this culturally-conditioned push for productivity?
My grandson’s suggestion of “doing nothing” might just be the remedy I need.

Ho’omaha A’pa’āni Rx: Take a nap. Go play outside.