Anne
What a difference a light makes. Used to waking up at 6, much to my chagrin I’ve been sleeping in and having to set an alarm to make sure I’m up. I wondered what was going on until I realized that, at this time of year, the world is still pitch black at 6.am and that, after hibernating for 6-8 hours, it’s the light that wakes me up each morning. Now I’m more likely open my eyes around 6:45 – consciousness dawning in synch with the sun. If I do wake up earlier and decide against getting up in the dark – I luxuriate in dozing off again knowing that the big on switch in the sky will slowly illuminate my little corner of earth.
At the winter solstice, the scales that are tipped toward darkness are also poised to welcome the return of the light. It’s a cusp, a heavenly pivot point as we go from waning, where each day is shorter that then last to waxing where each day grows longer and lighter. Even if it’s still dark I know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
Whatever traditions and beliefs we espouse and whatever our feelings about the holidays – sad and glad, the fact is that we are all in this together. We share space on a sphere that is spinning through space while orbiting a fireball in the sky – all participants in this tenuous, scary and miraculous proposition.
However we celebrate this season or to avoid it, we are all living through a time each year when it is darker outside as well as times of inner darkness. The solstice reminds us that the light does return – that the darkness is truly just before the dawn.
For millennia, cultures throughout the world have observed the winter solstice (Dec. 21) as a sacred event and marked the first day of winter with elaborate ceremonies and celebrations – important in an agricultural society it marked the seasons of harvest, dormancy, rebirth and ripening as well as their counterparts in our inner and outer lives physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Whether secular or religious, all of these celebrations are full of light whether a big bonfire, one tiny candle or simply the promise of light: the star that guides us – the lantern that keeps burning for 8 nights, the birth of pure potential out of the darkness of a seed – a baby and the everyday miracle of seeing the world take on form in the dawning of each and every morning.
Even as I huddle in the darkest of days under the covers, I fear not power outages. I have my lanterns, my oil and my candles both flamed and flameless. And I know that something’s coming – like in Westside story – just around the corner – on a clear day you can see forever – song and dance.. There’s a lot to get excited about, a lot to look forward to. The Solstice is a time to cast off old habits and negative feelings to clear the way and embrace hope amid darkness.
People come to see me because they are experiencing times of darkness. They feel discouraged, angry, hopeless and powerless and are looking for some peace, some illumination. Doing my best to shine a light and help them to uncover theirs, I am often able to tap into a place where something starts to dawns, a light goes off and I can see, by the flicker of a smile or a shift in demeanor that there they are – embracing hope amid the darkness, reminding me of what Rumi said :
“I wish I could show you when you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
The Solstice reminds us that it’s not going to stay dark forever. We are not going to be depressed forever. By cutting through the darkness, light is proof that, sometimes, all it takes it takes is the flick of a switch, the lighting of a candle and there it is, hope springing eternal and darkness yielding to the light of the sun and the light of consciousness. Light makes a big difference.
In vigils people hold candles. At Christmas Eve caroling services they flicker in the darkness and dance in the breeze – hopeful, valient, bright and vulnerable and on the 8th day of hannukah there are eight candles burning bright.
I have glass cylinders that protect the candle flames from sea breezes on my deck and just yesterday, I was transported to a piece of happy childhood when I untangled and wrapped strands of multi-colored Christmas lights around my Norfolk pine and then “ta da” – turned them on in the darkness. I could feel my own little light flickering back in recognition.
If the world were like The Maine Fiddle Camp all would truly be well. The ingredients in the recipe for a most amazing week, were the same ingredients that make the world my happy place: community, generosity, diversity of age and abilities all hanging out together, music, music, music, lovingly prepared, fresh, healthy food, a common purpose (music and fun), compassion, tolerance, empathy, encouragement, silliness, learning new things, practicing old things, continuity (people keep coming back year after year), a beautiful environment with a natural back drop equivalent to our tropical paradise, pretty good weather and a lightness of spirit that oozed everywhere bathing the whole shebang in a golden glow even on the couple of overcast days and especially for the most dramatic mid-night thunder storm I may ever have slept through.
I am already planning on returning next year and thinking that I’ll stay for both of the two week sessions. I made good friends, many acquaintances and tens of warm, musical, friendly connections throughout the 5 days. I learned to play a handful of fiddle tunes and to recognize a host of others, was continually awed by the talent, the sheer fiddle wizardry and the beautiful, heartfelt tunes.
I fell in love with the little kids and melted when I realized that the beautiful, pregnant teacher – mother of the 3 and a 4 year olds strutting around with the tiniest violins I’ve ever seen – had been brought to camp by her parents – also teachers at the camp, when she was that age. While no one sang “May the Circle be Unbroken” – that’s what it felt like.
I roomed with 8 girls under 18 and their 21 year old ‘house mother’. They were adorable. I didn’t get too involved, preferring to say sweet dreams and slip into my coleman sleeping bag like a baby roo to conk out till morning. I covered for the house mom so she could slip out and jam after 11:30 – the under 18 curfew. She told me the last night of camp was the night they were most likely to sneak out. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about as she tip toed out with her fiddle into the night.
Grandparents brought their grandchildren and 3 generations of a family from Quebec had driven down from Montreal to play music together all week. There was the Boston Symphony Orchestra violinist who spent the week with her 10 year old son and niece playing fiddle tunes, a vacation from the pressure and repertoire of the symphony; the photographer from New York with his 15 year old daughter, a guy from Maine with his 7 year old daughter, French Canadian retired professors and a surveyor who just started playing the fiddle a year ago and was so intent on learning and getting better you just wanted to help him, so we played tunes together after the class – hammering the tunes into our heads by repeating them over and over and over and over again so I’d fall asleep with The Wren or the Spotted Pony playing me to sleep like lullabyes.
It was deeply moving to watch the high school students of the Farmington Fiddlers perform and to watch the 85 year old master fiddler who showed up to fiddle and call the evening dance and to sing along with the under 8 year olds. It was so hopeful and uplifting and it was really happening. I was there.
Is it naïve and unrealistic and whoo whoo of me to believe that it is possible for people to live together in peace, love and harmony? Am I just an old hippie who never grew up, an Anne Frank who believes, that despite everything, that people are essentially good at heart?
Because I am human and because I’m a healer who’s in the business of being present to and helping transform suffering, I am acutely aware of all the stuff that gets in the way of peace, love and understanding. I have also come to know that that stuff can be seen for what it is, expressed in ways that do not cause harm and little by little or all at once cleared away and released. There are so many tools to help us get and stay connected to source (God, the divine, inner guidance, higher power, however you choose to see it) and to cut through the old tapes that hang us up and run the show from behind the scenes.
Fiddle camp gave me a chance to be part of a world that I want to be a part of in a way that felt so good and natural that it was a shock to be jolted back to the version of reality on the evening news when, after leaving camp, I was sitting at my friend’s kitchen table: Ferguson, the beheading, the Israeli/Palestinian horror. The contrast was glaring and I wondered how I was going to hold onto the glow, the promise and the music as I re-entered the denser atmosphere of everyday life in paradise.
One Tune at a Time
As I debrief and consider which threads I want to pull into the tapestry of my life and how to pull it off, instead of getting overwhelmed and frustrated I strap my violin onto my back and like the true companion it has been for weeks, take it with me on my travels. When I have a break, I head out toward Cabrita Point, pull over onto the beach and learn a new fiddle tune – yesterday 100 Pipers. I play it over and over and over again to get the tune into my head, my fingers and my heart as the waves lap the shore, taxi men eat their lunch and kids frolic in the turqouise sea.
Here’s to holding a vision for what’s possible and living it into existence – one tune at a time.
Mala
The same way I used to go through my mother’s jewelry box, I have been going through my own. As a child, I’d lift the lid on her green leather box embossed with tooled, gold designs. I’d finger the broaches, jingle the bangles, admire the cameos and find gems – not only of jewelry but of newspaper clipping and photos – the secret stuff of which the family was made.
My own jewelry boxes are a mélange of ‘the real deal’: the tanzanite ring, strands of pearls and lapis lazuli, a gold charm bracelet ripe with charms from my mom, a pair of emerald earrings, from my ex, my everyday gold shells –from myself and then a collection. There’s my daughter’s first tiny hook bracelet, a photo of my great grandmother, Icing caliber earrings, a tooth fairy stash of baby teeth and bits and pieces from friends, family and lovers, including my very own engraved silver spoon, a pair of my dad’s cufflinks and a tiny wax hand sculpted by a friend.
Memories, stories and feelings bubble to my surface. I try things on. I reminisce. I look among the gold and the pearls and I breathe a sigh of relief when I spy the six wooden beads that I’ ve carried with me since I was 21.
There used to be more. It started out as a hindu mala (Hindu prayer beads) and it wasn’t just any mala. It was given to me by Kumar Kumar, a Hindu swami who lived on west 14th Street in New York City in a 5th floor walk up.
I’d discovered Yoga, loved eating with the Hara Krishnas and was drawn to chanting and meditation and spiritual teachers. In Kumar’s gentle presence, I was silent. I don’t remember what he said to me, but I know that he gave me the beads and that we meditated. And I know that when I got up to leave he looked at me with great kindness and said,” Come back.” I nodded as I walked down the 5 flights of stairs , “Yes, Yes, I’ll be back, I’ll be back.”
I never went back. Not to see Kumar Kumar anyway. But I have returned. I’m realizing that I never left. The threads of yoga, meditation, service, love and spiritual seeking have been woven throughout my life popping up again to save me even when I’ve turned my back and never staying away for long.
When I return to the yoga mat after a break, I picture climbing up the staircase at the Sivananda Yoga Center on St. Lawrence Blvd. in Montreal and feeling like I’m home. I give thanks that of all the random things I could have gotten involved with back then, I’d taken up with yoga, art, music and meditation. –
But, I am easily distracted. My iphone chimes ‘message’ and l salivate. Busy with work, family, things to do and places to go to, the beads grow dusty. I get too busy to do Yoga everyday. The dogs don’t let me meditate every morning and, like a stubborn child, I refuse to consistently do what keeps me connected, happy, healthy and whole.
In meditation, when I realize that I am thinking, I gently bring myself back to my focus, my mantra. In my life when I realize that I have gotten off track I gently return to the beads, to the tried and true. I remember what really and always matters and what practices work for me. I remind myself that talk is cheap and action speaks louder than words. I get out the yoga mat and lay it on my deck, looking out to sea.
Reaching into the plastic pouch where the beads have been living I pick them up, roll them around and enfold them in my closed palms. I feel warmth and a glow that brings me back to myself like I’m dropping into my heart, tuning in, activating the connection.
The energy of the beads sustains me. Their smooth wooden roundness reassures and soothes my energy. Holding them affirms that my heart was, back then, and is now, open – that learning, loving, seeking, serving, growing in consciousness, having fun and spreading the love are what matter most to me.
What about you? What are your beads? What’s in your jewelry box?
I am a very lucky woman who has wonderful friends. A group of us have been celebrating one another’s birthdays for many years now. We go out to dinner – the birthday Queen picking the restaurant and us soul sistahs treating her like royalty: wonderful company, a deck or two of angel cards with words of wisdom, portents and inspiration written on them. And a tiara of course. Over the years one birthday girl wanted to create a silent retreat for her b’day and a few of us went and stayed at Concordia and were silent in celebration. We’ve dined on St. John, on my deck, played music, gone sailing enjouing luscious foods and libations. We have photo archives that document the celebrations capturing the love and the light and joy we create together.
Our current birthday girl said she’d woken up at 3am knowing that what she wanted to do for her birthday was to get together to listen to a talk on Awakening by the spiritual teacher Adyashanti – a talk that had deeply moved and excited her. We all loved the idea and arrived at her lovingly appointed home home bearing pizza, wine, cheese cake and chocolates.
It was yet another affirmation of the preciousness of our small group linked by love not only of each other, but of wine and chocolate, music and dancing, the healing arts spiritual seeking and finding. So it isn’t surprising that in addition to having a heartwarming, uplifting afternoon, I saw something that rose to hit me over the head as I was driving home so that I had to stop to find a piece of paper and a pen and write it all down.
One of us share that she’s about to go on a voyage – inside and out. She told us her plans and her feelings about her journey. She kept mentioning how hard the trip was going to be and I chimed in, suggesting that perhaps she could reframe how she was looking at it all – maybe picture it be easy or fun. I could tell that my law of attraction coaching, advice wasn’t what she wanted to hear so I backed off and the afternoon continued as we made ourselves comfortable and settled in for an hour plus of Adyashanti on Awakening.
A couple of thing he said really struck me and one of them had to do with how self-referential we are – how we tend to make everything about us, how we are always insinuating ourselves into every picture or situation – even if it’s only in our heads.
So when I was driving, I replayed the scene where I reacted to my friends describing her upcoming trip as hard and realized that I’d judged her and how she was thinking and feeling. I put myself in the equation and I really thought she should be more like me and adopt what I was calling my more positive take on things. I looked like I was listening to her but I wasn’t. I was being what Adyashanti was talking about – self-referential. I allowed myself to come between me and her I realized that I do this all the time and that we all do. I could see that the outcome of getting out of the way would be to have truly listened to my friend and asked: What do you need?
I felt as though I were downloading truth as I scribbled in my dimly lit car. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t thought about this before, that I hadn’t known that my ego loves front and center and that as much as I hate being judged, my mind holds court overtime and if I hated how critical my mother way I learned well. In the bible it says that we now see as through as glass darkly – soon face to face and that what I saw so clearly. That what makes the glass dark is us getting in there between me and thee or me and the divine and casting a shadow. From this self-referential hall of mirrors, very little light escapes.
According to Adyashanti and demonstrated by my aha moment and scribbing in the car:
The more we engage in spiritual inner work, the more carefully and persistently we are able look into ourselves, and the more this once-compelling ego, this self disappears. Or perhaps we see that it never existed to begin with. Gradually, our belief in our ego assumes a porous quality, which rather than cutting us off from others, merely clouds our relationships intermittently. This separate self never was. Our devotion to it shrivels and we are left to truly be ourselves, to play our unique role in the larger story of our common life. When moments come in which we fall back into that trance of selfness, we feel uncomfortable, like in a shoe that no longer fits, and we let it go.
As usual no one says it better than Rumi:
The Seeker
Adapted from Rumi
After years of inner work,
A seeker found the door of the Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked:
“Who is there?”
The seeker answered:
“It is I.”
The voice said:
“There is no room for me and you.”
And the door stayed shut.
The persistent seeker engaged in ever deeper spiritual practice,
And then returned to the door of the Beloved and knocked.
The voice from within asked:
“Who is there?”
And the door opened,
And the seeker opened
And said:
“It is You.”
It took giving up biting my nails for me to realize just how fast they grow. After drawing blood when I scratched a mosquito bite and getting them caught between the keys of my mac, I had to admit that a maintenance program was calling my name. I went to K-mart and replaced the emery boards, that pit bull Shelby had shredded, with a couple of the larger more professional boards and made a note to self to call my hairdresser. Like my nails, my hair keeps growing so to keep up my new shorter do. periodic trims are joining my maintenance program in the interests of the long haul.
Maintenance is defined as: The work of keeping something in proper working condition. It comes from the latin, Manu Tenere which means to hold in the hand.
I smiled when I took a break from writing to go to the store for dog food and the maintenance light flashed on my dashboard and then when I went to the post office and picked up my dentist’s reminder that it’s time to have my teeth cleaned. It got me thinking about what it means to maintain and sustain (they are cousins) and about the line that stuck in my mind: there is no conclusion because sustainability is not about concluding but about continuing.
Manicures, hair cuts, oil changes, medical check ups, teeth cleaning, spring cleaning, keeping the Sabbath, sweeping the floor, watering the plants and even the monthly automatic withdrawal from my Paypal account to keep my digital New York Times coming – maintenance is everywhere.
Studies have also shown that goals are easier to reach if they’re specific (“I’ll walk 20 minutes a day,” rather than “I’ll get more exercise”) and not too numerous because having too many goals limits the amount of attention and willpower you can devote to reaching any single one. The same applies to maintenance because it’s so easy to get overwhelmed by all the things that require our attention to continue working.
I just had the cranks replaced on my louvered windows and I know that they will last longer and work better if I spray them regularly with WD 40 like I didn’t last time. I am ashamed to admit that I once blew the engine on my beloved former jeep because my sporadic maintenance program didn’t include checking the oil in time. Preventative maintenance advises colonoscopies, mammograms and pap smears and we are sold service agreements for our appliances and taught protocols for our computers like back ups and scanning for viruses.
There is scheduled maintenance, preventative maintenance, predictive maintenance and don’t forget high maintenance as in demanding like some women (and men), hardwood floors, 100% silk and linen outfits a thick head of hair – things that require more attention than their alternatives.
We go on maintenance programs after dieting, are prescribed medications to keep us in balance after a state of disease and after rehabilitation programs to maintain a drug free life. We not only want to get healthy and happy but we want to stay that way.
In the last session of my God’s love is for everyone program we focused on how to maintain our connection with ourselves and with source and were advised to commit to a morning program of meditation, exercise and listening to talks or reading words of truth. I know folks who read the daily word, go to morning mass and the early morning regulars at Magen’s Bay are testimony to the benefits of maintenance.
When I fall off the wagon and stop doing any of the things that keep me working the way I want I feel less energetic, more depressed and am more vulnerable to judgment, discouragement and negative thinking – just like my window cranks are more vulnerable to rust, my dogs are more vulnerable to heart worm when I don’t give them their monthly pills and my dryer doesn’t dry (and might even catch fire) if I don’t clean out the lint tray.
Friendships suffer when we don’t keep in touch, our minds lose their alacrity and acuity if we don’t use them and when I don’t play the piano (or the violin) on a regular basis my fingers don’t work as well and the music doesn’t sound as good. Even life on Facebook suffers when I don’t post on a regular basis.
We are born with an exquisite built-in maintenance system – too hot, we sweat, too full of waste, we pee or poop, satisfied and connected and loved we smile and relax. Like the plant stickers poking out of the pots in garden stores we too have people stickers indicating the conditions under which we thrive – some are universal, some more specific to hot-house varieties, hybrids, nerds, social butterflies, intellectuals, jocks and all the things that we are.
Here’s to maintaining – to holding what matters most in our hands which means to keep it close to our hearts, to pay attention, to love and nourish and like the meaning of French word ‘maintenant’ to do it NOW.