JOY 71/82: Appointment with Spring

While lecturing to a crowded classroom at Harvard, philosopher George Santayana spotted a forsythia in a patch of snow outside the window. Walking to the door he said, "I shall not be able to finish that sentence. I just have discovered that I have an appointment with April."

The rains came early this year and the grass has turned green.  It's my first full year in the foothills so I asked a neighbor if the grass would stay green till spring.  The answer was yes.  California has a long dry season which can last from April through October without a hint of rain  As a matter of fact, if it weren't for the Sierra and other mountain ranges that punctuate the state and practice "catch and release" with the rain, California would be a massive desert.  By May or June when the heat arrives, the hills slowly turn golden ... what some outlanders mistakenly call brown or dead ... until the rains come again.

There is something about the green here.  It's a piercing, innocent green that takes my breath away and on partly cloudy days, the light dances through the clouds and plays across the grass creating colors that cannot be captured.  Living here is like being hugged by nature.

Joy 70/82: Turning Pro

The call came at 3:00 pm. I thought he was joking ... but he's not exactly the joking type and his voice didn't sound like he was joking. Apparently he was serious. One of the two pieces I put in the "Water: Source of Life" exhibit had sold ... my first real sale. I'm still having a little difficulty understanding that someone actually paid for something I so enjoy doing. But, I guess this now means that I am a "professional" artist ... what fun.

About the image:  "Spirit of Water" ... this is the digital collage that sold.

Joy 69/82: Being Content

"Too much thought only leads to trouble . . . We Eskimos do not concern ourselves with solving all riddles. We repeat the old stories in the way they were told to us and with the words we ourselves remember . . . You always want these supernatural things to make sense, but we do not bother about that. We are content not to understand"
-- Orulo, Iglulik area as told to Knud Rasmussen, "Intellectual Capital of the Iglulik Eskimos," (Reports of the Fifth Thule Expeditions, 1921-1924, vol 7, 1929) p 69.

I'm part of a small book club (there are three of us) and we just finished several months of reading "Buddhism, Plain & Simple" by Steve Hagen.  The first two parts were indeed "plain & simple."  Part three left each of us befuddled as we grappled, unsuccessfully, with Reality, the Whole and Truth.  We kept getting tangled up in concepts, beliefs and perceptions, trying out one metaphor after another to find a way to understand.  Finally we gave up and just talked about our lives.

Perhaps that was the best thing we did.  Perhaps we were thinking too much, trying to solve all the riddles when we are part of the riddle, in the midst of the riddle and our real challenge is not to understand it but to simply live it.  Perhaps when we gave up the aggressive need to make the world make sense to our puny minds and simply began to enjoy the experience of each other's company ... perhaps that's when the riddle actually untied itself and invited us in.  Perhaps being content to not understand is understanding.  (I'm beginning to sound like the book.)

Joy 68/82: Clarity

This is one of my very favorite poems as it describes so beautifully the journey from confusion to clarity.

The Journey


by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do the 
only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

from New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992

Joy 67/82: Freedom

"I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious."
-- Mirabai, Hindu mystic poetess and singer (1498-1546)

Yesterday I found this quote and thought it odd.  I read about Mirabai, and found that she "is one of India's most beloved poet-saints. Her devotional poetry -- directed toward Giridhara, a form of the great God-man Krishna -- is so intensely personal that it borders on the erotic while, at the same time, it remains transcendentally spiritual."  More here. 

Also yesterday I had a business meeting, one of the last vestiges of my professional life.  It was a deeply disturbing meeting with threads of lawsuits and betrayal of what I believe to be the principles of business and human conduct.  It wasn't until this morning when I reread the quote that I started to have an inkling of its meaning.

I have been outside the world of work for four years, years when I've had the time and freedom to follow my creative impulses.  I've made art that sucked and art that thrilled me.  I've "felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders."  Why would I ever again want to "climb on a jackass?" 

Joy 66/82: Self-Trust

This morning Louise at Recover Your Joy posts about Jesse who has made a commitment to build a six-pack in the next 30 days.  Jesse has enough determination to reach his goal ... he proved that when he lost 100 pounds.  Over time 30 of those pounds slipped back ... now he is determined to lose those and gain the six-pack abs that seem to be one of the definitions of male beauty.  Louise finds inspiration and motivation in Jesse's journey.

I feel pulled in two opposite directions by the story.  Anytime I hear about someone who has successfully lost weight or reformed their physical presence, I am pulled into an "I should do that, too" mode.  It's familiar territory for me ... a life-long challenge with weight and a "never thin enough" mindset has been a major theme for me.  A zillion diets have passed through my life ... most took me on a roller coaster ride of success and failure and ultimately threw me off ... defeated.  Perhaps the worst result of this repeating pattern was the gradual erosion of my self-trust.  I became powerless to keep my commitments to myself.

Several years ago I renounced dieting and promised myself that I wouldn't do anything regarding food that I couldn't do forever.  I started making small changes and slowly began to lose weight.  Recently I've started testing myself again to see if I could keep my commitments.  However, I've become much more careful about the commitments I make and I've begun to craft them my them much more lovingly.  Right now I'm on day 66 of an 82-day commitment to post about the joys in my life.  The intent was to post every day but a few days were missed and I had to double up the next day.  That's ok.

Recently my eating has become more haphazard and less health focused.  So now I'm on a 30-day "real food" (no sugar, no dairy, no processed carbs) commitment ... however, the commitment doesn't mean that they are 30 *consecutive* days.  It's the holidays and I don't want to be a grinch so I'm shooting for 30 days within a 40-day period.  But, if it takes me 60 days to get my 30 days, that's ok too.

What this has made me realize is that I'm starting to trust myself again and I'm letting go of "perfection."  When I used to start a diet, I was filled with the notion that I could be perfect, do the diet perfectly.  As soon as I screwed up, I quit.  Now I just take a deep breath and realign myself with what I'm trying to do.

Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

Joy 65/82: Beginnings

It's the beginning of the last month of the year so it seems like a nice time to start thinking about beginnings and to share this quote.

"Where shall we begin? There is no beginning. 
Start where you arrive.  Stop before what entices you.  

And work! 

You will enter little by little into the entirety. 
Method will be born in proportion to your interest.
In the calm details of work, we must learn patience,
which in turn teaches energy, and energy gives us
eternal youth made of self collectedness and enthusiasm."       
    -- Auguste Rodin