I am still struggling to find words. I am angry, grief stricken, fearful. And desperately trying to apply my meditation practice: breathing, focusing, keeping from spiraling into stories of dark and evil days to come. But acceptance of the present moment is challenging and finding the energy to send open hearted loving kindness to those on the other side seems impossible. Hence, my posts this week. Moments of calm and quiet to turn to when life gets overwhelming.
I am fortunate to spend time with my soon-to-be nonagenarian parents at their retirement community. I have been able to hang out with their friends as well as part of dinner parties, musical groups and book studies. These seniors have a refreshing perspective, a long view, that arcs towards gratitude and joy despite having their share of heartache and trauma.
I stumbled upon this video from Reflections of Life, two filmmakers who record stories that focus on our shared humanity. Wisdom at 96 features Dot Fisher-Smith:
My inbox was a source of solace and inspiration this morning:
Jose Vilson provided perspective on this time and the need to grieve but also to continue to join together with others to fight for our values in his blog post, Don’t Obey in Advance.
The Center for Action and Contemplation is hosting a Virtual Sit Meditation next week:
In this space we will gather in simple presence, bearing witness to each other and to the complex realities we face without needing to resolve them. In stillness, we will honor our shared humanity and the grace that exists, even amid our collective uncertainty. Together, we’ll pause to breathe, reflect, and embrace whatever feelings we bring, knowing that we are not alone.
We invite you to join us on YouTube for a time to be together in stillness and reflection on Tuesday, November 12 from 7:30 – 8:00am PT (3:30 – 4:00pm GMT).
Dan Harris, founder of Ten Percent Happier and now out on his own, has been hosting meditation get togethers every day this week over on Substack. The next one is at 11 AM today. He will continue to be a source of wisdom and comfort to the community.
I am ruminating on and drafting a few blog posts but am not ready to commit them to public text quite yet. Here are a couple first sentences and general ideas:
It must be exhausting to be Kim Kardashian. I like scrolling through morning after pictures of the red carpet. That meant almost 180 pictures from the Emmy Awards last night although blessedly my bad Internet stopped loading at 100. It looked very exhausting. I have now heard several celebrities describe themselves as being so completely worn out and depressed even at the height of their fame and fortune when it seemed like they had everything they and everyone else wanted. Rainn Wilson talks about it in Soul Boom; Dan Harris and Glennon Doyle talk about it as part of a recent podcast.
Seeds are tiny parcels of possibility. The next three months are the best time in a gardeners’ life as all is possibility. We inventory our stash and peruse the catalogs, choosing, planning, and, most importantly, imagining. Beatrix Potter and Edwin Way Teale both write about seeds, and NPR had an excellent story about a long running experiment that involves seeds.
I was born in 1962 just as the Vietnam War was ratcheting up. Browsing this list of wars involving the United States, I discovered that there were very few years in my life when the United States was not in some kind of conflict, with just a short break after the end of Vietnam when we were licking our wounds and there was little appetite for war. It didn’t last long: by 1982, we were fighting Lebanon and then invading Grenada the next year.
In the face of the current round of horrific death and destruction in the Middle East, I find myself back in my hippie days, thinking less about taking sides and more about how to get to lasting peace. My senior year in college I made peace collages, photocopied them, and then pasted them around campus. It was an odd gesture perhaps but a memory of imagining a better world if people would just practice peace. It seemed simple, a change in mindset. I may have been inspired by Another Mother For Peace‘s campaign against the Vietnam War and their famous logo. Sometime after my own campaign and college career ended, I connected with Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the ice cream makers and activists, at an event in Vermont where I learned about their effort called 1% for Peace. The goal was to redirect 1% of the military budget to peace-oriented activities. Sadly, the bumper sticker didn’t really work well as it made people think you were *only* 1% for peace.
So, that is a sample of what has been rattling around in my brain. The last bit is probably the closest to a complete thought. I will leave you with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
