THE CURE FOR CRAZINESS
 
Have you ever just felt, deep within your heart, that you were onto something big?  I mean, somthing like life altering, big.  Some time ago Nehanda Dreams sent this over and I clipped it and put it on my board:

...from, Absolute Trust In The Goodness of the Earth, by Alice Walker

when we let spirit lead us
it is impossible
to know
where
we are being lead.
all we know
all we can believe
all we can hope
is that
we are going home
that wherever
spirit
takes us
is where
we live.

....the other day I was perusing around the first floor of the hospital, somewhere close to midnight, and I gravitated toward the recycled magazines box where we employees dump magazines we're done with.  Since I'm a major cheapskate when it comes to buying popular magazines, I always peak inside to see what I can find for free.  And so it is that I stumbled upon the June 2004 issue of O! Magazine and found this, below.  Note that I've snipped some parts for brevity sake and to be sure I don't violate copyright.

THE CURE FOR CRAZINESS by Sharon Salzberg

One autumn I travelled to a bookstore in Western Massachussetts to hear Stephen Batchelor, a Buddhist scholar, speak about his recently published book.  As the evening went on, I found myself distracted by a demonstration making its way down the street toward us.  Clear shouts rang out: "What do we want?"  The chanted response came through only as "mumble, mumble, mumble."  I tried to go back to listening to Stephen's lecture, but the mumbles were soon followed by a yell:  "When do we want it?"  And then a roar: "Now! Now! Now!"

::snip::

Our willingness to insist on "now" honors our conviction that we have a right to be happy, to be safe, to be heard.  Our "now" may recognize that others deserve an end to abuse or oppression.
Many situations of loss, exploitation, or injustice are deplorable, and our heart's demand for a better world is expressed in that "now."

But there's also something beautiful and deeply wise in being aware of the rhythms of life, the rhythms of nature.  All of us know the mind-set that says our desires must be realized immediately.  It's easy to forget that, no matter what we'd prefer, dreams come true one step at at a time.  A journey isn't just a vacance between one place and the next but is worth paying attention to for its own sake.  To be tyrannized by time, with its pressures of anticipation, expectation, comparison and judgement, will not make our goals any easier to accomplish.

When my teaching colleague Joseph Goldstein was a child, he had a garden in which he grew carrots.  He was so excited when the first green fluffy shoots came out of the soil that he pulled them up to look at the carrots that were growing and to help them along.  We needn't be in a hurry to reap the results of our efforts faster than the world can bestow them.  Being alive means doing the best we can and then letting nature take its course.  We plant a seed, nurture it, water it, and let it be.  Knowing there's a bigger picture than what we see in front of us, even if it isn't perfectly clear, allows us to be more peaceful, to learn as things develop.  If we can be quieter, more in the moment with what is actually happening, a world of perception opens up for us based on what we are, not on where we one day hope to be.

::snip::

One way of describing an ability to hold our convictions without drawing premature conclusions, feeling automatically defeated, or losing sight of what goodness life might be offering us today is the old-fashioned virtue patience.  Despite the common misconception, having patience doesn't mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations.  It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that's unfolding, rather than yanking up our carrots, ripping open a budding flower, demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with.

True patience isn't gritting one's teeth and saying, "I'll bear with this for another five minutes because I'm sure it will be over by then and something better will come along."  Patience isn't dour, and it isn't unhappy.  It's a steady strength that we apply to each experience we face.  If the situation calls for action, we must take it--patience doesn't mean inertia or complacence.  Instead, it gives us a courageous dedication to the long haul, along with the willingness to connect with the multilayered truth of what is right here.

::cut::

I was talking with my friend today who is also a mother and creative spirit.  We were talking about how fast the summer has passed and though we'd wanted to do more for our children, time has simply slipped away.  My friend was feeling more rotten than I, and I can only credit all that I'm learning from the Tao and from Shambhala and it is this:  we have GOT to learn to be gentler with ourselves and we've got to learn how to cultivate patience.  Over the past few weeks I've been really trying to consciously be kinder and gentler to myself; to recognize all the good that I've done and all the good that I've received.  I am exercising more patience with my mothering process and writing process than I ever had (the two are so much alike).  I told my friend to immediately stop beating up on herself.  Here's a mom who bought caterpillars last year and created a habitat so her preschoolers could watch the metamorphosis process and then, after the butterflies arrived, she and her little ones went out back and set them free.  Is that not beautiful?  And I told her to be gentle to herself, to not feel like their whole lives have to be crammed into one summer.

And then, I heard myself speaking.  Here I have, for the past number of years, lamented and crammed and worried about Plan B's and deliberated back and forth and upside down about these writing programs, being so tremendously hard on myself all the while realizing that writing and being a writer and a mother takes time; takes patience of the Godly sort.  And here I arrive now, realizing that it's okay.  That writing is my Life, this isn't a race and this isn't about taking short cuts because guess what? there are no short cuts.  Writing, like mothering, is something that takes place over the long, long haul. 

And this is why I love Tao and Zen so very much: it's practicality, it's simplicity, the absence of dogma and man made stuff.  Just the pure essence of Life.

Lately I'm feeling really, really good.  Not because I know where I'm heading but because finally I'm learning how to trust, how to be patient in my trusting; finally I can say that I really believe that where I am going is indeed home and that wherever Spirit leads me is where I live.

Peace in the Highest,

ANGEL