DOING IT ONCE, DOING IT TWICE

Oh....the freshman experience....Village Voice ... breaking it down .....more thoughts on this later.

THE JOURNEY AND THE DISCOVERY

I just stumbled across a very interesting interview of novelist Nora Okja Keller, author of Comfort Woman and winner of the National Book Award. Of her process with writing the novel she says, amongst many other things: "part of the excitement and the enjoyment of writing is that sometimes you start off somewhere and you have an idea of what you want to write about but it's only through the process of writing that you come to a fuller understanding of it. You come to a place you never expected to go and all of a sudden, there you are and it makes sense. I think the journey of discovery through writing is one of the best things about it."
I'm at work right now and can't put down my thoughts just yet .... but the interview addresses some real issues I've been dealing with lately.

RANDOM ACTS

This morning I had the most delightful experience one can have on a day like today. Heavy rains are falling, the sniper is still on the loose somewhere and I have to get to work. An old man who couldn't have been more than five feet tall, wearing thick glasses and a yellow slicker, stood next to the full service aisle at the gas station, watching me as I pulled in to the self service aisle. Just as I slipped my ATM card into the slot and prepared to fill up, he walked over, pointed to the hood of my car and asked "Got anything underneath there you need checked out?" "Oh, no, I don't think so. I think everything is fine under there, but I do really appreciate you asking." "Okay," he replied. And then he looked at me, with the warmest eyes, and added "you have yourself a good day." Now, I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but it was the way he said it and the way he looked at me with those warm, caring old eyes. And in that moment, that quick fleeting moment, it was as if our spirits had exchanged something very gentle, very kind and warm. And I smiled at him and he smiled back. We waved at each other as I left. As I drove, I thought to myself that that is what the world needs so desperately right now: random acts of compassion. The world does not need a hero or a new leader or tougher laws .... what we need is collective compassion. And it's simple. A call to my girlfried R a few weeks ago when her body was doing very ill-natured things, just to say hello and I'm thinking of you today and sending up prayers for your healing. Something as simple as that, knowing that though I don't hold the power to heal her body, I can influence her state of mind by telling her that she is loved and cared for. COMPASSION.

So much of what is spoken about these days, so much of what is written is without, what the Buddhists call, MINDFULNESS. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity and acceptance of present-moment reality. As my teacher John Kabat-Zinn writes, "It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation."
Mindfulness is the high road to PEACE. Only when we are mindful of ourselves and our own importance in the Grand Scheme, can we be mindful of others. And only through mindfulness can we find COMPASSION. As it pertains to artists, I would say that mindfulness is about writing your truth, designing your truth, singing your truth with the knowlege that everything that is sent into the Universe has a ricochet effect. Our media operates completely without mindfulness. Much of the music is not mindful. How can you be practicing mindfulness and come up with a lyric about shooting your jism all over some girl's face ???
Anyway, I just believe that as we approach war, which seems just about inevitable due to the cowardly, sheepish behavior of many of the politicians who only signed onto the bill b/c they are afraid of election backlash .... as we approach the killing of thousands and thousands of innocent women and children.....the best that we can do, on the day to day, is find every opportunity we can to receive and give compassion.

Be well. Be Love(d).
angel

DAILY INSPIRATION

This was the inspiration for today from Marianne Williamson. Funny, all day the word "mindfulness" has been coming to me.

"In Zen Buddhism, there's a concept called 'zen mind,' or 'beginner's mind.' They say that the mind should be like an empty rice bowl. If it's already full, then the universe can't fill it. If it's empty, it has room to receive. This means that when we think we have things already figured out, we're not teachable. Genuine insight can't dawn on a mind that's not open to receive it. Surrender is a process of emptying the mind.
In the Christic tradition, this is the meaning of 'becoming as a little child.' Little children don't think they know what things mean. In fact, they know they don't know. They ask someone older and wiser to explain things to them. We're like children who don't know, but think we do."

---Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love

and the affirmation is: I come to God with an open mind and empty hands.

and the prayer:

Father/Mother God,
I surrender what I think I know.
Refine my thoughts and attitudes.
Teach me the way of Love.
I release that which is not aligned with Your truth.
Life me to a higher place.
That I might live in your light always.
And so it is.
Amen

Be Well. Be Love(d)
ANGEL

WAITING


There is something very special about the waiting process as it pertains to writing. Waiting for charachters to show up. Waiting for theme to reveal itself. Waiting for tone to take over. Waiting to understand. There is nothing in our American life that encourages waiting. We are a "give-it-to-me and give-it-to-me-now" society. We are a people who expect every question to own an answer. We want what we want when we want it and when we don't get it we suspect, in some major way, that we've failed. We feel rejected. We feel that we've been slighted ... cheated ... hoodwinked ... bamboozled. But my argument is that good things come to those who wait. And I've been heavy into the verse: "The race is not to the swift but to him that endureth." Waiting. Wait-ing. Wait: 1. To remain or rest in expectation. 2. To remain or be in readiness. I am in a state of waiting.


I started this short story about, gee, maybe nine months ago. It's a snapshot of a woman post-911 preparing to go to the city medical examiner's office to identify what the data has declared are her husbands bones. The story is told in the Omniscient POV, no dialogue. It's brief. I wanted to show the process, pain and freedom in moving on ... the tenderness of memory and the necessity of action. The picture was clear to me from the beginning and so was the theme. I took this thumbnail sketch to Iowa this past summer and received excellent feedback from the other workshoppers and the instructor. But still I had to wait. The picture was too fuzzy. I was content to wait .... there is my novel to finish and other stories to polish and an essay about the political-ness of hair that I want to finish. Anyhow, as I approach the last few chapters of my novel, here comes the most clear and vivid picture of this story, the words just flowing to me like a son-of-a-gun while I was at the light the other day. And what's funny is that somehow I knew it would come ... eventually. And in that moment of flow it became clear to me why Alice Walker talks about the necessity of patience. Learning how to wait. And how useless it is to forge ahead in a story when things truly aren't clear and present. I mean, she's right. What is the use in writing something that is so fuzzy, so unclear. It reminds me of what the Buddhists teach about mindfulness. So tonight, as with last night, I will work on this story. I think I'm going to take it with me to the open reading this weekend.
:::peace:::

CONTEMPLATIONS


Have you ever thought about what you really wanted in your life? Now, I'm not just talking about a casual musing ... the wake up wishes. "Man, I wish I didn't have to go to work today" or the "Man, why couldn't it be ME that hit that Lotto????" I'm talking about goal and dream identification. I'm talking really, really thinking about what you want and, to take it a step further .... recording those wants? I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or because I'm studying more... understanding spiritual law better ... taking the roof off my mind ... but I've decided that it's time to really think about what I want and to put a plan of action into place. It's time to be on purpose. It's time to just put the energy out there knowing that life is a continous flow and when we have put out positive energy and placed our desires into that flow of life, what we want and what we desire somehow finds its way into our lives. When I look back on my life I realize that everything I've ever really wanted, developed a plan to achieve, and committed to work for, I have eventually been blessed with. I have the backyard I always wanted, the kids I always wanted. Spouse is cool - we have issues but who doesn't? But I think somewhere in our minds we put aside - or lets just say - keep our true desires hidden for fear that if we say what we want and don't get it we'll be disappointed. In other words, it's kinda like a Fox and The Grapes kind of thing. The minimalist theory, I guess. Anyway, I decided to my thoughts out there, in no particular order of importance, as I approach my thirty-ah-em'th birthday, trusting in Spirit to give me the desires of my heart:


* I want to learn how to live without worrying as much as I do.

* I want to learn how to be at peace no matter what condition I find myself in or what company I am amongst or how many digits I find in the balance column of my checking account.

* I want to achieve Agape love.

* I want to write full time and teach young people how to access their own creativity through writing.

* I want to be a published novelist.

* I want to leave my current career, fully financially able to step into the above and when I leave I want it to be for good.

* I want my children to be proud of me.

* I want my children to say that they KNOW, unequivocally, that their mother loved them and gave them the very best that she had to give.

* I want my children to want the best for themselves without any worry or concern about what others will think (including me and Dad).

* I want to live abroad.

* I want to have two homes: one place for the first half of the year and another place for the second half of the year.

* I want to polish my French and learn Spanish (fluently).

* I want to own a bed and breakfast in a coastal area.

* I want to wake up each day knowing that my time is my own.

* I want to live in a place where democracy really exists - where votes do count and leaders are really leaders.

* I want to live in a place where women are in charge (running things).

* I want to wake up and not be afraid that a sniper is on the loose, a terrorist planning another attack ....

* I want to know in my heart that there WILL be a decent world for my children.

* I want to grow old gracefully.

* I want to live to see 125.

* I want grandchildren.

* I want either: a Corvette, a Spider, a Cooper, or a Range Rover, but will settle for all four, just as well.

* I want a boat.

* I want to travel to Cuba and see it with my own two eyes and not throught the distorted lens of the American media.

* I want to go to Africa and stay for at least a month.

* I want to meet Alice Walker.

* I want to love and be loved, always.