Empty Basket

This morning I sat outside to meditate with an empty basket.

I had been using this basket to keep sticky pads and note paper in. As I cleaned off the desk so that my partner had room for his stuff, I kept moving it around. There really wasn't a great place for it anymore. So, it kept finding temporary homes around the office: on top the file cabinet, on top of another pile of papers, under the desk, and on the floor. Sticky pads kept falling out.

Why did I feel compelled to keep it so full?

I recently overheard my daughter telling her husband that I have a thing for office supplies.

It's true. I like paper and pens, tape dispensers and staplers. I really love colored markers and crayons. I keep file folders and notebooks for re-use. I like to look like I mean business. I like to feel in control of my life and this helps. But clearly, my basket was getting out of hand.

This is more than symbolic. Since moving three years ago, I took over setting up the house while my partner set-up a garage and moved his "projects" in - with cars and trucks that he wanted to salvage or keep up, lots of tools, and items he couldn't part with. I rationalized controlling the house space, because "we" were hoping to use this new place as a counseling/retreat place. It would be my business from home.

It hasn't turned out quite that way. I do have a small counseling practice at home. I've held workshops on aging and spirituality. We have held meeting for worship (a Quaker form of worship) here. Community activities have taken place. But I really didn't need to lock him out of the office. I just needed a locked file drawer for my work.

The basket seemed to keep getting lost and spilling over while I was sorting through the desk contents. Even after the desk was cleaned out, the basket couldn't seem to find its place - until this past week.

The usual facilitator of the meditation group would be out of town for two weeks. I offered to fill in.

The first week, I brought the chime, a small vase of flowers and a reading. When someone asked where the basket was for dana (the Buddhist term for donations), I realized that I didn't have one. But then it dawned on me that I knew exactly what would serve as our dana basket next week.

This week, I cleaned out the basket, recycling most of the papers and passing on the pads to my partner. He told me that he had just made scrap-paper note pads since he was out of them at his work. This is a company where cost-cutting measures included reducing staff by a third last year and where each office supply purchase is carefully considered.

I brought the empty basket to meditation and it seems everyone contributed to the dana this week.

In preparation for my daily morning meditation today, I put out the empty basket. I used it as a reminder to empty myself and appreciate the lightness of passing on whatever comes my way without clinging. As I dedicated the merit of my practice to the well-being of all in the universe, two herons flew nearby and honked.

The simplicity of their graceful flight inspired in me a sense of lightness and freedom that I imagine the basket must be enjoying.

Joy and a new vision for 2010

There are some years that I am ambivalent about. Then there is this year. I am so glad it is on its way out.

After working at a job in human services that couldn't meet payroll, I left mid-year with no job prospects. This is the year of the recession. What was I thinking?

In our culture of Can-Do, you'd think I could make things happen - like find a job or get my private practice to grow faster. After attending a clinical counseling workshop, several therapists told me that it took them 5-7 years to develop their practice. So paying for more strategic planning consultations or spending lots of money in advertising didn't seem to be the answer. The clients I have came from word-of-mouth or prior contact.

As my identity crumbled around my usual "paid work" ways of seeing myself, I found myself more engaged in family life, community, and the creative arts. These are things I have always done. I just had more time and wanted to experience it with less guilt while indulging...

But let me give you an example of how this worked: My husband encouraged me to see my sister after leaving work. Go ahead while you can, he said.

Going to Seattle to see my sister felt decadent since it cost money to travel out there. But it also felt incredibly important. It had been four years since I had been to her home to visit. It was nice not to have the pressure of having only two weeks of vacation at some stressful job and feeling torn about how to spend those prescious days while recovering from burnout.

It would also be nice to say I went free from worry. But that would be a lie. I obsessed about the money, finding work, and not being a burden the whole time. It followed me like Pigpen's cloud in a Peanuts cartoon.

Instead of flowing gracefully into the unknown, I found myself in knots for most of the year. My usual reaction is to feel guilty or get upset that I don't have work or somehow feel like I failed in fulfilling some life goal. There were times when I found myself teary and afraid. What if we run out of money? What if time keeps trickling and I find myself alone, poor and ugly. This seems funny to me now, as I write this - especially the ugly part, as if this had anything to do with work. But the feelings of despair grabbed me and shook me senseless at times this fall.

I grew up with the notion that money is the root of all evil and the Calvinistic view that prosperity is a sign of being faithful. Neither of these extremes makes sense.

My problem probably has less to do with money than becoming comfortable in my own skin. And at age 48, what a time for that as I enter into the Change of Life. What an opportunity and a curse!

I still don't have a real income at this point. I depend on my partner in many ways, but also in using our dwindling resources. I am trying to figure out how to make a living. The world is changing faster than I can keep up.

There have been so many experiences of heartache this year that I want to try joy. It has never been a priority. Life has been pretty practical or functional, or about fulfilling expectations - often what I think others want from me.

Our little meditation group had a Buddhist retreat on joy. I attended this about a month before leaving my job. Many participants seemed to genuinely be able to access joy or they were desparately seeking it.

My response to the group was that I was at the session to just focus on my breathing. At the time, I had a quiet sense of pride - there was no grasping, no attachment. And yet, my inner child longed for play or a release from the grinding sense of responsibility an oldest child often feels. Perhaps I could bring this into my adult life somehow. Seeing happy Buddhist teachers is what drew me to this practice to begin (Fruedian slip -wrote being) with.

I love learning and playing the harp. I love writing and self exploration. I am grateful for the times I've had to be with my kids and grandson or visiting friends and family. My grandson's interest in playing with me astounds me. My sporadic civic work has been deeply rewarding. I have loving friendships in my life. My partner's tender kisses are small miracles. The seeds and the roots of joy have been planted, tended to, and now need nurturing.

These past several years have been like trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole. I am so done with this, I keep telling myself. I pray to God that I learn some kind of lesson that I can't even articulate because I want to fit, to find ease, to breath, to be kinder to myself and others. I want to be of service, but in a way that is sustaining. There are some plants that need to go.

So while the past few years feel like work hasn't come together, it has created the energy to push me into a new way. And maybe instead of a grinding, life-sucking way, I want to do this in a way that is easier, more relaxed, loving and joyful.

My hope for you and all those you love in 2010 is to find your place, accept your whole self and shine with joy!

Deep change

It has been an interesting past six months - one in which I could have never have predicted happening. It really evokes a humility that I did not have in my youth when it was so important to know everything, to plan everything, to control my life and destiny.

It started with arranging a brief meeting with my first adolescent love this summer.

I don't think we intended to break up, but were forced to at the end of a head-long thrust into that magic elixir called love. We met at a music camp in Greensboro, NC in the summer of 1976. He was a brown city boy and I was tan farm girl. At the end of camp, we went home and could not hold together a long-distance love against difficult odds. Apparently, my Christian family could not make the completion of their faith journey from advocating for interracial healing to include their daughter's new boyfriend. I was so hurt and angry over the loss of this friendship.

Fastforward to 2009. We are meeting at a concert by the stage.

My old boyfriend had been faithful to his musical gifts. He was the person I had dreamed I wanted to be: creative, playful, beautiful, and a world traveler.

Seeing him spun me. He was a youthful as ever and I looked like a "pastoral counselor." I know he probably meant it as a compliment, but I felt dull, boring and sexless. What did I expect?

I had pursued an education I thought I had to have to be complete - leading to a great deal of professional frustration. Plus, I was ever the devoted mother and wife in the family - home births, long-term nursing, a mix of private, public and homeschool education for my kids over the years, working around my kids' needs to support their growth and our family values, attending to the family. They are adults now and I am a grandmother.

Yes, what did I want out of this exchange? I wanted healing. I wanted a chance to set the record straight. But it seemed that I wanted closure on one hand, and on the other hand, I wanted to see if we had anything in common, a spark - perhaps friendship, a muse. Both of us were getting ready to turn 48 years old in a few months. What did he see in me when I was a teenager? What had I lost over the years that I wanted to find? Who had we become? He didn't make me feel dull, I did that to myself. What happened?

The time together included hugs and rushed attempts to tell each other about our life's story in 5 minutes or less. It ended in several failed attempts to listen to each other. Our pain was exposed. And yet, I was so grateful to touch this person who has a place deep in my psyche. He was real and not a figment of my imagination.

The journey since our meeting has cracked my tightly-held identity. Jung's mid-life work has begun in earnest. I have railed at God asking what the lessons of my life are about. Where is the joy? Where is the energy? What if I never find that again? I am afraid, a rare acknowledgement of my vulnerability.

In the midst of this seachange, I am held up by relationships. I view my experience of the Divine through people and nature. What I can say is: I am grateful for the patience and love from people who travel with me on my spiritual journey. My husband has exhibited tremendous faith in me. My spiritual-nurturer friends have generously opened their hearts to me. I thank my meditation group for the gentle, open love and acceptance I receive. My writing companions help me clarify my thoughts. The birds still sing and the moon glows.

I find myself saying that whatever I have been doing for a very long time, I can no longer sustain. The skin of the past is shedding and I am itchy all over.