A Burning Issue

I snarled at a colleague, who's also a friend, in the bookstore where I work last week.  It wasn't so much what I said, as the way I said it.  I "put it right out there" just about as angrily as I know how.  I don't know if saying I was vicious would be overstating it, but the delivery of my comment surprised the few people who heard it, and no doubt rattled the cage of the colleague I was addressing.  Had my delivery been more sedate, the fact that it was slightly clever might have been noticed, and no doubt more effective in getting the message across.  But I was angry - very angry - and suddenly emotions that had been simmering beneath the surface erupted.

I didn't feel sorry for my outburst right away.  If anything, I felt smug and self- satisfied.  But soon afterwards I realized that I had not presented myself in the best light, even though I knew my anger was justified.  What ever happened to taking a deep breath before responding?  But this was a perfect case of spontaneous combustion.  My colleague had made a comment that sparked my pent-up, fiery feelings.  There was no room or time for slowing down to breathe, let alone think about what I was doing.
After I had time to consider my sudden outburst, I realized I owed my friend an apology.  She graciously accepted it.  That was over a week ago.  Although I still believe that my anger wasn't entirely unjustified, I'm still shocked and sorry by my response.  And that brings me to the whole point of this particular little blurb...
I got burned a few days ago, literally.  I was cooking and got a nasty little oil burn on my thumb.  It's still quite ugly, but finally starting to heal.  Can you see where I'm going with this?  Yup.  It's the old what goes around comes around thing.  You know what I mean - karma.  It's also Freud and his there are no accidents theory.  Some people might say karma and Freud aren't related in any way.  The Universe sends around karma, but we make our own accidents.  I tend to agree with that, but in this case the two are inextricably entwined.
I've observed that sooner or later I'll suffer consequences that fit my little crimes, e.g., if something's "bugging" me, I'll get bitten by an insect, or some creepy little infestation will occur.  Well, I "burned" a hole in a relationship with an inflammatory remark, and I subsequently got burned myself.  Big time.  Sounds like karma to me, and fits the pattern of my life perfectly.  But I also helped karma along, because I couldn't let go of my guilt.  It plagued me, and there was nothing I could do to let it go.  I'd apologized, but it wasn't enough.  Enter Freud.  I "accidentally" burned myself.  I found a way to punish myself for my misdemeamour.
Now that my self-inflicted injury has finally stopped hurting so much, I feel better about the whole sordid little incident with my friend.  I figure balance has been restored.  And my belief in karma has been reaffirmed - yet again.  Many people would call this sort of reasoning sheer bunk.  It's all random, they say - accidents do happen. To which I say of course they do.  My Universe includes everything, including randomness.  But if paying attention to how and why things seem to happen to me keeps me responsible for my actions, then I'll stick with that.  Call it flaky if you must, but it works for me.
- G.P.

My Gita Tante

I'm back after a long spell, and what a "spell" it's been.  It's conjured sadness, grief, some joy, and lots and lots of love.  My beloved Gita Tante, my most ardent and consistent follower, has died.  She was my biggest fan.  It hurts me to think that she'll never be sending me her thoughts about my most recent blurb, whether via email or speaking to me personally.
Gita Tante really listened to me.  She  truly heard what I had to say.  Mind you, for the last year or so, as her health declined, she wasn't visiting my little web as often.  But every once in a while, when she was strong enough to visit me online, she'd read about me right here, and I could always count on her to acknowledge my presence.  Her interest and responses to my musings was one of the reasons I have a little web at all.   Most writers, or artists or any discipline, express themselves in order to be heard.  I could always count on Gita Tante to pay attention to me.
Gita Tante was an exemplary listener.  And if you`ve been following me at all in this space, you`ll know by now that listeners are my favourite kind of people.  Her listening validated me, and her genuine interest in what I was doing and how I was feeling gave me a sense of self-worth I seldom feel so consistently from anyone else.  I suppose this sounds as if this blurb is all about me, even as I'm writing about a profound loss.  Well, that pretty much describes how Gita Tante made me feel whenever we shared time together.  She managed to make to make me feel as if, yes indeed, it was all about me, but without making me feel selfish or thoughtless.  It was strange how I could spend all my time talking about my joys and woes with Gita Tante, and still feel like a better, kinder, more considerate person for it.  How's that for casting a spell?
Time spent with her lifted my spirits.  She admired and respected me even when I hadn't done anything to deserve it.  And if I did accomplish something, no matter how big or small, she heaped an embarrassment of praises upon me.  Sure, sometimes she was over the top, but hey!  Who doesn't like being loved and appreciated once in a while?  Who doesn`t like being adored?  And I saw her do this time and again with the many people she loved, especially her children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews - the younger generations of the extended family.
Gita Tante was not only my maternal aunt, she was my Goddess Mother as well.  I can`t think of anyone who deserved that title more.  She was highly intelligent, knowledgeable, and above all, wise.  She believed that all the people she cared for - and she cared deeply for so many - were worthy of respect and admiration.  I feel truly blessed to have been one of those people.  She championed my work as a writer and actor even when I was paralyzed with doubt and despair.  She offered me respect when I had none for myself.  She believed in me, and told me so, many times.  Her love made me a stronger, better person.
I shall miss her.
- G.P.

Cleaning House

I'm checking in just because I haven't been here in a while.  It hasn't been easy for me lately.  In fact, things have been rather chaotic.  Emotional and domestic turmoil.  Stress.  Crap that clutters the mind and heart.
But it's gone now.  It's passed.  I rode out the storm.  It took a lot of will and effort to do it.  It required forgiveness on my part.  That wasn't easy, either, but I knew it was the only way to rid myself of the psychic garbage that was proliferating my life. 
I spent a couple of weeks clearing and cleaning out more stuff, both physically and metaphysically, yet again.  The longer I live, the less "stuff" I have.  I live in a clearer, cleaner space, and feel better for it.  As within, so without. 
Why don't more people get that?  Shouldn't it be obvious that the environment you create for yourself reflects who you are?  So to clean up the mess that was my life for a while, I went on a purging rampage.  (Although sometimes I still acquire new clothes.  I'm vain.  I'm an actress.  I like to change the way I look.  I can't do everything all at once.  First things first...)
If I'd been any more stressed I might have been paralyzed with fear of everything I had to do in order to fix what was wrong.  But I had no choice.  When there's a flood, you have to clean it up.  Flat tires have to be changed in order to keep moving.  So in a way, I suppose I was blessed with misfortune that forced me to get rid of what was bugging me.  But boy oh boy am I glad it's over.
So what's left?  Well, I feel a lot more free, that's for sure, and not just because I got rid of the material stuff.  As my living space gradually cleared out, so did my mind.  That's working from the outside in.  But inner work was necessary, too.  I had to forgive - big time.  That was the hardest part, but it was worth the effort, because it's made me stronger and better.
Nothing clears out anger and pain the way compassion and forgiveness do.  If you don't believe me, maybe you'll harken to the words of a great human being I quote frequently, Mahatma Gandhi.  The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Namaste.
- G.P.

Extreme Listening

Listening is much harder than talking. At least it is for me.  It's also a lot safer than talking, despite the title of this blurb.  I've never gotten into trouble for listening too well or too much, but I sure as hell have put my foot into it for talking, more times than I care to remember.

There are occasions, of course, when speaking is good and necessary, especially if it's to speak out against cruelty or injustice, or speaking up when a considered opinion helps to solve a problem, ease suffering, or just plain entertain and amuse.  But for all the times when speaking up or out is good and right, there are just as many situations, if not more, when talking is a real bummer, both for the person speaking and those who may or may not be listening.
There's all kinds of bad talking.  There's talking too much, or too loud, or so quietly that you can't be heard.  Then there's rude and obnoxious talking such as excessive, unnecessary profanity, talking out of turn, interrupting, mumbling, malicious gossiping, and talking for the purpose of insulting someone and hurting their feelings.  And surely the worst sort of speech is the kind that incites hatred and fear against individuals or whole groups of people.  Yes, there are so many ways to be rude and disagreeable when we talk.  But I can't think of a single way in which listening is rude or harmful. 
So why should listening be so much more difficult to do than talking?  You don't have to exert yourself in any way, unless you consider paying attention an onerous task.  You can do it while doing almost anything else - except talking, of course - or you can listen doing absolutely nothing but.  Sure, sometimes it's hard to pay attention to someone who's really boring and full of themselves, but listening is still a good thing.
Talking too much is a sign of deep-seated insecurity.  It's usually a need for attention.  The problem is that incessant babblers usually get the wrong kind of attention - the exact opposite sort of attention they seek.  Even when I'm not speaking too much, if I speak too quickly and without thinking, I invariably regret it.  That's because I'm not listening to myself.  When that happens, I open myself up to ridicule.  Talking about anything, whether it's personal, political, or philosophical, exposes the person who's speaking.  It reveals something about the speaker, however slight.  Opening that door means someone is sure to walk through it.  There will always be somebody who grabs any opportunity to slip in a clever, callous comment.
Yup.  Listening is a lot safer.
When a person who talks more than they listen is finally quiet and appearing to pay attention, they're usually trying to find a way to turn the conversation around and make it about them.  No matter what topic is being discussed, they're probably wondering how does this affect me?  And once they find a way to speak again - and they always do - they've managed to turn the conversation back to themselves.  I've seen it time and time again, and it always serves as a cautionary tale for a reformed talkaholic like me.  It's taught me how to listen, even if it means having to tolerate narcissistic, non-stop blabber-mouths.

Deep listening has not only helped me to help others - people who need to be heard - it's been healing for me as well.  Deep listening is about focus and attention.  It's a discipline.  It's a form of meditation that forces me to be still and quiet, and truly hear what's going on.  When I genuinely pay attention to someone, I'm able to hear what they're trying to say, even if they don't say it well.  Listening is the first step to learning.
The other day I listened to a good friend of mine go on and on and on about her plans for redoing her kitchen.  It was deadly dull, but I smiled and listened to her.  I missed a lot of the tedious details because I zoned out, i.e., stopped listening for a bit, but I patiently sat it out and stayed with her need to express herself.  She was excited about her new project, and I didn't want to take that away from her.  I paid attention to her need to be heard, rather than what sort of faucet and sink she was planning to install.  Otherwise I might have been short and cut her off.  But I didn't; I listened instead.  It was good for both of us.
I recently read an essay about deep listening by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Deep listening, he says, teaches us patience, and patience is an expression of love, of compassion.  That means I must frequently behave compassionately towards people I really don't like at all, simply because I'm forced, by circumstance, to listen to them.  I hear their rudeness and know how wrong they are about whatever it is they're going on about, but I listen to keep the peace - and to keep my job.
I shall continue to practise talking less and listening more - and listening deeply.  Listening deeply is also about listening to my deepest self.  When I listen to myself, I do things more carefully, more thoughtfully.  I make fewer mistakes.  I get into less trouble.
The way I see it, being bored once in a while is a small price to pay for peace.
- G. P.

Be Love

The title of this blurb sucks.  I know that.  But that's what this blurb is about, so I'm going to stick with it.
A couple of days ago in yoga class the instructor was guiding us through a meditation.  As we lay on our backs, the teacher asked us to breathe the energy from our heart chakra into our entire bodies.  She asked us to imagine that every part of our body was infused with soft, loving, heart-energy.  "Don't just feel the energy in your body," she said, "be the energy.  Be the love."  Normally, when I hear new-agey stuff like the over-used, ill-defined "be love," I roll my eyes.  I mean, how the hell does someone "be love?"  But when my yoga teacher told us to be loving energy, rather than feel it, I was in such a relaxed, blissful state, I thought "Hey, I'm already there."  My body felt like a big, mushy blob of love, and it felt fabulous.
This morning I repeated the same exercise in a restorative yoga class.  Restorative yoga consists of gentle poses held for long periods of time, supported by props (cushions, blocks, straps etc.), so that the only thing exerting any effort is gravity.  So I had lots of time to imagine myself as Love.  Our instructor kept reminding us to breathe, deeply and fully, which I did.  But I was also filling myself up with love.  Or so I imagined.  After all, I'm an actress, and I can act or be anything I imagine.  Kids do it all the time when they "pretend."  If you've ever watched children as they play, you'll see some of the most committed "pretending" there is. 
Student actors perform numerous exercises for developing the imagination.  They'll be asked to pose as if  they're all sorts of things they're not: other people, animals,  inanimate objects, and a host of things in nature such as trees, flowers, mountains, winds and seas.  (Come to think of it, it happens a lot in yoga, too - upward and downward dogs, eagles, trees, mountains etc.)  So if we can act as if we're a seed growing into a flower, why can't we play at being an emotion?  And if I'm going to meditate on being an emotion, I figure love is a good one.
So that's what I did.  It was especially easy to do when I was lying on my back, arms outstretched, exposing my heart.  It's an open, vulnerable position, and all sorts of emotions can come up, and they frequently do.  To make the exercise more effective, I focussed on being an actor, which I am, who was practising yoga, which I do.  I looked as if I were in a yoga class, but I felt like I was doing a "magic as if" exercise in an actor's workshop.  It was Acting 101 all over again.
It was the best acting-cum-yoga class ever.  I took a feather-light, airy-fairy journey in my mind to find out what it is to Be Love, whilst sustaining a pose to realign my spine and stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system.  Focussing on my breathing didn't distract me from my intention to Be Love.  In fact, it made it easier.  I've taken many acting classes in my day, done a lot of exercises, and performed a number of different roles (but not as many as I would have liked), and I can't remember when I've enjoyed being something else so much.
Being love, rather than being in love, or loving, is an act of the imagination.  Humans aren't emotions.  We have emotions, and we feel emotions.  You can't see them, and you can't see the imagination, either, but that's where you go to be anything you want.  Playing with the imagination, the way actors do, allows a person to be anything.  So I've decided to spend more time pretending to be Love, just like an allegorical character in a Medieval morality play.  It's lots of fun, and it feels good - really, really good.
- G.P.

Living and Learning

We learn far more from our mistakes than our successes, in which case I should be very wise indeed, given that I've had a lot more misses than hits in my life.  But I figure on the acquired wisdom and knowledge scale, I'm just about where I should be.  So I'll just keep breathing and walking through it all and see what comes up to upgrade my status.  Maybe nothing ever will.  Maybe I'll never have that pivotal moment, that flash of deep insight where everything comes together and I'll finally "get it."  Such revelations usually come only when one spends their whole life dedicated to finding peace and enlightenment, a state of consciousness Buddhists refer to as samadhi.  I guess I'll have to settle for the lay-person's version of wisdom.

I keep this online journal of mine to check in on myself every once in a while, to see how I'm doing.  Sharing my thoughts forces me to be very aware of what I'm saying.  I have to think twice before I write something down for all the world to read.  (That's a relative notion, of course.)
I write about my own world to create more "successes" in my life - to accomplish something, small though it may be.  Just finishing one little blurb is a small achievement for me.  It doesn't give me fame, or glory, or riches.  All I get is a little satisfaction for briefly and lightly expressing myself, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, someone out there will hear me.  If not, at least I can come back here, weeks or months or even years later, and read how I was doing, and what mattered to me at this time in my life.  (I just hope nothing will embarrass me the way some of the entries in my old-fashioned paper-bound journals do.  Oh well, there's always "delete.")
In the vast scheme of things, my little web is inconsequential, and I don't really care, because I don't aspire to changing the world, or making a difference.  My schemes and dreams aren't that grand.  In fact, if I could leave things at least the way I found them, with as little evidence that I came by this way, I'd be fine with that.  But it's too late.  I'm taking up space, consuming, and polluting, all the time, just by the mere fact that I'm alive.  So I'm trying to do less of those things these days, too.  I'm doing my best to rid my life of excess, both physically and psychologically.  The less I consume and acquire, the less space I take up, and the less I pollute.  But I fail on a daily basis, and most of the time for the most selfish reasons.  But geez, sometimes a cold beer on a hot day is a great way to celebrate something, or just plain chill out.  And as long as I do it consciously and gratefully, I like to think that I'm still part of the solution, and not part of the problem.
Most of the time conscious living is as simple as making the right choice.  Granted, making the right choice may be a simple solution, but it's not always easy.  Choices aren't always just black or white; life includes many shades of grey, too.  (And I don't mean that dreadful, smutty book that's getting so much undeserved attention these days.)
I'm not an activist, nor am I a true contemplative.  But I can actively live out my beliefs and values, which are, I hope, aligned with the greater good.  Every day I'm more aware of the consequences of my actions.  That's a full-time, life-long practise.  Following that path doesn't have to be onerous; in fact, it can be a joyous pursuit, and like any discipline, it gets easier to achieve the more one practises. 
Every moment I feel well and enjoy the simple act of breathing and being alive is a "success."   I've come to realise those moments are happening more and more for me. That's when I'm not dwelling on my past, or mired in memories of all the mistakes I've made, or worrying that I'm not making a difference.  All I have to do to feel good about who I am is to pay attention, to listen to other people and to myself, i.e. my body, and then attend to what I hear and see.  I'm no good to anyone else if I'm not good to myself.  No doubt I'll keep making mistakes, but as long as I keep learning from them, I'll be a wiser woman.  There's nothing wrong with that. 
- G.P.

Beautiful Beltane

It's May Day - the first day of May and the rest of my life.  (Pardon the cliche, but I suspect there will be a few more before I finish this particular blurb.)  Anyway, I'm writing in my online journal to set the tone for the rest of my life - as today goes, so goes the month, year, etc...  So I have to get some writing in today.
Come to think of it, that's an awful lot of pressure to put on this silly, insignificant little piece of wordsmithery.  But I just can't shake the magical thinking habit.  I've been thinking that way as long as I can remember, so I know only too well how it can lead one down the path of disappointment and delusion.  I shouldn't be writing with any expectation or hope that indulging in such superstitious activities will have an effect on an unknown future.  I guess I'll just have to settle for enjoying how the words seem to magically appear on the screen as I move my fingers over the keyboard.  That's awesome enough as it is.  No really.  I'm having fun.  And when I finish writing this bit of nonsense and find the perfect picture to illustrate it, and then hit "publish" on the dashboard to view the finished entry, it'll be even more awesome. 

Enough said.  I've done my occasional first-of-the-month ritual and feel better for it.  Besides, my sister's bugging me to write more, so here it is.  If writing a few words about absolutely nothing on this very fine and first day of May is all I need to make myself feel good, I guess I must be okay.  Would that every day went so well.
There I go again, worrying about what's to come when what's here and now isn't too bad at all.   But is it okay if I look forward to going for a walk as soon as I'm finished here?  Sure it is.  Anticipation is a very in-the-moment way to feel.  Looking forward to something real sweetens the present.  Wow.  I just wrote myself into a really good mood.  Goddess, I love my little web.
Thanks for dropping by, and have a beautiful, blessed, blissful day.
- G.P.