Grand Gestures: It is Not Enough to Suffer

It is not enough to suffer.

Enough.

"Enough is a verb, a conversation, a fugue, a collaboration. It is not a static state, something achieved or accomplished. It is relational, by nature unpredictable, punctuated by wonder, surprise, and awe. It may feel dangerous and inefficient. It demands that we stay awake, pay attention to what is true in this moment, in our hearts, and make the choices always and only from that place. Then whatever we decide brings a sense of rightness and sufficiency, arriving with an exhale, a letting go, a sense that this, here, for now, is enough." (Wayne Muller, A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough)

I was with beautiful friends last night and we were talking about having one night left to live and what we would do with it. I love conversations which bring me back to the perspective of my mortality.

My own mortality, always right in front of me, reflected in my people, through the grief and loss we’ve been moving through together as a family, for a couple of generations now. It is not unheard of for my family to be talking about funerals, wills and who gets what when we die. It is not unheard of for us to all be meeting at a funeral, so soon after the last one. I don’t know if it’s healthy or a morbid family dysfunction that comes with so many, many deaths, but I realized long ago I am good at conversation in times of crisis. Sometimes I think we only know how to talk to each other in crisis, express ourselves when faced with our own mortality.


So when she asks me, “What would you do if you had one day?” I answer without hesitation. I know what I want to do with my last day on earth. But being human and also being a human being who is rarely satisfied, I want two days.

Here is how it starts....

It starts with.... an invitation.



Dear Angela,

I know you like grand gestures....

And I will say yes. Because I do. I do, I do, I do! The grander the better. I love that she knows that.

It will start early in the morning, before I have my bearings, early early when I wake up and imagine the amazing miracle of the sun coming back for yet another day. Where I feel like I am just waking up for the first time. I will sit and talk with an old friend, my elder and we will make a journey together. Yes, this is how the grand gesture will start. With this beautiful elder, who wants to talk about plants. Oh! This is how the journey will begin, this pilgrimage to the ocean.

We’ll fly on a tiny plane to a beautiful island on the edge of the world. I will arrive in a storm. I want to arrive in a storm. When it’s fresh and windy and you can smell the dirt and leaves and smell the rain. I want to arrive breathless, swept away with the wind all around and to feel at home and so very calm. What an amazing feeling it is to feel so very much at home. To be greeted by amazing beings. What it means to be whisked away, undercover, to a magical place at the end of a long road.

The beauty in climbing steps I know so well. To pass the woodshed and walk up to the little cabin and sit down in the chair. The joy when even though a year has passed, the cat remembers and jumps right up into my lap.

Oh! That we have tea and laugh and talk excitedly and pinch each other because it’s real, but are we dreaming? Oh! What it feels like to have a tension headache from laughing and smiling so hard.

I want to lie under the window under the trees and watch the rain come down until I have motion sickness, from the swaying treetops and the rain drops. It will be a miracle to take the journey out onto the beach, have the sun come out and to watch out from atop rocks, to sit and keep vigil, over the ocean.

To nap and lie on ancient rocks and fall asleep under new sunshine and to feel exhausted, happily exhausted from whispering prayers into the cracks and crevices, the tidal pools and to shout them out across the edge of the world into nothingness.

It will be beautiful when the heart expands napping beside beautiful friends, as we chill the elderflower and huckleberry wine in a tidal pool.

Here is how it will go.

We will laugh, and talk. We will make candles, dipping them awkwardly at first, not knowing exactly how. I will laugh and tell you about the time I first made them 25 years ago and we will laugh because we think that’s a long time, even though, much farther in the future we will realize that 25 years has passed us by and we are still creating things awkwardly at first until we find the inner motion, the turning that lets us create anything. I will be grateful that you were there to help me, make so many candles. Even though they started out bumpy and odd shaped, and perfectly perfect in their imperfections.




I will cry. I always cry. It happens like that. You will be fiercely protective of me and my emotions.

We will have dinner by candlelight, and fairy lights that twinkle in the darkness. We’ll chop wood. When the sunset comes we’ll say to each other, “How about it?”

We’ll all answer "Yes, let’s go!"

It won’t take but two minutes before we’re out perched on a log with a beautiful bottle of blackberry wine from the south. Then the sun will set over the ocean waves and we will say for the hundreth time, can it get any better than this?

Continually we will look each other in the eye, put our arms around each other, smile and laugh and keep on talking. We have a lot to talk about. Because life is always changing, because nothing is ever perfect, there are so many things to say.

Not any of us is perfect. It’s true. Flaws galore from me! Flaws all around! We are best with our imperfections. There is nothing better than voicing your insecurities out loud with your most trusted friends. Even better, better than just imperfections we are best when we bring our imperfections out into the light, for each other to inspect, and acknowledge and see. It is not enough to suffer, but with these friends I have enough. Angie will remind me, suffering is not enough. She will read to us aloud in her calm and gentle voice and I will listen, and take it in and remember.

Suffering Is Not Enough Thich Nhat Hanh
Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, any time. If we are not happy, if we are not peaceful, we cannot share peace and happiness with others, even those we love, those who live under the same roof. If we are happy, if we are peaceful, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. Do we need to make a special effort to enjoy the beauty of the blue sky? Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it. Each second, each minute of our lives can be like this. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, even the sensation of our breathing. We don't need to go to China to enjoy the blue sky. We don't have to travel into the future to enjoy our breathing. We can be in touch with these things right now. It would be a pity if we are only aware of suffering.


In the morning we will have breakfast together, and talk more and eat more and feel our way around enough. We will know when we are nourished.

Then, after such a long time of chosen estrangement and the holding my own space I will go and see friends I haven’t see in a while, a dog and a man. I will want to see them because I missed them and I want to know if we can still talk to each other, despite everything. I want to see them because suffering is not enough, and everyone in our family should benefit from peace. I will want to see them because we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine and the presence of each other and because in a world full of estrangement I don’t want to be separate from my family. We will walk out in the sunshine, and the dew will hang heavily on the spider webs. We’ll notice one at first, then two. The looking out across we will notice all of the webs, little universes, many different universes going on all at once, unaware of each other.

Oh! And as I walk my heart will be bursting with joy because my favorite dog in the world will be bounding on ahead and all the time apart and the longing for her will just disappear. We will forget pain when happiness is standing right in front of us, four legs and all, asking for a walk and some love.

We will walk and talk the way we do. (Maybe I am talking too much) Maybe when I recognize that - I will try to be quiet for a while and let him have some space in our conversation. I will laugh, and it will be loud. It always is. He’ll say something nice about it, and for a minute, I get to see him, as he is. I will have this overwhelmingly wonderful feeling like I am making a nice new shiny memory, and it feels so good. Because sometimes all there is, is making new memories, when the old ones no longer serve us.

I know that everything that ever happened and anything that will ever happen is all happening right now in this moment, and I have enough.

Whatever I ever wanted and whatever I will ever want is all happening in this very moment, there is no need and all the suffering has its balm, joy.

In the present moment it is all perfectly enough. Sometimes when I have forgotten the joy I listen to the voice of suffering and hunger and expectation and it turns into the starving and the wanting. But when I’m listening to that moment, in our fleeting world where I only know nourishment, when I remember to look around because it’s always right in front of me. Then, then- sometimes I feel like I’ve had enough.

Enough in all its forms, in its conversation and collaboration, wonder and surprise. I want to have enough and to stay awake. Most importantly I really do want to pay attention to what is true in this moment in my heart and make my choices always and only from that place.

I want to make my choices that way so that whatever we decide brings that sense of rightness and the sufficiency. I want enough to arrive with an exhale, in a wind storm, under a sunny sky, in the moment of letting go, of awe and wonder, despite everything. I want to maintain the sense that this, here, for now, is enough.

I want to be really alive. I’d totally spend my day that way.

Then, too there is a new compass. The one who is now directing where I am headed, the compass in poem form. Pointing directly to...the center...

All the Hemispheres (Hafiz)
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadow and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new watermark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.


So... yeah. I went home for the first time in a year. Made some amends to the ocean, on the anniversary of my cousin’s disappearance at sea. I had my grieving period, about so very many things, and then laid them to rest. Started my first pilgrimage fire, unexpectedly, but started. Saw my girls. Walked with a friend and my favorite dog. Got some roots. Loved up a cabin. Nothing better.

It happened. It is happening. It will happen again.



My love as always,
Angela

Beautiful Road: inner loner rears her head

I woke up from a dream this morning. I was riding a bicycle down a long dirt road.


I dream about the road all the time. I dream of roads, streets, squares and houses. I’ve really got a thing for roads in dreams and in my waking life.
This road was a beautiful road however. I was heading towards a village on a long dirt road, it was warm morning and the sunrise was coming up and I was just getting a look at the road as the light came up. I am gliding along and looking up, I can see the trees. The trees are blooming, and they are covered in beautiful flowers. They are overflowing and so abundant. On the road in front of me are little bundles, piles of gifts. Continuing to the village, the road and the flowers and the gifts were stretching out. I was gliding into an ocean of beautiful flowers and gifts.
Last weekend I went to a radical herbalists gathering, camping out for a couple of days. I have to tell you all, in case you get some other notions, there is nothing radical about me. It’s like the realization my sister had about herself when she realized she’s not funky. My inner loner reared her head.
I actually think my neurosis came shining through. Last year something happened and I was no longer able to be alone. Friend after friend after friend has entertained my life away this year. Before, I wanted so much to be left alone I didn’t know really know what it mean to be lonely, because I never was. But this year I didn’t want to be alone and I felt so much loneliness.

04 to be alone with you
After years and years of really wanting space and taking time alone and wanting to be by myself, I couldn’t be alone. My inner loner has been on holidays and she came back at this crazy inopportune time, in a crowd of a hundred. I suspect it was merely I arriving back, having been away so long. I suspect it also has to do with being past a certain age where you know who you are and what your place is in the world. So I got a little bit of a taste of the pushing my edges challenge. That’s all good. I am not radical. It feels somewhat liberating. In the aloneness and the taking of space I had the opportunity to walk off down a long road into the full moon in solitude and contemplation. I wanted out of the trees for some reason, and walked out of the camp. Waiting for me at the end of the road the beautiful full moon shone out and pulled me in. So I walked towards her and had this beautiful memory of Billy telling me ``I am the moth and you are the moon.” I felt like that, that I had so fallen in love with the moon I was being pulled toward her, the light. I stood on the road. Not in the middle, but on the side of the road, for a long time. I put my feet half on the dirt and half on the pavement, stood for an hour in the moonlight looking far off into the bush on the other side wondering what it means to have one foot in one this world and one foot in another world. What it’s like to stand on the edge of something, and wonder. I felt twelve. I was alone and happy.

09 - The Dark Leaves Theme
I have had a year of beautiful blessings. I guess this is the road I am on. I don’t mind this road, then, the one filled with flowers and gifts. I took a whole beautiful year to myself to claw my way up to the road and get back on it. Damn Pluto Shift! Okay, well I am grateful. Life pulled this way and pulled that way, until finally life put me in one place, but still on a road.
This road is close enough to my sister to come back and be with the girls, whenever I want. This weekend I came and babysat while Dawn and Ben went out biking. The girls were great.
Me and Gracie
Grace is very loving right now. She throws her arms around me and holds on so tight. She runs to me. We just hold on tight, and love, love, love. We flew kites, went and saw the salmon spawning in the channel in D’arcy.
Went with Dawn and got plants, soooo very many plants and herbs from her garden and her potatoes. We went to the beekeepers and got honey and flowers. We canned plums.




She dug me potatoes from her garden. We got hypericum and raspberry leaf and so many plants from down the hill, went out to the meadows, got fresh roasted coffee. And I cooked. Really cooked. Like got out the joy of cooking and made a meal. Also, another first. I haven’t made a cooked, cooked in a year. Not since last fall. For many reasons. But this was lovely. It was pretty much great.
Love all around.
All my love, Angela