Passion and Play

I read an article in Elephant Journal this week that's been tossing around in my mind...
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/01/love-is-selfish/ (which I will reference throughout this post)

This is an article by someone I've never met (Waylon Lewis).  But someone who has articulated a vision of love and marriage that hit so close to home for me, that 1) I thought I should probably marry him (or at least meet him, since, truly, I'm really not interested in "marriage" as a formal institution any longer); and 2) made me realize I'm truly "married" to my passions and my work.  And, 3) If I define marriage as a lifelong commitment to loving completely and vulnerably...well, I'm married to quite a few people.

And then I started exploding out this idea of what it means to be fully committed to the work I do and to the love I have for the people in my life, and I started thinking about how much bigger that was than anything else I could possibly imagine...and...well, my mind has been a little blown.  And Maya Angelou's statement that her heart had been broken so many times that it had been simply broken open comes to mind.  I see so clearly that every moment of heartbreak, every moment of pain has allowed for empathy, for strength, for clarity...

Let me back up.  I'm happy, blissfully so...  But not for the reasons I thought I would be.  I'm happy because I have finally stopped apologizing for the fact that I'm on a mission.  This mission is self-chosen.  It's both selfish and selfless.  And parts of it are infinite and there are tasks that are finite at the same time.  When I think about what I'm here to do, I realize I'm here for the work.  Play is fabulous.  It sustains me.   But the work?  It's the driving force of "me." The work is to make sense of our society, to figure out how to make it better, to make the world of education make more sense--in whatever way I can.

And the play?  The play is love.  The play is the outdoors.  The play is new experience.  It's openness.  It's the recognition that in order to take things seriously, we have to have spaces in which we don't.  The play is laughter.  And the work and the play are the same:  It's all passion.

I have realized, as I've been sifting, in the past year, through disillusionment, through anger, through hurt...that what this whole process has been is a re-awakening of who I am.  And there's no fear here.  There's only excitement, and the realization that I didn't so much have faulty logic in a choice in partner, I simply wasn't astute enough to make assumptions  supported by data. (I have finally let go of beating myself up for my choice to marry a person who I wish I hadn't.) Red flags should never be ignored.  I chose a partner a decade ago who I thought was the person who would help me look outward--that we would help each other do so:
"Two friends* facing the same direction together, symbolically east, the direction of the rising sun, as in ever-awakening fundamentally a-ok human nature. Walking the path together. Helping one another to be of benefit." (see Elephant Journal article referenced above)


And I finally realize that my vision of love wasn't misguided, but my choice of partner was.  "I don’t need to go on a lifelong romantic picnic I have things to do."  


Indeed.  I do.  


And my version of work and of love is really big.  I'm here.  Living is hard. It is.  And I can't imagine living without being of service: 

“And while I’m here I’ll do the work.  And what’s the work? To ease the pain of living — everything else, drunken dumbshow”  – Allen Ginsberg

And I'm pretty positive there are a lot of people out there with the same agenda.

We don't have that long.  We aren't here for ever.  I'm reminded of this daily.  However, I also want to be reminded, by the people around me, that we're all in it together.  And that we're all, in our own ways, trying to create spaces and opportunities for a better world to emerge.

I will love big.  I will love without reserve.  And I will not forgo "the work" for a blissfully ignorant view of what real love actually is.  And I know, without a doubt, that I have some pretty fabulous company on this journey.

Refuse to Stay Quiet

I am wondering how many conversations continue to be squelched and how many voices we lose because we're afraid of hearing things that might rattle the comfort of the status quo.  In Arizona,  many of you know, the state has banned Mexican American Studies classes--of both literature and history.  There is so much fear and hatred behind this decision that it's actually difficult to wrap your mind around.  I have a lot of things I'm angry about in the world of education, but studying multiple perspectives and disrupting the belief that history is a single narrative that we can weave neatly in a 300 page U.S. History textbook?  That's not one of the things we should be angry about.

We should be angry about the fact that high school students, specifically students of Mexican American and African American descent are dropping out of high school at rates that should alarm even the most callous person. We should be angry that we live in a country where income disparity and class distinctions have become more and more rigid, and more and more difficult to move beyond.  We should be angry about the fact that education has been co-opted by corporate drones who perpetuate the myth that thinking is actually a negative thing, and accountability (in all of its misguided forms) is the answer.  And we must stop making decisions that are driven by hatred.  Our responsibility to our youth has to be borne of love, of trust, and the belief that doing what's right is not always what's easy, and it doesn't always benefit someone's bottom line in the short term (read:  prisons), but the dividends in the future are exponential.

And we take a day out of school to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.  And I wish, very much, that we would spend the rest of our days in school with a little more focus on his memory, his ideas and ideals.

When did creativity, critical thought, and willingness to engage in civil discourse become scary?  Ahhh...  yeah,  it always has been, at least to the people for whom the status quo is hugely beneficial.

I work with students every day whose families have come to the United States from places that are battle grounds, where potable water is in short supply, where caste systems and racial distinctions have left them without citizenship in any country.  And I work with students who believe that America is a land of opportunity.   And I want so badly for this to be true for them.    I have a dream.

Wings

Copious reminders have surfaced of late regarding the power of happiness, and the power of sharing our own happiness with others.  I was afforded the opportunity to spend some time with people who love me unconditionally (and who have known me as I lived through more interesting times, and who love me anyway) in the past while.  And in the safety of this space, I realized how much more I have to offer the world when I am exactly me.  And my resolution this year remains to spend time with the friends who I love so dearly my heart aches just thinking of them.

And on the wings of this experience, I found myself laughing genuinely with my students today as we talked about the power of exploring multiple perspectives, reading and learning, and...I realized that it really is this simple.  Emily Dickinson writes of wings that carry us through "dingy streets" of life and lift us above through the power of imagination.  And I realize that we each carry this within us:  the power to explore the stories of others, the power to learn, to grow, and to believe...and to fly above.

I'm going to fly.  I'm going to leave the confines of my current reality, which is perfectly fine, but perfectly fine doesn't suffice.  I have wrestled and wrestled with practicality versus sanity, and responsibility versus risk.  I'm a very pragmatic person (fortunately or unfortunately). I have come down on the side of responsibility, but finally, finally, it is responsibility for myself and my own happiness.  And nothing ever comes too soon or too late when we're listening carefully.  I couldn't have made this decision a year ago, and I would have berated myself for a whole litany of things if I had.  There comes a point in time when we can, with no apology, move on, move beyond, and do so gracefully.

And this freedom, borne of a decision that's been a long time coming, allows me to share my happiness, genuinely, with others.  And this brings me back to Pema Chodron, whose words have helped me conjure these wings:  "The whole journey of renunciation, or starting to say yes to life, is first of all realizing that you've come up against your edge, that everything in you is saying no, and then at that point, softening.  This is yet another opportunity to develop loving-kindness for yourself, which results in playfulness--learning to play like a raven in the wind."

Time to assemble the wings.  Time to offer myself the space and perspective to envision, revision, and believe.  It is time.

Wait

I've just finished Sharon Salzberg's text Faith.  I don't know any more if this was recommended to me by a friend or if I simply picked it up.  It was on my shelf, and had been started at some point in the past year.  And I spent some time moving through it in the past week.

Some lines I have to share:

"One of the most subtle ways fear can bind us, so quietly that we hardly know to call it fear, is what is known in Buddhist teachings as 'fixated hope.' Fixated hope, like hope itself, resembles faith in that both sparkle with a sense of possibility.  But fixated hope is conditional, circumscribing happiness to getting what we want"  (p. 81).

I hope we all have a sense of the world around us 'sparkling with a sense of possibility,' but also with the acknowledgement that happiness lies in a space that doesn't depend on an outcome.  

"Is it necessary to go through despair on a spiritual path, to endure a proverbial dark night of the soul in order to deepen our faith?  I don't know the answer to that--but I do know that it is necessary to strip away the entangling, unhealthy ways of relating to ourselves with dislike and diminishment that we are accustomed to.  And I know that we need to let go of many things, undergo loss, and unhook from the world's insistence that we cover up our pain in order for us to see what is really important to our lives" (p. 121).

I thought this was particularly salient as we move into the new year.  An artificial marker, yes, but a time when we are all looking to return to what's really important to our lives.  I'm hoping that's what our resolutions lead us to.

"If there is nothing we can do right now but wait, then, as T.S. Eliot wrote, 'the faith is in the waiting.' If we can but wait, we may yet emerge from despair with the same understanding that Zen master Suzuki Roshi expressed:  'Sometimes just to be alive is enough"  (p. 123).

Wait.

Sometimes just to be alive is enough.

I remind myself.

Re-Visioning

There are moments when I realize that it's time to stop and revise, remind myself of what the larger purpose is.  That time is now.  I was reading a blog earlier in the day and it said something to the effect of:  "Sure, take some time to visit with your bullshit, but keep it short."  I'm limiting my conversations with my bullshit as much as I can.

Yoga themes have been along this line lately:  "Let go" and "Manifest" were two of the latest.  I think we should all exhale.  I think we should all let go.  I think this will allow us to send out energies that will sustain the glory, the well-being, and the generosity of all around us.  I'm pretty sure I haven't been very good at this lately.  And I'm pretty sure I'd like to be better at it.

I am revising ideas I've been playing with for years as I put together thoughts for my dissertation.  I'm viewing and reviewing countless hours of video tape of my students working hard to become members of an academic community (and succeeding).  I am filled with pride at the work I do.  I am filled with longing to have this searching and researching mean something.  And I am reminding myself that there is a larger purpose.  There is.  And I exhale and continue.   I need reminders, as we all do, that there is so much more to this life than we can see.  There is so much more that we can offer to one another.  We just need to see.  And sometimes, "re-" is the answer.  If researching is really to search again, then we should all view this journey as a pretty big research project.  And we should recognize that we're all in it together.

Softening

Lately it seems that I am receiving the same messages from different sources.  The themes seem to build on each other.  I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or anything, but...
Yoga theme on Wednesday?  "Soften."  I was feeling pretty solid and clear, so the idea of softening to the world around me seemed like a nice bit of icing on my otherwise calm state.  I should know myself well enough to know that any state I'm in is subject to change multiple times over the course of days.  I'm convinced my core is just working through some "shit," and that eventually this will move out of my way if I'm conscious of it.  The stuff we work through not inherently bad, but it is inherently real if we are believing it.  I don't mind moving through.  I mind getting stuck on something.


Some messages headed my way this week from a variety of sources:
1.  "To use a metaphor from the Buddha, the unavoidable pains of life are its "first darts." But then we add insult to injury with our reactions to these darts...When you throw second darts, you are the person you hurt most. The suffering - mild to severe - in second darts is truly unnecessary. As the saying goes, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional." --Rick Hanson
2.  "If we can stop locating our sense of self in the relentless surge of the monkey mind's slapdash chatter, we can be fully attuned to the life that's right in front of us. Only then are we able to want what we actually have...Here's the logical conclusion: It's downright stupid and self-destructive to keep infecting our imaginations with pictures of loss and failure, doom and gloom, fear and loathing. The far more sensible approach is to expect blessings." 

--Rob Brezny

3.  "Without realizing it, we continually put up protective walls made of opinions, prejudices, and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt. These walls are further fortified by emotions of all kinds: anger, craving, indifference, jealousy, and arrogance.

But fortunately for us, the soft spot—our innate ability to love and to care about things—is like a crack in these walls we erect. It’s a natural opening in the barriers we create when we’re afraid. With practice we can learn to find this opening." --Pema Chodron

My take aways?  

1.  Accept the pain, but don't exacerbate it by dwelling on it.

2.  You may as well expect good things to happen to you.  

3.  There isn't any room for walls in wide open spaces (paraphrasing Buddy Wakefield on this one).

4.  The moment we soften, invite the vulnerability and fear in, that is the moment we are real, and we can face what is in front of us without artifice or irrationality.

Sometimes, really, it just takes these reminders of shared humanity, of gentleness with ourselves and others to diffuse a situation, and provide a reminder of what we're all doing here together.

Attention

This month's funk began benignly enough, as they often do,  on the heels of some excitement, and then slowly became less and less benign.  I moved from what I thought was a fabulous purge of energy and emotion...to the slippery slope that is depression.  Crying, for me, is productive.  A need to curl up under a blanket without even the energy to read a good book?  Ambivalence about what I'm eating?  Not so much.  A much more interesting exploration of this phenomenon was illustrated beautifully on a blog recently (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/).  Absolute brilliance and worth the read (and re-read) if you have a moment or two.

Anyway.  I'm not depressed (I was for a couple of days...a week?).  I'm now recognizing that I'm just in a bit of a lull, and I'm a little bit tired.  There's a lot of flux and uncertainty (You know that moment when you realize that you can do and be anything in your life?  Sounds great in theory, but the reality can throw one for a bit of a loop).  This is both a terribly exciting time and a terrifying one, alternately.  How I respond to this period of time is all about where I place my attention.  I found myself dwelling on things that had nothing to do with me or my reality in the last while.  I described what I'd like as my "ideal" life to a friend of mine recently, and she said, "I think you just described your life now."  Well, I'm a slow learner sometimes, and it took a few more references and allusions to bringing my attention back to what was/is real before I caught on to the fact (just today) that, indeed, I'm exactly where I need to be doing exactly what I need to be doing, and really, it's pretty lovely.  I don't plan on doing it much longer, but right now it's all I need to be doing.  Right now is a pretty nice space to live in.

Yoga, of course, three classes in a row was a reminder that where we place our attention is what we get more of.  (And, indeed, the dark thoughts, the monkey mind, the self-doubt was certainly feeding on itself and replicating itself exponentially).  I know this on a conscious level, but sometimes I let my mind just go where it wants.  Sometimes it works, but at others, it's simply ridiculous.  I do laugh at myself at these moments, but more often than not, click the tape right back on and keep listening.  Friday evening's yoga instructor said that as he was sitting down to meditate, he had a thought, then said, "It would be so nice never to have that thought again."  And, of course, it was the thought that swirled around in his mind for the entire session...and he said, "I realized I had no control of my own mind."  My therapist also mentioned that maybe I could consider that I don't need to figure out things that have nothing to do with me, or my "right now."  NOWNOWNOWNOWNOW.  Hmmmm....

A couple of weeks ago, two of my students asked me the meaning of "etc." as they had seen it written many times.  I spelled it out for them:  et cetera.  They looked at me and laughed, then told me they'd been reading it as an acronym for:  End of Thinking Capacity.  Now, when I find myself trapped in monkey mind, I simply say to myself:  et cetera.  etc.  Indeed.  No more capacity for those thoughts.

Right now?  I have some work to do.  Right now?  I wish I could see the people I love more often.  Right now?  I know that everything will always be in flux.  And right now, that's just fine.