Returning of the Light

Christmas, the winter holiday I've celebrated all my life, conjures up rich memories -- the swirl of snow flakes in a Christmas tree lot; cold toes, flush faces and the mist of warm breathe; unpacking hand-made tree ornaments and disentangling knotted lights; the tantalizing aroma of baking turkey and pumpkin pie; colored lights dancing off silver ice cycles and the tingling anticipation of unexpected gifts. As I have grown older, moved away from family and shifted my spiritual beliefs, I have, at times, found it difficult to live up to the Christmas of my youth. Unable to recreate all its elements, I have inevitably fallen short in recapturing its childhood wonderment and joy.

I remember the first Christmas I spent with my in-laws. As my own parents had recently died, I decided not to make the trip across the country to join my orphan siblings in what I assumed would be a diminished affair. And some of us were still reeling from the quarrels that come with significant loss. This new, ready-made family gathering was anticipated with pleasure and relief.

Alas, nothing seemed quite right. There was no Christmas caroling around my sister's piano on Christmas eve; no ritual opening and careful placing of family heirlooms on the holiday tree. Presents were handed out almost all at once, rather than in that time-stretching rhythm of one-at-a-time. I felt home-sick, confused and sad. This was not MY Christmas and my parents were dead. I called my sister later that day trying to extract long-distance the Christmas in my mind, but it was not to be found.

This experience taught me that rather than try to reproduce the elements of Christmas past, i.e. fixate on its outer form, I do better to focus on the meaning within -- the returning of the light, of grace, of hope, and new possibilities. Mindful of this more spiritual approach, I offer four holiday wishes: celebrate, rest, reflect and give. It is my guide for a gracious season.

Celebrate: Latin, celebratus -- to observe with respect, festivity or rejoicing. My new attitude toward Christmas has greatly freed me up regarding celebration. It's ok to try new things because that is part of the message. I like to get together with friends and create new rituals based on the old, full of life and wonder --- like seeing the Christmas light display in Alameda or decorating the ficus. My creativity and inventiveness are inspired.

One year, a friend came over with those old fashion Christmas cookie forms. We spent all day artfully decorating our white sugar goodies with colored frosting. Birds, santas, reindeer, suns and moon. They were so enchanting they were difficult to eat, but gradually they disappeared, one slightly less beautiful cookie at a time.

Making and sending Christmas cards is an old family tradition, although it morphed over time into the Christmas letter. It was a chatty affair full of family achievement. I still have most of them -- a record of my family's life. With the ascendance of the computer, I receive fewer and fewer holiday cards. Everything is digital. So now the old becomes novel. Truth be told, I like making Christmas cards. It gives me pleasure. And that is another important element of celebration -- doing what you enjoy, what makes you happy.

The envelopes for my cards are too small for my printer, so they must be hand-addressed. It's time consuming, but I don't really mind. Celebration is not about efficiency and speed. It's about immersion. When I stay present and don't rush, I can momentarily enjoy the relationship recalled by every names. Can they feel my thoughts from afar? I imagine what delight they have when they receive a real card with a personal message amid the postal junk. How old fashion! How quaint! How utterly refreshing!

I miss the caroling. The YouTube video of people breaking out in Christmas songs at a shopping mall made me cry. I don't sing enough. Singing is good for the heart and soul. Just watch the birds. My mother loved to sing and Christmas gave her free license. Racing down Route 1 on last minute holiday errands, she'd suddenly break out in song, just like on the video. "Oh Come All Ye Faithful . . ." We of course joined in, fillings our lungs with air and are hearts with Christmas spirit. On Christmas eve, we gathered together, my oldest sister Kip playing the piano, my father on guitar and sang our favorites carols. None of us were all that good. We seemed to be competing for who could sing the loudest. Then magically we would blend together in unexpected harmony.

Relax: French, relaxare -- to loosen, open. What a good idea for the returning of the light -- to be open and receptive, to embrace the new. My all time favorite relaxation is a hot tub and a good novel. Simultaneous entertainment and sensual pleasure. Unfortunately our new house has only a shower, so I have had to find other ways to relax -- like taking turns reading the Arabian Nights aloud with my husband at bedtime or taking an evening walk.

Relaxing, I have learned, can really be practiced all the time. But it does take practice. In heavy traffic on the highway, or waiting in a long line, or when you discover your plane has been cancelled and the next available flight is 6 hours away -- perfect opportunities to slow down and notice the world. Surrender to the moment. Ahhhhh --- like magic, time expands.  I meet new people, enjoy the moment and become cognizant of the surprises of life.

Reflect: Latin, reflexionem -- to bend back. With the coming of the light, not to mention the 26,000 year Maya Calendar world shift, now is a good time to bend our minds back to see from where we've come and to make plan for what comes next. I've taken on a lot of new things this year -- a new business as a grief coach, a monthly teleconference series, a new website to be launched any day, an awesome training program, and many new and wonderful friends. These accomplishments fill me with joy and gratitude. It is not so much WHAT I've done that's great, but HOW I see it. For some strange reason, I feel extremely hopeful and positive. Possibly its the effect of this millennial world shift or the influence of my new friends. I truly believe that everything will work out in the end, and as the Indian guy said in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: "if it's not working out yet, it's not the end."

Give: Old English, giefan -- bestow, allot, grant, devote. Neuropsychologist, Rick Hanson, tells us that we are wired to give. The primate part of our brain, the cortex, focuses on creating attachments.  Possibly this has something to do with the length of time it takes for a primate baby to become self supporting. Primates not wired for years of selfless baby care quickly die out. A study at the University of British Columbia confirms that giving to others makes us happy --- actually more happy than giving to ourselves.

Giving creates relationship. It binds us together. When we are bonded with others we live longer and stay more healthy. Ten years ago, I invited my dance group buddies to my wedding. They bought the carrot wedding cake, a delicious confection, and shared my celebration. This transformed the quality of our connection. We became closer. They were no longer associates, we were friends. I am noticing the same kind of things happening with the two new friends we discovered this year. We have progressed from restaurant dates and movies to trading dinner invitations -- the giving of personally made food. Our attachment is growing like a small vine, like a love affair. And love is the essence of light.

Giving to charities and spiritual groups has a different quality, an energetic binding to an idea or vision. We are not friends, yet we are still connected. We direct our energy together and in so doing create a more powerful force that can transform the world. I think of this every time I send a check or sign an on-line petition.

Writing this blog is another form of giving. I am hoping I give something of value -- a unique way of looking at things and a bit of myself. When you respond, send me an email or post a comment, you give back to me. You fill me with a joy I can't describe. I feel connected.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Rejoice. The light is here!

Dazzled by Aging

At home in Indiana

Back when I was in graduate school in Indiana, I traveled to Cleveland to attend a weekend Gestalt Therapy group as part of my dissertation research. What I remember most about that event was feeling awed by a young woman who spoke of ten years of experience -- of what I can't recall. At the time I was barely 24 and ten years was nearly half my life. I was dazzled by the idea of accumulating that much life experience and wondered what it would be like when I too could look back that far.

Fifteen years or so later, I found myself at a bar in New York with colleagues from the documentary production company where I was working at the time. In the course of our conversation I described a range of experiences I had had in my still rather short life: teaching college in Minnesota, running a group home in Las Vegas, working on the Navajo Reservation in Ft. Defiance, AZ and studying with a Sufi master in New Mexico. The young man to whom I was speaking was astounded by all my adventures and asked how I had accumulated so many. I smiled knowingly and told him I was older than I appeared. That was probably one of the last times I felt so thrilled by the fruits of aging.

In my forties, I began to get glimpses of what was really in store. My 20-20 vision began to slip away. First I ignored this. Than I resisted. I even tried one of those eye exercise charts, but the squinting was giving me line. For a while I kept three of four readers planted throughout the house because I kept misplacing them every time I took them off. Finally, I got tricked into seeing an optometrist. I thought I was going to an eye doctor-- a precautionary move in response to a friend's unexpected diagnosis of a detached retina. At the end of my examination I had a prescription for corrective lenses. Five hundred dollars later, I was wearing progressives without rims. The optician assured me that Baby boomers love these because they were almost invisible. Not really. I still don’t recognize myself in the mirror when they are on, which is most of the time. I can, however, see.
 

Diane and Me on hike in Manzanos Mts.

The next physical change I noticed was in body resiliency. It was on a hike with a group of people from Sufi camp in Torreon, New Mexico. We were climbing one of the easier peaks in the Manzano Mountains, more of a saddle between the real peaks. About a half-hour after reaching the summit, one of our number decided he needed to get back to camp for a phone call. I offered to go with him. We skipped, jumped and raced most of the way down. It was exhilarating in the moment, but when I got to the trail head my knee was hurting. It was the same knee I had trouble with in a marathon five or six years before, but at the time had chalked up to running on pavement after training on dirt. This new manifestation of sore knee startled me. It was in that moment that I realized my body had changed. I was no longer young. A few months later, I went on a hike from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach with a much younger woman. The round trip was about 16 miles up and down mountain trails. I felt vindicated when I left her in the dust on our return. And she was no couch potato either.

Was this reaction to the first signs of aging, ego or intelligence? I try not to judge too much, although I smile at myself in retrospect. Shortly after my fiftieth birthday I road my bicycle all the way up the Arlington, a long steep road in the hills of Berkeley. Prior to that day, I would pack my bike in my car and parked most of the way down the hill before taking a ride. Following this break-through bike ride, I went backpacking in the Three Sisters Mountains in Oregon and then in the Wallowas.

I think it is good to continue to test our limits. Muscles respond to effort and stay serviceable much longer if we work them. At the same time, awareness is in order. We might not want to push ourselves too far lest we seriously damage our bodies and put ourselves out of commission. Or maybe we do, because that is the only way we can know for sure where the limits are. And, well, being out of commission has its own life lessons.

This Western culture of ours is not very helpful regarding the way we should handle aging. We are pressured to keep youthful and healthy for as long as we can. Elders are not revered. They are ignored, hidden in gated communities or exported to Florida. Rather than equate advanced age with experience and wisdom, we see it as a loss of capacity, utility and market value. So we resist the signs of aging with creams, supplements, surgery and exercise. Then we cheer when the 80 year old lady dances up a storm with a younger man on a Youtube. “Yes, honey, you go for it!” The result is, we live longer and stay more fit and active. And because of economic downturn, many of us take on second careers. So perhaps this approach to aging is not all bad.

In the end, however, fighting aging is a losing proposition. Human bodies are programmed to deteriorate. It is the natural cycle of things. Yes, there are scientists who promise that the elixir of lasting life is on the horizon -- some ingenious pill whose composition they are still working on that will turn off the aging mechanism in our cells or at the very least, retard it's progress. But is that even desirable?

Aging helps us die. "Can't walk, can't see, can't hear, lost my taste, hurt like hell, life sucks. . . I'm out of here!"  Death is good. It gives intensity to our lives, like a time clock at a chess match. Death clears the old and makes room for the new so we don't overpopulate earth. And death provides us with a whole new adventure or, at the very least, one of the biggest mysteries of life.

Given that aging is inevitable and unstoppable, and let's assume for the moment it is, what other ways might we handle it besides fear, denial, exercise and resistance?

  

Mom and Dad

My mother provided me with a hint. In her youth she was a stunningly attractive woman. Birthing six children did not do much to diminish her beauty possibly because she spent a good deal of time cultivating it with eye pencil and lip-liner. However, in her fifties she developed a brain tumor. Although a benign one, it left her deaf in one ear, blind in one eye, and a lopsided face. How does one cope with the loss of beauty, especially a beauty so consciously maintained? "Well," she said, "you don't look in the mirror any more." But her real strategy was to let the inner beauty shine. When the light is bright enough, people tend to overlook your physical flaws. She was generous, affirming, enthusiastic and kind. No grocery store cashier, pharmacy clerk, or nurse's aid was too lowly to escape her notice and regard. She learned their names and followed their life stories. Also, instead of hiding herself and her facial deformity, instead of giving up on life and becoming a recluse, she wore a black patch over her blind eye, dressed in red, white and blue and used a red striped broom handle as a cane. Her brilliant wonkiness caught people's eyes and her attention, their hearts.

A friend of mine, a wise elder, gave me another tip on aging. Treat every change as a new adventure. She told me that she had recently been having difficulty with her teeth and been forced to eat her meals pulverized to the texture of baby food. Instead of bemoaning her loss of the joys of chewing, she opened her mind to this new challenge -- how to obtain a gourmet experience from food the consistency of gruel. Perhaps she will write a cookbook. It could be a hit in a few more years.

The most important lesson in both these examples is how you spin the story. Change happens. Are you defeated by the change or is there something new to discover?

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form." -- Rumi

Last year, I regularly visited an elderly man with a serious heart condition. He had a pacemaker and often struggled with heart failure. He was a sweet man with a social calendar more full than my own. He did not believe in life after death and so he was making the most of his remaining time. On one visit, not the last, but close to the end, he had so little energy that it took him nearly ten minutes to open the front door. We sat in his living room and talked about what was happening in his life. He spoke slowly and there were many pauses. Someone was coming over that night to fix him dinner -- ever the social butterfly! As the sun faded into that magic light of dusk, he suddenly stopped talking and just looked past me. I started to wonder if he was all right. Then he said, "The interesting thing about slowing down like this is that you see things you never noticed before. Like that robe on the end of the couch and the vase of flowers." The barest of tears sparkled his eyes. I turned to see the turquoise silk robe thrown over the end of the oatmeal couch and the rich red roses in the cloisonné vase on the table beside it. They formed the elements of a still-life, painted in the golden light. "Yes," I said, "You got it. Whatever happens, there's always something new to discover." I am told that in his final days as he lay dying, a friend asked what he wanted and he smiled an elfin grin and said, "More adventures!"

Me and Jay with peanut

Time Warp

Hobji Watches Time Fly

I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving! The impending holiday has me thinking about the way we experience time -- speeding up sometimes, slowing down at other times. For example, it drag when I am standing on line for a movie, especially when it’s cold, but it flies by when I’m stuck in traffic and trying to get to an important meeting. Remember when we were children how time passed during summer vacation? At first those long free months seems to stretch on forever. Then, sometime around early August, the date for our return to school came at us like a runaway locomotive.

This time warp seems to be the rule with vacations -- slow at the beginning and fast at the end. I suspect this is partly due to the fact that our minds return to work before our bodies do. Two days before the end of vacation and I’m already thinking about my “to do” list and what’s waiting for my return. I wonder if this rehearsal actually helps with my transition or just robs me of the last few precious moments of time off. When I actually do get home, I immediately start to unpack my suitcase, sort the mail, listen to phone messages and check the plants. What is this rushing about? It’s almost as if I’m trying to erase any evidence of having been away. Is this vacation guilt?

I recall one occasion when I actually managed to stop this speed-up effect at the end of a trip. I had been visiting a friend in Barcelona for about a week. On our last day together, we visited to an old Spanish village, the type with red roofs tiles, white stucco walls, and laundry blowing in the breeze. It was as though we had stepped back in time. Next we headed out to the shore for a skinny dip in the Mediterranean Ocean. It was a Navajo turquoise blue and warm like bath water. This was followed by a light picnic lunch, on the beach, of apples and salad. Finally, we took a leisurely drive on a tree-canopied back road, past old farmhouses to a remote train station in the middle of nowhere. Everything was novel, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the quality of the light. I held on to each precious moment resisting my mind's impulse to get on that train before it arrived. Even on the platform, I took time to taste the sea air and feel the afternoon wind on my cheeks. I had no camera. I had accidentally broken mine in Paris and I had to return the one I had been borrowing from my friend. So I photographed the images in my mind. When the train arrived, I said good-bye and went through the door. No tears, no regrets, no thoughts of what lay ahead, or what was left behind, just wide open.

I wish I could be like that more often. Usually, when I take my morning walks through the Hillside cemetery; I am listening to coaching tapes on my iPod. I think it’s an excellent use of time. I’m multitasking! But because of this, I often miss the beauty of the morning light as it catches the edges of the tombstones and washes across the grass. I might fail to notice the brave bouquets of flowers resting on the graves or the tiny veteran flags proudly flapping in the breeze. I am plugged in and tuned out. My workday has begun and it's not even 8.

Consciousness is a way to slow time down. By attending to all the lovely details of our experience -- the smells, the flavors, the colors, and the sounds -- we can open the moment and expand the time. This is what meditation is really about. Meditation is not just sitting in one place and emptying our minds. It is what we do when we are fully conscious of our selves and our surroundings. It’s “mindful meditation.”

At the beginning of a vacation, things are new. We navigating new places and pay attention lest we lose our way. So the time goes by more slowly. It is a little like watching the frames on a strip of movie film. If you attend to each and every frame the movie runs by slowly, but if you skip frames, if you blink, the pace speeds up. Routine is the enemy of our attention. When we are used to things, we stop seeing them, we blink, our eyes glaze, and we live more in our thoughts then in the physical world. The present disappears and time speeds past.

There are several strategies we can use to tame the rush of time. We can, for example, TAKE MORE VACATIONS!! Even though we may be buried under an avalanche of work when we return, time off is still beneficial. It allows us to be in the present and experience the world around us. We gain a larger perspective. That is, if we don’t run our vacations like we do everyday life – so jam-packed with events that we don’t have time to think. A good rule of thumb for a relaxing vacation is one day of doing nothing for every day of sightseeing. If it’s a stay-cation, you can have the same time-slowing results if you do new or unexpected things every other day and break your routine. Don’t forget to included "do nothing" days.

Slowing down your pace will also help slow time. And it has extra benefits -- like you might eat less food at Thanksgiving dinner! You might, for example, take only one plate of food and slow the pace of your eating so it last the whole meal. If you eat with consciousness, savoring every bite you are more likely to notice when you are full and less likely to eat too much.
This kind of food focus, however, is not so easily done when engaged in conversation, which is often the case at Thanksgiving dinner. What would it be like to stop eating while your talking and completely focus on the person who is speaking? Really be present. Or conversely, what would it be like to stop talking while you are eating? Completely attend to the food. You might suggest that everyone at the table observe at least ten minutes of silence to enjoy the food. Listen to the sounds and try not to laugh.

Here are a few more strategies for slowing down time:

Fasting – Strange how that comes to my mind on the heels of writing about Thanksgiving dinner! At a Sufi retreat in New Mexico, we were often encouraged to fast at least part of the day. I discovered that when you don't eat you open up big swaths of time for doing other things, because you are not spending time preparing and eating food. More time, slower time. And when you are hunger, time really slows down!

A number of times, I fasted for two or three days consuming nothing but a bowl of broth or cup of watered-down apple juice. Oh my, what flavors I would experience! I could almost feel the biochemical reactions in my body as I swallowed this small amount of nourishment. I also noticed that the “eaters,” those not fasting, seemed to move faster, talk faster and almost live in a parallel universe. I didn’t hang out with them. I stayed with other fasters or went to my tent. Faster? Hah. We should really be called a “slower”, doing a “slow” or “slowing” because fasting certainly slows you down.

Unfortunately, when I finally broke the fast, my body cells went into panic mode from what they thought was starvation. Experts on fasting advise that you take as many days to break a fast as the number of days you are on the fast. Impossible! My cells implored me to eat everything in sight! Once started, I had no idea of stopping until my belly literally began to hurt. Breaking a fast is one of those times when I realize that I am not in charge. “Biological imperative” takes on a visceral meaning. Note: you do not get this food panic attack after a single day of fasting. Well, you might, but it is more psychological than physical.

Walking/hiking -- without the iPod. Another strategy is to take a walk or hike -- a good thing to do after Thanksgiving dinner. By choosing a new location, you have to pay attention so you don't get lost. Presto! You are in the moment. However, the constant looking at maps and checking road signs can distract from the sensory delight of the walk. So you might want to go with someone who knows the way. Or you could allow yourself to get lost and put yourself into a whole new adventure. But this may have the reverse effect of speeding up time while you frantically search for home as the sun plunges towards the horizon. It is well known that the sun moves more rapidly when you are lost. Once the sun is down, however, time slows again and it will take about a decade for morning to come. The last couple of hours before dawn, when it's the coldest, time will almost stop.
If you decide to walk in a familiar place, notice all the things you like best or imagine you are a space alien taking this walk for the first time. See with baby eyes.

Visit a Museum -- Two hours in a museum can feel like a week. There is so much stimulation in such a short time. And it's all so new. Take the time to read the descriptions next to each exhibit. Really see what you are looking at. Then take a walk in a park afterward to let your mind digest. You will feel like you have done a lot and it will only be 2 pm in the afternoon.

Meditate -- This is something we can do everyday. It trains the mind to stay in the present and to control the monkey mind that likes to jump all over the place. This discipline will serve you when you are trying to write a blog and the monkey mind wants to check your email.

Stand on one foot. I’m not kidding. Try this for thirty seconds. It does some sort of positive rewiring in the brain and definitely improves your balance. Try doing it with your eyes closed. Now notice how slowly time passes. Do you remember in the Beatles' movie, The Yellow Submarine, the part where they show just how long 60 second is by having a new animation for each second? It’s slow like that.

Instead of a food fast, take a fast from multitasking -- We do so many things at once that are minds are scattered every which way. We lose track of what we are doing and often don't accomplish much because we lose our concentration and have to refocus each time we return to a task. For me this means not checking my email every few minutes. Close down the email program and finish each task (like writing this blog) before checking email. That goes for answering phone calls too. I don't get that many calls, so when the phone rings, I just grab it. More times than not, it's a call for money or political action. Skip it!

Hang out with friends without any agenda. Shoot the breeze! Catch up on news. This activity takes me back to my college days of hanging out in the student center drinking coffee and exchanging ideas. It is one of my favorite pastimes. Time does slip away but you feel very refreshed. Caution: make sure you choose friends who know how to share the talk time. Long-winded talkers can slow down time, but they do not necessarily leave you feeling refreshed

Read an engaging book for an afternoon. This is a lovely way to take a trip without moving a muscle. Use discernment when choosing your book. The idea is to feel refreshed and re-energized, not depressed or sad. I suggest light reading with good writing, some character development and a happy ending. But that's just my preference.

Dance.  We have a lovely dance event in Berkeley called Barefoot Boogie that happens once a week on Sunday evenings. For $8 or $10 bucks you can dance all night without shoes, smoke, drink or food. Two hours is a long time when all you are doing is dancing. It’s fun, good exercise and you feel great afterwards.

Tale a Hot tub.  This can be at a commercial bathhouse or in your own bathtub. Hang out for an hour with relaxing music or that engaging book. You're muscles will relax and so will your brain. One hour will feel like ages and you will feel like a new person.

Sit Vigil with the Dying. People do die during the winter holidays. Death goes with the season. And it is not unusual for the dying to set milestones like making it to a granddaughter’s wedding, or one more family holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas are favorites. It’s amazing how well they do at keeping these appointments.

Sitting vigil with the dying will not only slow down time, it will also teach you a thing or two about life and death, or at least get you thinking about them. Read Sacred Dying, by Megory Anderson for ideas on how to make the dying space feel sacred. If you stay present and aware, time will move like molasses in January. Sometimes it can get a little boring so you could try reading out loud, singing, playing music, holding the dying person’s hand and matching your breath rhythms. See if you can hear the other person’s thoughts in your mind. See if you can send calming thoughts back. Have a mental conversation. Send lots of love. Magic can happen.

These are my favorite strategies for slowing down time, what are your? Try a few over the Thanksgiving holiday and give us a report.

Have a relaxing, replenishing vacation and don't forget to "breathe" especially when you return to work at the end. On the last day see if you can make time slow down.