Possibilites - Part 2

I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and have been fascinated by his insights into living with Presence in order to dissipate the voice in our heads – the ego – that lives bound in time and space and prevents us from realizing our connection to the source of our Being (God, if you prefer that word). There are some ideas in the book that I don’t immediately understand, or even possibly agree with, but there are nuggets to be mined and concepts to practice. One that I’ve been practicing is asking myself as often as I remember to do so: What is my relationship with the present moment? This question brings about a conscious effort to be open to the possibilities of the moment that wouldn’t necessarily be apparent if the almost endless chatter of the ego in my mind was allowed to prattle on. I’ve found that by practicing this, by asking this question, what started out as brief moments of Presence are becoming longer, and I’m able to see possibilities without trying to make them happen or wanting them to; they simply come naturally.

Last Sunday morning F. and I hopped onto the downtown subway and got off at 72nd Street. We picked up some lunch to go from Tasty Café on Broadway and walked into Central Park. We found a sunny spot on a grassy knoll where we could watch the myriad runners, cyclists, rollerbladers, and tourists come as close as a nose to getting hit by them. We ate and read the Times. Time likes these are easy with F. He’s in the moment a lot; he has the presence of an artist to simply be. It’s comforting. Like my dear friends, I can sit in silence and be comfortable in it, with no pressure to make conversation. It’s an organic relationship.

After lunch, we lay back on the grass and I looked up at the sky. I hadn’t done that in a very long time. It was as if a taut azure sheet had been stretched across the sky and tucked in somewhere behind the trees. I noticed white specks floating in the air, here and there, and then everywhere, filling the air above us: little white fairies floating on the wind, carrying a seed with the possibility of finding purchase somewhere on the cool ground that pressed against my back. The possibilities were endless for these flying seeds, inside of which was life waiting to take root and grow.

It was one of those moments when everything became clear, a time when I felt like I was totally present and could see the connection between everything around me. That doesn’t happen that much, and I think it happens less when we try to make it happen. Moments of Now-clarity come naturally if we take the time to simply be and make an attempt to turn off the monkey in our heads that’s always chattering away incessantly. I always think about my mind as a monkey that needs a banana, so I throw it one as often as I can. I can’t say it’s always easy, but it’s getting easier with more practice. The voice (the mind) fights to edge itself in saying, “Hey, what about me! I’m you and your ignoring me!” Actually, no, you’re not me, not the true me, not the me that’s infinite. You don’t like the Now because it scares you.

Even though I couldn’t see the wind, I could feel it and see how it was moving. The hundreds, if not thousands, of seed pods floating above showed me the direction of the wind. The swaying branches of the trees, the rustling verdant leaves dancing up and down told me that the wind was there working it’s magic. I could feel it, too, across my face, sending strands of hair down across my forehead. My legs felt it as it blew up my pants. My ears heard the subtle song it sang. Invisible, but oh so visible with all the senses awakened.

Everything was working together – the fairy seeds and the wind – to create limitless possibilities. I thought about the possibilities within myself and how they were no more miraculous than what I was seeing all around me. The transcendence of a seed riding on a light-as-air fuzzy was the same as my own life.

F. and I went to the Walter Reade Theater and saw the gothic chiller, Gaslight. Ingrid Bergman. Charles Boyer (Sharl Boyay as F. suggested it be pronounced). After that we parted and I walked to my friend Vakasha’s apartment. An afternoon’s conversation with Vakasha isn’t filled with idle chit-chat. As soon as I entered we sat down and dove right into it.

“How have you been?” she asked.

With Vakasha, and other close friends, I never have to say “I’m fine” when I don’t really mean it.

She asked me if I wanted a glass of wine and I told her about the doctor’s visit, my liver enzymes, and my current abstinence.

I told her about my sadness and anger over the past few weeks. She remarked that it was normal and that she was wondering how long my acceptance of my mom’s death would last. The first two weeks after she died I told Vakasha that my mom was better off, that I was relieved, and that I knew my mom was gone because it was her time, and not mine. In some way, I was living in the first stage of grieving: denial. Hospice pioneer and death dying researcher Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross believed that there were five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Although I’m not so sure it’s completely step-by-step, but rather a fluid process of varying degrees of each stage that come and go, I had gone from denial to anger with some dis-ease.

Vakasha told me that the liver is the source of our being – our lifeforce. The body is made up of seven chakras starting with the base or root chakra, the center of which is located in the region between the genitals and anus. It’s related to instinct, security and survival. The chakras also have color characteristics, moving from the red root chakra up the spectrum of colors to the violet crown chakra at the top of the head. The second chakra, the sacral one, is orange and is located in the sacrum. It’s related to sexuality and creativity. The solar plexus chakra is yellow. It’s about complex emotions, energy, and digestion. The heart chakra is the fourth and is green, relating to compassion, love, equilibrium and well-being. The throat chakra is blue and is about communication and growth. The sixth chakra is blue and is located just above the space between the eyes, commonly referred to as the third-eye. It is the chakra of time, awareness and light. The aforementioned crown chakra relates to consciousness.

Whew! Okay, so the liver is part of the fourth chakra – the solar plexus. Yes, I’d been drinking too much wine, but I think it’s important to look at the spiritual and emotional aspect of physical conditions in order to grasp the bigger picture of our bodies and spirit – it’s all one “body”. The emotional energy of anger had manifested in my liver and it was trying to tell me something. But it took sitting down with Vakasha in order me to remember to look at this aspect of my health and eventual healing. Sometimes we need friends to give us a swift kick in the rump to jumpstart our intuition. Mine had been blocked, and after a morning in the park and my conversation with Vakasha I started seeing the full picture of my present state of being.

I knew I’d been angry over the past few weeks (see Blog entry Why Am I So Angry? ), but I was trying to let the emotions go without always acknowledging them fully. I’m dealing with complex emotions here and it wasn’t as simple as I thought. I realized it, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of just being, letting the emotions be what they were without judgment. By recognizing them and accepting them they would eventually dissipate. This isn’t to say that I won’t miss my mom for the rest of my life, that I won’t get angry from time to time, that I won’t have bad days in which I succumb to sadness and depression over this great loss, but I do believe that by letting these emotions flow through me, recognizing them for what they are – a natural aspect of grieving – they don’t have to stay in me or manifest physically.

I asked Vakasha, “So what can I do?”

“Give yourself permission to be angry, sad, depressed, to cry, sob, to yell, to scream at God." I guess God can take it.

That’s what I’ve been doing. I had my blood test on Monday and am awaiting the results. I don’t have the urge or need to drink as much as I did. I had two glasses of wine on Tuesday and am having a glass of champagne right now, but that'll be it for the night.

I’ve come to a major shift in my life right now as school ends and the summer begins, knowing that I won’t return to teaching in the fall. I’m excited and sometimes scared. I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say so. But I feel that I can let these moments of fear be what they are, be the observer and see that it’s coming from the ego, and know that I’m always doing the right thing because everything does happen for a reason and I'm on my Life's path, letting it flow and trying not to get in the way. There is no chaos, only the comfort of knowing that when times are tough and I’m not sure what I’m doing, I can remind myself that I’m here for a purpose and that I’m exactly where I need to be to evolve as a spiritual being having this human experience. As a former student often said, “It’s all good, Mr. Steffen”, and like ducks that come together and fight, then swim away forgetting the altercation, I just let is all be and go on.