Not From Around Here

Here is the retreat center where I spent a few days this week my new colleagues. The snow started falling the first night, and fell until the third day. I suggested during a business meeting that if we were having a conflict with our fall date, we might move the retreat to January or February. A good hearted colleague who had beat me in shuffle board the night before started her response "You're not from around here, so you wouldn't know..." as she explained that folks tried to avoid traveling across the state during the winter months.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a long way from home.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

This week I head off to my first UU Clergy Retreat in my new district. I have met a couple of my local colleagues, and they are very nice but suddenly I miss my California colleagues deeply. I was an intern in that district, I served alongside those folks for 10 years. I've carpooled, hiked, told jokes, knitted, worshiped and drunk margaritas with those guys. I've confessed to, sought advice from, given advice to and analyzed dreams with them. They were with me through rough times and sublime. I miss my PCD colleagues.

Ego

I confided, once, to a friend that I felt quite competitive in yoga class. If there is a pretzel to get into, I want to be in it. If there is a strength pose I want to hold it as long as anyone else. If the ashtanga series calls for 50 chaturangas, I want to do them all. I told him that some mornings I would be overly aware of a yogi nearby, watching her practice, wanting to compare. He was shocked "I didn't think yoga was supposed to be like that" he said. "It's not the yoga." I said "It's the ego."

If you have hung out with me, you will know that I am not generally a competitive person. I rarely push a point to win an argument. I usually bowl a 40 and I'm okay with that (mostly). I've been running an 11 minute mile for 10 years now and still I'm out there 3 times a week poking along in sun, wind or streaming rain. Generally I'd rather have peace and good feelings than a victory. Then I started taking a vigorous form of yoga, and suddenly I wanted to be the best.

When I moved to Ithaca and started at a new yoga studio, I somehow felt I had to prove myself. Most of the poses were familiar, but there were new variations, new juxtapositions. We were doing a lot more arm balances and wheels then I was used to, and when my wrist started to hurt I didn't listen. It's also true that I was doing a lot more keyboarding and driving in my new job, and a lot of heaving lifting as we moved into our new home, but regardless of the cause of the injury, I only felt it in yoga. At first I pushed through the pain, but finally I admitted to my teacher that my wrist hurt and asked his advice. He encouraged me to hold back, to use props, to skip certain poses, but my ego just could not let me skip some super-cool pose that I'd been working on whenever the rest of the class was doing it.

Months went by like this until finally something in my ego just broke. I had to give in to the idea that my wrist might never be quite right. I saw a physical therapist, I used my props, I started working on some of the forward folds I had never mastered in Ashtanga while everyone else was getting better and better at an arm balance I had always wanted to learn.

And one day I realized the pain was gone. I slowly put some weight on my wrist, and brought poses back into my practice one at a time. I still use a wedge for many poses, and I know now to stop when my wrist gets tired, and that some poses just aren't worth the cost. And somehow during all that my ego softened. I got used to setting up my mat 3 rows back and doing my own thing. And though I can now do wheel again and Eka Pada Koundinyasana, my ego is much softer. I sometimes wonder if I will keep getting better now that I don't crave competition on the mat, but I kind of don't care. I wonder if this is part of the wisdom age brings; things fall apart and teach us something about what remains.

Make a Big Deal of It

My yoga teacher in Willow Glen used to very carefully lead us into a pose, through all aspects of form, alignment and breath. And finally when we were fully in the pose he would say "now make a big deal of it"

This phrase rang in my head this weekend as the church celebrated its bicentennial, and held my service of installation. My dear colleague from California traveled 3000 miles with her toddler to preach the sermon, 2 friends from seminary drove all afternoon having preached that morning to say words in the service. My mom and sister and mother-in-law drove all day to be part of the celebration, and family, new friends and colleagues drove from the Ithaca area and all over the district to be part of things. I was so proud of the worship service. All the words and music these dear people offered came together so powerfully, that it left me feeling "wow, and that was just the beginning of whatever it is we have been called to do together!"

Here's a favorite moment: Over a dozen children, who had been waiting patiently in the nursery for the service to begin, lead our processional wearing fabulous glittery, feathery wings. Even the teenagers and some of the visiting kids wore wings (including my little niece, who looked FAB in her little red wings that matched her dress). My son had said "no, I don't think so" to wings, but I brought them anyway. He hurries over to me shortly before the service and says "Mom, I think I changed my mind" and spent the rest of the afternoon finding out how best to get his silk-rainbow wings to catch the wind as he ran and jumped over steps and down the halls. Our children's story featured a chicken, and the story-teller got an earful when he asked which of our kids knew about chickens -- because our kids know chickens, I tell you what. All the music was beautiful. Our choir had to import a tenor from Binghamton to make sure we had 4 part harmony and sang my favorite hymn accapella. But really it was when my husband's clear voice started to sing "I Hear Them All" as he and my sister-in-law strummed their guitars that the tears started to roll down my face.

So I had worked and hoped and lost sleep to make sure the Heritage Sunday service and the Installation service would be the very best I could help create. I should have known that the congregation was also losing sleep and rolling up their sleeves to make the weekend stunning. There were volunteers in the kitchen of the church from before I showed up on Saturday until after our family caravan left Sunday night. I couldn't believe how they transformed the place. Now this is a beautiful historic church building to begin with, but the volunteers of the church had really made a big deal of this. Fresh flowers on every table. Personalized red satin robins on gift bags for every visiting dignitary. A hand-made cake designed by a member on the theme "roots and wings." A catered dinner for the Bicentennial celebration and tons of yummy home made food for the Installation. As I brought my last load of stuff to the car Sunday night, a volunteer ran after me with 2 giant baskets of flowers: "for you" she said. I thought of the volunteers that would be at the church vacuuming and restoring things to Sunday-morning condition while I started the long drive home to Ithaca. I had Monday off, but most of these volunteers had to be at work bright and early. The gratitude was almost too heavy to hold. The energy of many hours of work, of months of planning released over those 2 days of celebration like a powerful wave washing over the whole community.

Now that the last of the guests has flown, it is time to begin the process of sifting and sorting, of processing, of trying to express gratitude, of saying thank you for a multitude of unexpected gifts. I hesitate even to start knowing that in such an outpouring of love and creativity and hard work, I will probably never even know all that went into making it possible. But the celebration is all of ours to share, and is something we can all be proud of. We did it, and it was beautiful. It was a big deal.

Last Harvest

This weekend the first big frost struck, and so with great ceremony we harvested for what we expect to be the last time. (Except the parsley. There always seems to be more parsley. Want some?) We harvested much sage, some oregano and lavender and a little marjoram. And Zumpkin. Some of you will remember that the only child of our gigantic flowering pumpkin plant seems to have been fathered by a zucchini. We let Zumpkin grow as long as we could (he got a late start) but couldn't risk another frost. We are looking forward to dressing Zumpkin up for Halloween.

In just one day

This weekend the colors on the trees were almost fluorescent in the bright sun. Some hills without evergreen trees showed not a hint of green. Then the rain and wind swept in yesterday morning, (during my morning run of course) and it was like running in a blizzard of yellow and orange, as the freshly fallen leaves laid light and fluffy on the ground. Trees I photographed Sunday full of colorful leaves are now bare. Suddenly we are in the cold gray days of fall, and the bare branches show through the luminous colors of the leaves, the sun diffuse as it bounces off the low hanging clouds.

Aerosol

My grocery store starts with the bakery, the produce, the organic stuff, then dairy, then the gigantic inexplicable gift-shop thing that takes up as much room as the produce section. By the time I leave the produce and the organic section I am feeling pretty good about my environmental footprint. I found an all-natural non-aerosol air freshener that smells like vanilla (score)and I suck it up and pay more for organic milk because, hey, milk is kind of an intimate thing when you think about it, and even my dad who always exercises great fiscal restraint gets organic milk. But after the journey across the great gift-shop divide I am now in the land of things that come in boxes and don't qualify for the organic section. And I'm buying PAM. That's right. Synthetic oil in an aerosol can. Okay, this one says "all natural" but it's still an aerosol can. I struggle and waver, but half of the recipes in my favorite "Eating Healthy" cook book call for the stuff. I put it in the cart next to my locally grown apples, my organic milk and my non-aerosol vanilla air freshener and the integrity of my whole shopping trip comes into question. My cart is tainted now, and this is just the first row of the processed food section. I wheel my cart through the gift-shop-thing on the way out and see a reusable pump spray for oil in the "schmancy cooking gear" section. It's $25. And here I've already blown my pocket money for the week on CDs and books. I will save up, I decide, for some future redemption.

What is it?

This came in the box from my CSA farm this week. I am totally stumped. Anyone know what on earth (or wherever) this is?

Mandolin Update

The A Major chord is my nemesis. Curse you A Major chord!

Flying Water

Lest you worry, as I did, that the recent security prohibition against bringing liquids through security is all about making you purchase a bottle of water at the gate or on the plane (That's right- water is now no longer free of charge on some airlines. It's a frightening part of the tide toward water as commodity rather than water as basic human right) it turns out you can bring an empty bottle through security. I have now accomplished this multiple times, and on a recent flight the security officer asked "empty bottle?" and sent me on my way, suggesting that it wasn't just an oversight that allowed those empties through. There is almost always a water fountain near the gate, so there's no need to be a tool of water privatization or to go thirsty.


p.s. The photos above I took of a fountain labeled "water interest" at the Detroit Airport on my layover there.

Sun's Work Undone

Driving down I 78 from Harrisburg to Reading, listening to the Hackensaw Boys "Sun's Work Undone" after 2 days of non-stop travel my heart is full of North Dakota again. There we were, uncle, brother, various cousins and nieces gathered from Seattle, Montana, Colorado, New York, Baltimore and all corners of North Dakota, hearts wide open. The world shrinks when a grief is observed. Though now half a continent away, I am once again in that warmth of being surrounded by family, my sister, my dad, my various cousins, making music, cooking, re-connecting after a long time apart. And somehow we held my Uncle's death in a way that affirmed life.

At the cometary we wondered aloud if the coffin would be lowered into the ground while we were at the graveside, or if they were waiting until we left. I commented that in some traditions lowering the coffin is part of the ritual. A cousin said "We don't do that here,it's hard enough as it is, we don't need to make it harder." We walked across the well-trimmed grass to visit the graves of family lost in earlier years, clustered together around the matriarchs and patriarchs. Afterward there were sloppy Joes, pasta salad, apple bake and scalloped potatoes that are comfort food in it's essence.

And as I'm driving through central Pennsylvania, I miss that comfort and closeness and warmth. I talk to my dad later in the day. The hard things persisted for him long after my sister and I were safely on our pre-dawn flight home. Uncle's possessions, his home, his legal affairs. Things left unfinished and unresolved that must still be resolved one way or another. It is heavy, though not so heavy as before. There is a stark grittiness to it that persists. Loss is real. Impermanence is real. This is why we gather. This is why we come together in a profusion of family, why we cook and make music, so that the stark reality of loss and the grit of living are only one layer of experience. They are co-arising as the Buddhists would say. I listen to the song twice. My heart is full.