Tag Archive | interconnectedness

Interbeing

Feb23
Meeting little Wren for the first time in person, at the shelter in GJ. She was beat up from fighting the cage she was kept in, skinny, and just spayed.

Wren’s life flashed before my eyes this afternoon. It was another gorgeous day, and I’d been working in the yarden, hanging laundry, catching up with people in phone calls, telling an old friend how good she is, how fast she comes when I whistle, every time, that’s she’s an oxytocin factory. I walked outside the gate to place an ornamental rock on the newly created pedestals of a fire mitigation stump. I read a text, then whistled for Wren. She tends to race up the driveway and get caught up in smells, so I walked a little way up, past the badger hole, whistling and calling. Nothing. Minutes elapsed. Never, not once, in the nearly three years she’s been with me has she failed to come running by the second whistle. Panic rose in me. Another couple of minutes calling, looking. It felt unreal. The only reason she would not come would be that she could not come. I imagined her killed in an instant by a bobcat or lion, or caught in a barbed wire fence. My life without her loomed too horrible to imagine. What made it even worse was that since I only stepped outside the fence for a moment, I hadn’t put on her ID collar… if someone found her, alive or…

Later that first day, as Garden Buddy drove us home from the shelter…

I called my best neighbors north and south to enlist a search party. Then, and only then, did I breathe, pause, and consider alternatives. I’ve become so accustomed to her stealth accompaniment with my every move that I often call her and she’s right behind me. Could she possibly be inside? So I hurried down to the house, opened the door, and there she was bouncing up and down, so relieved to see me, though not nearly as relieved as I was to see her precious face. I canceled the Wred alert, with gratitude knowing that my neighbors would be as relieved as I, and not annoyed with my calling for help. That’s what we do, and we all share the joy in a happy outcome.

Later this day, GB brought us a bag of goodies, and asked me to never write about the badger hole again.

That my go-to was panic when I couldn’t find Wren speaks to the underlying tension many of us are living with these days. A month ago it would have occurred to me much sooner that she was probably in the house. I am far better internally resourced to handle the stress of this hostile administrative coup than I was during the first regime, but all that means is that the anxiety isn’t crippling, not that it isn’t there. I’m hearing more specific accounts of people who’ve lost their jobs to the DOGE axe (including a fired federal worker who is now suicidal – I’m sure he’s not the only one), and the offensive letters they’ve been fired with. But I keep coming back to the message of courage and resilience as I also speak with more people each day who are jumping on the action bandwagon. Resistance is not futile: in fact, our future depends on it.

Sustenance after the scare: havarti, romaine, avocado, potato chip crumbs, mayo and mustard.

This morning I listened to a fabulous talk by Rebecca Solnit, about MLK, interconnectedness, climate chaos, and the nihilist ideology of isolationism and authoritarianism, among other things. She wraps it up with a marvelous message of interdependence and belonging. I also downloaded an app suggested by a friend, which makes it super easy to call your representatives: it provides scripts on a wide range of concerns, and even dials for you: “5 Calls – Contact Your Congress.” Resistbot is another good app to use to send letters to your reps. Spread the word, and remember the economic blackout this Friday, from midnight to midnight. Don’t spend money for one day. Let’s see what happens. I’m grateful for comprehending interdependence, and the feeling of belonging, of interbeing, that arises from that understanding.

Standing on My Own Two Feet…

Oct5

With a Lot of Help from My Friends

Sunrise at home, from the rented hospital bed. Grateful.

I am two and a half weeks out of surgery. The new hip is settling in nicely, and I marvel daily at the total and astonishing absence of the arthritis pain that plagued me for so many years. I have been ‘pain-different’ since I left the hospital, with a continually diminishing pain that has been much easier to bear than the chronic, debilitating variety of aches, stabs, and sears I tolerated for so long. Each day there is a little less pain and a little more strength and mobility. I am strictly constrained in the ways that I can move the left leg until a total of six weeks have passed, after which I should be able to move in any way I want. Meanwhile, I take baby steps, first only with a walker, and this week using a cane more and more. Yesterday I walked all the way to the back gate for the first time. It’s a miracle.

Cousin Mel recovered from covid for one day before suffering a rebound, and remained consigned to the outdoors when she felt up to visiting us and helping without outside chores including garden watering and Wren-walking. We were profoundly grateful for the generosity of one friend in offering her empty home where Mel could isolate and recuperate.

Wren loved all the aunties coming and going, and Topaz did not. I’m especially grateful to Pamela, who offered to come stay over the first six nights, and much of the first few days, and with her competence and compassion kept my recovery on track. Other friends came for a few hours at a time to help with all the daily tasks I could not do, and/or brought food to both me and Mel in our separate dwellings, and yet others drove me to surgery and post-op. All day every day, it seemed, as I lay in bed explaining where things were and what needed to be done, gentle women moved through my house taking care of my life. It was exhausting to watch them filling in for me!

For days I was essentially bedridden, getting up only to totter to the toilet and back to bed with the support of a borrowed walker. After a week I was able to totter outside and sit on the patio for a few minutes, in a chair bulked up with a borrowed cushion. Pieces of many others’ homes are in mine now supporting me. Being the recipient of all the assistance, compassion and loving kindness from my local community and others farther afield brought home to me the truth of Interdependence and Interconnection, of “Interbeing” as Thich Nhat Hahn called it. I’ve felt more deeply connected as the receiver, in the center of all this supportive attention, than I am accustomed to feeling as one of many givers to others in need of support. It’s a wonderful perspective to feel such belonging. I could not have done this alone. I am so grateful for community.

Among the first foods delivered for our dining pleasure were the best deviled eggs from Garden Buddy, and borscht from Deb. More delicious, nutritious meals kept on coming for weeks.
During that first week, Mary came a couple of early mornings and prepared delicious oatmeal with yogurt, maple syrup, and fresh nectarine.
It had been hard to reach my feet for awhile, and a broken toenail was catching on the sheets, so she kindly agreed to trim my nails, and then insisted on filing them too. The left leg at this point is still stained with iodine from the surgical scrub, as I was not able to shower for a full week, until after the first post-op appointment.
I’m grateful for the cards and presents friends and family sent, including the especially thoughtful gift of maple cream ordered from my favorite maple supplier.

Recovering seems to take almost all my energy every day. Gratitude takes the rest. It’s late, and ‘the server’ is refusing to upload more photos. It’s the universe telling me it’s time to go to sleep. I am grateful to be standing on my own two feet again — with a lot of help from my friends.

Leftovers

Jan17

Oh my. What a cheese sandwich I made today. Leftover roasted chicken, lettuce, and havarti, with of course mayo and Penzeys sandwich sprinkle, and a little Grey Poupon. It was a masterpiece. I’m grateful for the ongoing abundance of my leftovers. I made a little pot of stock for the animals with the bones from last night’s dinner, and have plenty of meat and bones for more meals.

I learned today that two friends caught covid for the first time on the same day last week, hundreds of miles apart, and both while caring for loved ones. One at an assisted living facility, and one at a doctor’s office. “No good deed goes unpunished,” said one of them. I’m grateful that it wasn’t too terrible an illness for either of them, and that they’re both feeling better already. They had been so careful. I’m sorry that people in general have thrown caution to the wind, making life more risky for those of us still hoping to not get it. So it goes.

Patience

Dec23
The best veggie bacon substitute so far: shiitake mushrooms roasted with olive oil and salt until crisp.

Living off the grid rurally we have some trade offs. We get deer and mountain lions, clean air, wide open spaces, and we can garden naked. But resources than many urban or even town dwellers take for granted can be hard to come by, like emergency care for ourselves or our pets, pizza delivery, and reliable internet.

The tower that provides my internet connection was struck by lightning last summer and hasn’t functioned properly since then. This week it’s deteriorated further. I’m grateful for the skill of patience that’s helped me through a series of support calls as techs unraveled the ‘head-scratching mystery’ as one of them called it. Today I finally learned that the signal is disintegrating and someone needs to climb the tower and permits need to be gotten and no one wants to work on this over Christmas weekend.

I don’t blame them. And I can live with random internet for a few more days, with gratitude for so much about the situation. Some links work sometimes. There’s a roof over my head and ample food, and I get electricity from the sun. Friends are sharing baked treats and love and outside it’s the peaceful quiet of deep winter. We’re not getting bombed, and we have fresh water, and currently there’s a sane, competent president in the White House. I’m in bed with a cute dog, and abundant patience.

Avocados

Dec19

I’m grateful for learning something new: how to open an avocado without a knife. I saw it on Instagram and couldn’t resist trying. It worked brilliantly! Not as clean a split as with a knife but perfectly adequate to give me two halves. I’m grateful for avocados. They’re nutritious and delicious, and I’m glad I learned to enjoy them decades ago.

But I’m sad to learn that avocado cultivation is destroying natural forests in Mexico. Of course it is: Like every tropical treat we crave — coffee, chocolate — we overindulge, at great cost to our planet. Another conundrum. Will me not eating avocados save Mexican forests, or simply deprive me of a staple ingredient? Maybe if they weren’t so available all year long, maybe if we could enjoy them seasonally in moderation, they’d be sustainable.

Empathy

Dec14

My intention today was Patience, because I had to take Wren to the vet forty-five minutes away. Monday morning she was fine, but after she’d been in the sunroom awhile, where she likes to lie in the windowsill, and also roll on the rug, she came back to the living room with her brown eye squinted shut and weeping. When I gently prised it open, it didn’t look bloody, or swollen, and I didn’t see any foreign object in it. So I watched it. On Tuesday, it was no better, so I called and made an appointment for today. Yesterday it was no better, but no worse, and this morning she seemed to be opening it just a little bit more often. Clearly it was still uncomfortable, so down to Delta we drove.

Where’s Wren?

We waited calmly together in the same room we had last time. I was calm because of mindful intention, and she was calm because I had carefully doped her up a few hours before, so that she might not freak out as she did last time. She trembled when we first arrived, but because we had a nice long wait, she calmed down by the time the skilled tech came in. I offered her some treats to offer Wren, and she sat down beside us and showed me a trick that worked like a charm: she held my hand and offered it to Wren to sniff, quickly rotated our hands to put hers in front of Wren’s nose, and back and forth a few times before we exchanged treats. It was fascinating to watch Wren’s subtle resistance to D’s hand dissipate, and her fear of taking a treat from a strange hand melt away. Then D slipped a lead on her, gathered her up, and carried her off.

I was grateful all happened before the tragic wailing commenced in the next room over. The walls are thin, and the doors loose sliders. I was already feeling empathy for the man in the room west of me, who had carried his dog in and laid him on blankets, as the tech asked how long the dog had been unable to walk, and heard that he’d been having seizures. I thought of Stellar’s last few days, and could relate to his distress. I’m grateful for empathy. And then, a woman in the room on the other side suddenly wailed and began to sob. There is only one thing that causes that sound in a vet’s office.

I knew she had just received word that her dog would have to be euthanized. I became very still, and allowed her weeping to hold my attention. I let her pain wash through me as I relived that trip home from the vet two years ago when I wailed for twenty miles over the body of my beloved Stellar. I felt the empathy that I imagine my friends in the front of the van felt for me then. I heard her use my very words, my best boy, as her keening waned. There were murmurs from others in the room, and earnest explanations that I couldn’t discern, and her sobs rose again. My chest swelled and emotion rippled through me, down my arms, and out my hands. My eyes filled, and a tear overflowed. All the while, I held her pain, knowing she would never know, but nevertheless sending compassion out toward her, and toward the man on the other side. How helplessly we love our dogs.

Soon, it was over. It was suggested that they sedate Wren because she wouldn’t let them dye her eye to see if there was a scratch, and if there was she’d need a temporary stitch in her third eyelid (that membrane that slides up from the inside corner when they blink), after which I’d have to give her antibiotic drops twice a day for a week. I asked if I could skip straight to the drops and see if that solved it. I wanted both of us out of there. It had already been a long day. If the drops don’t help, I’ll bring her back in a week, in the morning before their day is complicated by an overtime surgery and at least one emergency euthanasia.

As we were checking out, Dr. Natalie walked by and smiled at us. “Little Monster,” she said. I assume she meant it in the Lady Gaga term-of-endearment way. I asked her to pause and give my little monster a few treats, and she kindly did so. We stopped for a milkshake on the way home and she got the whipped cream. She fought the first application of drops, but allowed the second more readily. I think they’re already helping.

Help

Dec11

I’m grateful today for the opportunity to help someone process a big and painful decision, and I’m grateful for receiving a healing session of embodied inquiry from a new teacher. I’m grateful for the profound meaning I experienced with each, and the heartfelt connection with someone else in the first case, and with my self in the second. I’m also grateful for altocumulus clouds!

Other People

Nov2
Obligatory Wren portrait, the little lady among her rumpled bedclothes, suggesting “Do we really have to get up already?”

My dear departed friend Michael had a postcard on his refrigerator that I coveted. It became my secret motto, and it looked something like this:

It’s hardly an appropriate mantra for a mindfulness teacher, so as my practice has developed I’ve modified my interpretation. Whether it’s ear-splitting music shattering the peace of a secluded beach or earth-shattering climate chaos, it’s the ignorant choices of some other people that ruin things. It’s not the polar bears or the giant redwoods ruining their own habitats, it’s people. It’s not the natural desert sucking the Rio Grande dry, or grazing bison depleting the Ogallala Aquifer, it’s people. These are just the tip of the melting iceberg, of course: Everyone has their own examples, from wars to weeds.

But while it’s true that most of the horrible things I lament in the world are the result of other people, it’s also true that other people are responsible for almost every good thing in my life. They’re certainly responsible for my survival from birth, the education, employment, and other opportunities that shaped me and enabled me to settle here, and my ongoing thriving in this wonderful community. And just like me, most other people are doing the best they can with what they have to live their own little lives without causing intentional distress for anyone else.

Other people are responsible in some way for everything on this table, from the copper watering can and ceramic bonsai pots to the coffee, its mug, the ingredients for the cookie and its plate, and the table itself. Other people created from natural materials all the construction elements of the sunroom where the table sits, from the adobe bricks to the window frames and the glass windows. All the art in my home (including photographs I made) came in some way from other people. Even the tiny percentage of food that I grow in the garden (that other people helped me create) relies on the efforts of other people for the seeds, water delivery, soil amendments, and help maintaining. It’s an infinite pool of reliance: I’d be nothing without other people. So I’m profoundly grateful for other people.

Tiny, Fortunate Life

Oct9

I haven’t been able to master the ‘smashed potato’ until possibly the other night. And I also haven’t been thrilled with most of the Instagram recipes I’ve tried, but this one that Amy shared a week ago actually turned out splendidly. I quartered large Yukon gold potatoes and boiled them til just fork tender, then rolled them in olive oil in a roasting pan, and smashed them with the bottom of a heavy glass. Previously I’d boiled them too long and they just mashed. I got the timing right on these so that they flattened without mushing. I roasted them for awhile til they were brown on the bottom and starting to crisp, and while they were in the oven, I (over) caramelized half a small onion I had open. Then I flipped the potatoes, layered some with the onions and sliced Havarti, and when I ran out of onions I left the remainder bare. They were delicious!

I accidentally ate all the onioned potatoes that night, but saved the rest, and reheated some of those the next night with grated parmesan and ‘bacon’ bits, and turned the rest into hash browns with a fried egg for tonight’s supper. I’m grateful to have potatoes, a kitchen to cook them in, and a small plot of peace in a crazy world.

Topaz purring on the bed last night…

It feels so dissonant to enjoy these small and gracious pleasures, the seemingly steady security of my little neighborhood, while people elsewhere are reeling from the tragedy of yet another war. How do we hold both the trauma of human aggression and the beauty of nature and life at the same time? This requires a longer, deeper practice of equanimity than I have mastered, and some profound wisdom I have only occasionally glimpsed. Suffice to say that though I cannot leave the topic of Israel’s 9.11 unmentioned, I also remain speechless.

My heart breaks for the innocent lives ended and upended in both Israel and Gaza, and for the terrified hostages; as well as for the non-human animals who are always ‘collateral damage’ in the explosive devastation of wars. My heart breaks for the planet as a whole as even more finite resources are wasted in another flagrant power struggle among humans who have more in common than different, while our species as a whole plunges willfully toward its own demise. As my heart breaks I hold even more dearly, with an almost desperate gratitude, the daily treasures of my own tiny, fortunate life.

A spider orchid blooming in morning sun in its new location…
A tiny dingo unperturbed by my yoga mat…
My friend’s gorgeous courtyard as we shared jasmine tea, beauty, and heartbreak this afternoon…
And the unexpected pleasure of picking a few apples off her trees to bring home…

Losing Growths

Sep20

Grateful for a quiet day, for groceries, and for seeing this handsome buck in the yard. Looks like he’s dropped some of those awful growths, with only a couple remaining and not bad scars. I’m grateful for losing growths!