Hari Om

We must be willing not to turn away. Our belief that we are not enough is fueled by our unwillingness to sit with feelings of powerlessness. Being unable to enact the change we would like to see is a defeating position to take and is absolutely rooted in our tendencies toward monothoughtism. Monothoughtism is the overarching belief that the way I see myself in the world is the way the world is. It is most likely exactly the opposite of this, ironically. The way I see the world is the way I am.

Now, this can be a wonderful understanding that can bring a level of equanimity with our own thoughts. It could also be a direct route to spiritually bypass our responsibility to actively participate in and engage in the reduction of suffering in the world. That is going to depend upon how we engage with our own awareness. Are we going to find a way out or a way in? The way brings us fully into the level of awareness that lives in these bodies, in these houses (or not), these cars (or not), with this food (or not). We are material as well as ethereal. Engage appropriately.

Speak the Metta Meditation with goodness in your heart and in your mind. This is key to creating action of goodness. Goodness is not dependent upon the approval of our identity or aligned with our identifiers. Goodness brings love into any situation. It is not the opposite of badness, but the water that feeds the garden so that it may grow as it needs. It is a choice that is informed by a lack of choosing. Not choosing as a choice is a bold and challenging way forward.

Recently, I was espousing my self-righteous anti-capitalist stance on death and dying to a fellow death worker who has been doing this work for a long time as well. He is also a teacher and “Minister” of the holiness of dying. He reminded me to boldly not believe that I should choose who does and does not get to receive the teachings of what I have gained by my time sitting with death. It is for everyone, always. I needed that reminder, as speaking from my pain and fear wasn’t acting with goodness in my heart, mind, and mouth. Thanks, Bodhi Be.

All In Love,

Michael

Generate Generosity Here

Hari Om

It is often that experience a thread of thought and teachings in the world of “spirituality” that the abandonment of the flesh, the material world, is a cornerstone. I could not be further unimpressed by this idea. We are in bodies for some reason, and for some reason, these bodies have sensations. I find these sensations to be beautiful and sensual gestures of spirit, and embrace them as fully spiritual experiences. No apologies for loving what your body loves. Of course, beware the traps of becoming stuck, or of chasing down and grasping onto expectations of sensual pleasure, but why would this mean do not experience the rhapsody of material life knowing full well that this is temporary?

It is precisely the temporary nature of all life that we find our greatest joys and our greatest sorrows, and through our awareness that we learn they are the same.

To love something means to be brought into the place of love, the experience of love. This is equanimous in its essence. It is our judgments, read: fear, that removes equanimity from love. This is okay as well. It is when meeting my greatest fears that I have opened my most tender loves.

“The poet says, I sculpted my mirage out of language and brag. Yeah, that sounds, I can identify with that. Some of us sculpt our mirage out of fitness. Some of us sculpt our mirage out of financial success.Some of us sculpt our mirage out of silken scarves and spiritual necklaces. And some of us sculpt our mirage out of anger and resentment. And some of us sculpt our mirage out of each of these things in different times in our lives and in different ways, in different moments. But we're all just working with lumps of clay”

The inimitable bell hooks brings us home today with number 19 of her Appalachian Elegy.

Appalachian Elegy 19 bell hooks all fields of tobacco growing here gone now man has made time take them surrendered this harsh crop to other lands countries where the spirit guides go the way of lush green leaving behind the scent of memory tobacco leaves green yellow brown plant of sacred power shining beauty return to Appalachia make your face known

Thanks for breathing together today. Thanks for returning home.

All In Love,

Michael

Generate Generosity Here

Hari Om

Hello friends. If this practice is to invite wholeness, we must begin to question individualism. I think, with any level of serious scrutiny, the concept that we are individuals begins to fall apart. Not a single one of us was born of no one. Not a single one of us was fed by no one. Not one of us could live in this world without anyone. We are inextricably interdependent upon one another. I would go as far as to say that we are never not one. Oneness does not begin with our awareness of oneness. We always were and always are. This can be a statement of comfort, and also a statement that opens extreme discomfort. How would this understanding work with my current belief that I am solely responsible for my spiritual life? My practice? My healing?

We have an easy enough time believing that “others” are responsible for our pain, but tell us when we are in our pain that our pain requires “others” to see it for it to be opened to be healed, and we run for the hills. This is true for all of us sometimes.

How do we begin to take our collective healing seriously then? Do we follow the teaching of Christ and rid ourselves of our belongings, join the choir of voices singing Hosanna, and live in a commune or monastery for the rest of our incarnation? Well, I think there have been many movements to talk that talk, but few of us in the modern world can walk that walk. But, in short, the answer is yes, this is the way. Not necessarily to sleep twenty to a room and live on unseasoned lentils and rice. Mary Oliver tells us:

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.”

Thankfully someone has given us permission, and a poet is the perfect voice to do so. Thank you Mary Oliver. Thank you permission to live more fully and more human.

The last part there is the real kicker. It is telling us that sharing our despair is precisely how we will begin to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”. There is no question to me that this is transcribing the message of the collective inviting us all back in. When I say that, what is mean to say is inviting our awareness into what is already happening. It is in our awareness that we discover the truth of our suffering, and in our awareness that we are able to find our way through that suffering. It is awareness that Ram Dass reminds us that is also our love. It is the same place.

Place is important to us, and for very good reason. It is from place that we are born to move into that place’s consciousness of the whole. We are the eyes of place, and the ears, the mouth, the body of feeling of place. Would it be here without us? Of course. But who then would tell the story of the cherry blossom exploding into a spring day? Who then would tell the story of the “little living creatures uprooted” if not for bell hooks.

Appalachian Elegy 18 bell hooks when trees die all small hearts break little living creatures happy and safe uprooted now in need of finding new places when home cracks and breaks and falls all life becomes danger how to find another place where all is not yet barren

We must find one another to find that place that “all is not yet barren”. That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.

All In Love,

Michael

Generate Generosity Here

Hari Om

Thank you Angela Franklin, Kristi Cederstrom, and many others for tuning into the morning sit live today. If you are not yet aware, we hold this space live as an in-person and in-stream shared practice Monday through Friday at 8:30, most days.

Today, we begin where I like to begin, with a bit of focus on our breath. Sometimes this may seem like old hat information. I don’t think, though, that there is ever a time when coming back to the very foundational basics is not helpful. So we begin with breath.

One of the places my personal practice has consistently led me to is the line between discomfort and pain. Both can feel very much the same in our emotional body, and our thought body can only do what it does, which is to think about it (or not) and develop a story to make sense of it. So both pain and discomfort can easily, and often do, become a story of harm. A tale of abandonment, injustice, rejection, wekaness, fear, etc etc etc. It can go on and on, the ways we will attempt to justify our not feeling what we think we should be feeling.

Mostly, though, these stories are entirely historical fiction. Loosely based on something that happened, but prettied up and played by blockbuster actors in our minds. The memory of our unhealed wounds is the hero’s journey. One we are sure we will return from with epic tales of vanquished enemies and stolen hearts….someday. Just not today, right? Anything but here, any time but now, anyone but me. That is the name of the game. So what do we do? We breathe. That is all. Breathe and know that we are breathing and we are, nearly every time, alive. And in this being alive, we are able to find the calm and the peace of living things.

bell hooks takes us there often, into that place of place. That moment we are grounded in our wholeness, and that wholeness is our oneness, our belonging. In Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks takes us over and over through the hills and removed mountaintops of her home place. Today, she reminds us of the peace of living things.

Appalachian Elegy 17. bell hooks straight ahead the road curves signs signal no motorboats allowed this lake our water source let us drink clear and true there are swans resting here magical presence all reflecting peace

I love, and I mean absolutely love, the opening of this prayerful poem, which tells us that it is not our concern to waver from moving straight ahead; the road will bend and curve for us, taking us exactly where we need to go. The road will curve for us. Then, to remind us to be in place. To not impose upon the relationships we have an unnecessary intensity. We are nourished here, and must be present with this. There is magic here in this. Thank you, bell hooks.

All In Love,

Michael

Generate Generosity Here

Hari Om

It is certainly lovely to be back on the cushiopn at The Beside, and with you all for this morning practice of sitting, breathing, and sharing thoughts and poems. That is really all this is. Just some time taken away from the grinding weight of capitalism, war-mongering corporate policies, the attacking police state in our neighborhoods, and the subjugation of 1/3 of th epopulation by another 1/3 while 1/3 sit by and wait idly to be next on one of the two sides. Does this seem glum? Well, it may be. I am okay with recognizing that a good portion of my energy is is actively resisting the violence of this culture on a very personal and interpersonal level. This is what makes this practice so vital to my survival in these times. I need rest. I need respite. I need solace. And I think so do you.

When we begin to sit with these stirring of emotions by seemingly outside forces, “you must speak up…over the clatter…of my noisy heart” is a directive for connection. Allow the healing to be louder than the pain for a moment at a time.

Then we take some guidance from the great bell hooks, once again with the magic.

Appalachian Elegy 16 bell hooks go high up climb to the very top look out remnants of majesty remain here where soldiers stand watching their gods die what will be given in return for shelter an end to hunger sanctuary look from the mountaintops an army of broken promises land invaded then left as though there were no other way to claim belonging

My question today, to you and to me: What other ways have you learned to claim belonging than domination and subjugation? Let us know in the comments.

All in Love,

Michael

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Hari Om

Taking our time to breathe, to bring our awareness into our body, and to settle our mind is no small thing. It is not about “being healed”. I’m not even sure what healed means. Does it mean no more wound? No more scar? No more memory of pain that our training wants to avoid? Who knows? I certainly don’t want to wait to be happy, or to love, or to be in love until I am “healed”. I want to be all of those things right now, in this messy, confused, forgetful body.

I don’t want to keep functioning as if I am broken.

If I want to stop pretending “I am okay”; I have to stop believing “I am fucked up”.

We can actually be okay in all of our neuroses. We can have all of the joy, the splendor, the wow and amazement of life right now!

All in Love,

Michael

Hari Om

We have been here all along. This old road. I think we forget that. I think we forget that we are not “new” or “old” but “always”. When we enter into the conflicts within and without, we can feel so isolated, or so aligned, depending on how we can open our hearts in that moment.

When I am in my wounding, everything hurts. When I am in my healing, everything is medicine.

It is from this place that we can see, in any moment, how our heart is opening or closing. All along, though, we are on that road we have always been on, and eventually it will bring us right back around. This means we are working along a lineage of all of the love and the pain that we ever have had. We cannot bury the past, because it is our history. The difference is the past happened then, and our history is always coming through us.

bell hooks brings us into what that looks like in the place from which she comes.

Appalachian Elegy 15. bell hooks pink and white oleander not native to Appalachian ground still here lies years and years of poison rebel flags heritage and hate in the war to fight hunger and ongoing loss there are no sides there is only the angry mind of hurt bringing death too soon destroying all our dreams of union

Thanks, again, bell hooks for that wonderful breath of grief and love and memory.

We also heard from Padraig O Tuama:

Men in a war Padraig O Tuama Men in a war prefer the talk of politics than of pain.

In many ways, we are all in this war we have agreed to inside of our heart and minds, I think. And when we are embroiled in that war, it is the weapons of pretext and emotional dysregulation that we use the most.

And finally, we have a great love poem from Ellen Bass, a prayer.

Prayer Ellen Bass Once I wore a dress liquid as vodka. My lover watched me ascend from the subway like I was an underground spring breaking through. I want to stop wanting to be wanted like that. I’m tired of the song the rain sings in June, the earth, her ornate crown of trees spiking up from her loamy head. There are things I wanted, like everyone. But to this angel of wishes I’ve worshiped so long, I ask now to admit the world as it is.

Ah, yes! The best of prayer. To learn to really truly love the world as it is.

All In Love,

Michael

Hari Om

First, this video and audio is poorly synced. I would fix it but it seems to come in and out throughout the video, making that difficult. You may want to listen to the podcast audio instead of the video, today.

Today’s sit was encouraged by Angela to contemplate on the why it is we seem to seek external validation, but have such a difficult time finding internal resources for these very feelings. It is very interesting how we are all interdependant and at the same time have all of these feeling sna dunderstandings within, if we can access them. Perhaps this is where our interdependance comes from. Perhaps we are not meant to be able to do this alone, but acutally do require one another to see what we cannot seem to see in our selves. That said, the problem, if ther eis ever such a thing, is believing the voices of love when we hear them. That is very different.

To be able to believe something from outside of us, we must be willing to challenge the belief that is within us. To do this, we must use awareness practices to zoom out and see the multitude of who we are at any moment.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet.

We are much larger than we believe ourselves to be, and contain so much more than we can see at any moment.

Drifting Mary Oliver I was enjoying everything: the rain, the path wherever it was taking me, the earth roots beginning to stir. I didn’t intend to start thinking about God, it just happened. How God, or the gods, are invisible, quite understandable But holiness is visible, entirely. It’s wonderful to walk along like that, thought not the usual intention to reach an answer but merely drifting. Like clouds that only seem weightless. but of course are not. Are really important. I mean, terribly important. Not decoration by any means. By next week the violets will be blooming. Anyway, this was my delicious walk in the rain. What was it actually about? Think about what it is that music is trying to say. It was something like that.

Like clouds that only seem weightless. But of course are not. Thanks Mary Oliver!

I decided after spending so much time on this topic today to hold off on Appalachian Elegy for today. I want to give it proper space each mornign, so we will revisit on Monday.

All In Love,

Michael

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