I'm a Puppet with a Heart of Gold

It's 7:30am on a weekday morning, and I'm still in bed, agonizing over having to go into work. Every cell in my body seems to be complaining about it, my heart feels heavy, and yet my mind (which drives my guilty conscience, my sense of obligation, my inclination to follow society's expected rules) somehow will drag me out of bed and into work. And I will give in. This is what feels so wrong - that my body, soul and mind are not in sync. My thoughts, words and actions are not in harmony.

How did they do it? The poets, the writers, the painters, the mystics, the dreamers? How did they follow their dreams in opposition to the rest of society? How did they not become slaves of money - its comforts and conveniences which I convince myself are necessities? How did they have the courage to follow their course without getting corrupted?

I have my own dreams, visions of a life filled with peace, solitude and harmony. And also of plenty. A life filled with what I'd like to fill it with - writing, painting, gardening, nature, photography, meditation, yoga, reading. And nowhere in there is my corporate job that's lined with insincerity and insecurity, that borders on selling my soul.

I am grateful for my job - it gives me freedom, comfort, and a home; and that's what keeps me chained for hours and hours each day. So I'm giving away my freedom of one kind to gain freedom of another kind. It doesn't make sense. And yet I continue on in this way, day after day, year after year, and pretty soon my life is gone. Is this my destiny? It might have been, but destinies can be changed, can't they? I can create my own destiny. I think that's when I can transform myself from a puppet, into becoming a piece of the Puppeteer Himself. Is that audacious? I don't think so - that's what I'm meant to be. That's what I'm seeking, longing for, life after life. Is this the lifetime where I might discover that part of me - my inner gold - so I can let go of the wooden shell? I hope so.

But for today, I'm still tied to strings, and the strings are dragging me out of bed, dressing me in corporate costumes, and dancing me across desks. And I'm unable to resist. Tomorrow I will try again, try to cut those strings again, those unseen, invisible, imaginary strings I'm binding myself with. Tomorrow I will turn into Gold.

Mid-winter Blues (poem)

Christmas is gone, the snow is all melted
Everywhere I see is bleak, bare and brown
It's enough to make a woman go blue
God, all I need is a bit of color and some cheer.

And then I see a blob of white -
The neighbor's cat sunning itself;
And when I looked out my window
Fluffy white clouds are sailing across the sky;
And as I drive along the country roads
The setting sun bronzed the tips of the bare apple trees;
And then I heard the chattering as they flew home,
Of millions of starlings rustling their shimmery wings;
And finally, as dusk closed in
The horizon shushed softly in palest pinks and prettiest blues.

Blues? What blues?
The lovely blues of the sky?
The puffy whites of the clouds and the cat?
The blushing pinks of the apple trees at sunset?
The softest pastels of the quietly falling dusk?
It was enough to make a woman smile!
And not stop smiling...

-Saiisha

Living on the Edge

I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of nights ago, and couldn't go back to sleep. My mind started drifting here and there, and landed on what I wanted to paint on the walls at the Nest. I decided on a pale leafy green for the living spaces and a dark leafy green for the book nook and bathroom. Then I thought I could hang my Thoreau's Cabin picture on the big wall, except I felt it wouldn't be big enough for that wall. So I imagined I'd write Thoreau's quote (not just the one line about living deliberately, but the entire quote that inspires me) on the wall around the frame, almost like a scroll-work frame in writing - around the solid framed picture. I recited to myself the quote:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Henry David Thoreau

I got stuck on the part that talks about "fronting only the essential facts of life", which kept going around in my mind over and over again.

As if on cue, when the snow came, it knocked out the heat and hot water, in fact all water. The pipes froze and burst, the boiler broke because there was no water, and so for 72 hours, there was no water and no heat in the house. Each of the three days, I sat in front of the woodstove feeding it logs and calling every plumber in the phone book. No one was available - the temperatures dropped so low that it seemed like every person in the entire area was fronting the essential facts of life. I brought in bowlfuls of snow to sit on the woodstove to melt on the fire.  Eating canned foods, drinking snow water, keeping warm by the wood fire - these were the essentials for three full days.

It is a new experience to live on the edge - on the edge of cold, on the edge of hunger, and on the edge of no sleep. It was stressful, a helpless situation, and the uncertainty of it all was the hardest to take. The bitterly cold snow was beautiful outside the windows - the branches like snow white lace weaved together, the banks of the creek like fur blankets of white, and the icy creek a ripple of velvet silk flowing through all the endless white. Beautiful, but cruelly cold. It's hard to be philosophical while living on a knife-edge. But it toughens and strengthens a person, makes one grow on the inside. One becomes intensely alive.

"Rural life intensifies the inner direction; it often makes for character at the expense of spontaneity and openness toward life. The struggle for mere existence against the fiercely changeable climate takes something out of people. Sometimes life becomes thin in consequence." - May Sarton

Fortunately for me, my life is fat. And full. At least, for now. And I'm grateful, or I'd forever be living on the edge, and there'd be no time for dreams or drifting, no room for cleanliness or order, no space for beauty and joy. Existing for that moment becomes urgent. Only when the essentials are addressed can one look around and wonder at the meaning of life, the mysteries of the universe; otherwise one is too busy existing, and cannot afford the luxury of "stopping and staring". So I'm quick to put aside my romantic notions about "fronting the essential facts of life". Instead I find relief, appreciation and gratitude for simple comforts of food, warmth and water. They seem all the more sweeter for doing without. Breathing comes back, smiling comes back, normal thought and reasoning comes back. But I hope I'll never forget what it was like to be in the throes of such terrible aliveness.



One Wish Come True

"Dreams come with wings. It is up to you to give them legs." -Saiisha

I'm one of those folks who doesn't like to make New Year resolutions because it's too much trouble to keep up with them. But I did make a wish list this year - on the 1st day of 2013. And then promptly forgot about it.

I remembered it again in October, almost when the year was ending. The reason I remembered it was that one of my wishes had come true! I went back and looked at my list, because I really didn't remember what else I had put on it, and I was shocked and amazed to see that all my wishes had come true - yes, even the big ones! It was like magic out of thin air - but in reality, it was simply a material manifestation of my wishes. It was a vision into how energy becomes matter.

I won't talk about all my wishes, but one, here - to show my art work at a gallery this year. I didn't do anything to pursue that dream, however in October, I chanced to receive a mass email invitation to local artists to display their art at the CC Arts gallery for the upcoming months. I applied, not really expecting to be picked, but I was picked promptly for the current month, and I worked late nights for a week to mat and frame 15 pieces of my art to show at the Corridor 410 gallery at CC Arts. I titled my collection, 'Vanaprastha', showing fall colors, since I like to think fall is nature's transitional season after the innocence of spring and the abundance of summer - nature then seems to transition into ripeness or wisdom of fall (before letting go in winter); just like Vanaprastha [Sanskrit: gone to the forest] is a transitional phase in man's life to start letting go of the accumulations and possessions of his earlier life and instead gaining wisdom and maturity of his older years. Vanaprastha is also the phase of my life that I'm currently transitioning into, and so it all seemed to fit perfectly.

The show went well, and then I was invited to show at a local café in November, where they like to support artists by giving them one of their walls to hang art. And then someone who happened to see my online shop at Etsy invited me to attend their arts and crafts fair (that was another of my wishes) one weekend in November, which was a lot of work, but a great success and good experience for me. Someone else who saw my work at the café signed me up to show my winter photography at yet another coffee shop for January. And all these coincidences gave me confidence to approach an art gallery to see if the proprietor would be interested in showing my work, and he promptly agreed and gave me February.

And so I made bold to add a new column on my blog to list my upcoming shows, hoping that these coincidences weren't merely coincidences, but a start to something bigger. Because my ultimate wish is to someday be able to earn a living from my writing and art, and let go of my day job at the bank. I can wish!

Giving Thanks for 2013

Follow the Fairy Path

Today I'm grateful for this year of abundance, not only material, but also lessons that will last me a lifetime. In addition to the blessing of my little blue Nest in the Forest, a nest filled with golden eggs - an egg of peace, an egg of sacredness, an egg of solitude, an egg of solidarity, an egg of warmth, and an egg of comfort; this year has also taken me on a walk along the path of grace - where every step rose up to greet me, and all I had to do was follow the steps. There was a step towards confidence, a step of courage, a step of surrender, a step of serenity, a step of passion, a step of power, a step of faith, a step of freedom, a step of knowledge, a step of wisdom. I'm also grateful to the people who have showed up for me, and held my hand as I walked this path, their kindness that I can only call uncommon. And I'm grateful for the birds and the beasts that surround me - the beavers, the bats, the bees and the butterflies, the cats, the raccoons, the deer (oh my lovely deer!) and the foxes - all of them so full, and so completely their own selves - poised and perfect. I am grateful to my art that came out of my own heart, a heart that's blessed to be able to see - really see - a moment, a presence, a silence, a portal - and to be able to share it with others who can see what I saw, and feel what I felt.

This year has been a blessed year - it has broken me open, to allow, to accept, to receive, and also to release, and to be grateful for it all.

Where's the door?

So many ways in,
no way out
Oh this endless living,
and the endless dying
Life after life
Birth and Death,
birth through death,
The smiles, the laughter,
the tears, the pain,
the endless suffering,
the relentless hope
All unto what?
No one knows
I have a theory,
she has a story,
he has a belief,
someone else wrote a book,
but really - who knows?
And yet we strive, we toil,
day after day,
life after life,
we suffer, survive,
again and again,
an unending cycle,
circle upon circle,
of meaningless mirth,
lustful longings,
selfish sentiments,
minds filled with fear,
lives of uncertainty,
only questions,
no answers
yet.

-Saiisha

The Simple Joy of Soap

As I'm getting to the end of the slip of the old soap, conscientiously stretching it for one more day, I'm eagerly waiting to open the new bar of soap, all crisply wrapped up in a fresh paper box, stealing sniffs of it whenever I open the closet for something else.

Finally, tonight's the night. A long day of being outdoors, open to the sun, the winds and the earth, which was lovely while it lasted, but by the end of the day, I'm longing for bath and bed. I lovingly open my paper box, gently pry out the creamy concoction, step into the shower, cradling the soft soap in both hands. The pleasure of hot water on a tired body, the slippery scented soap on skin, and the deep rosy perfume that filled the bathroom - oh I can't stop smiling!

I know - it's just soap. Everyone else is talking about consciousness and the cosmos - but I can't really touch and feel those words. And after all, isn't joy a way of experiencing consciousness in this moment? Or maybe it's the other way around - consciousness is experiencing a moment of joy. Whatever it may be, when the universe is showering (I wasn't planning a pun!) me with so much joy, who am I to question its source? A bar of soap, the scent of a rose, the feel of warm water on bare skin - joy, pure joy!

A Moment of Awe up in the Air

Just back from Cleveland where my sister and I went for a cousin's wedding party. Even though I've flown at least a few dozen times in an airplane on various visits and trips, I still dislike flying - the sickness in my stomach, the cramped seats, the stifling contained air, not to mention long layovers and even longer security checks. Also, in this day and age when traveling is routine for business and pleasure, everyone, including me, has become more or less a jaded traveler, immune to the experience of flying like a bird. So it was a lovely surprise having an unexpected moment of awe up in the air on my return flight.

I picked a window seat right above the right wing of the plane. My view, while we were getting ready to take off was of the 4-blade propeller slowly whipping itself up into a whir like that of a hummingbird's wings. We cruised to the head of the runway and paused, almost like a kingfisher on a branch, taking a breath before swooping down for a silvery fish. That pause joshed me into the present as well, readying me for a sacred moment. And then it happened - the wheels lifted off the ground, the great plane rose up gently, making its way up, up, and up in the air, slowly withdrawing its legs and wheels and folding them away for later. I felt like I was flying on the wings of an albatross, watching its skinny but steely legs lifting off, its haunches folding, tucking its legs and feet in neatly, its body prepared for flight. As the nose of the plane parted its way through the wisps of fleecy clouds, it seemed like the albatross was blinking its eyes against the blinding breezes and the clouds, firmly determined to make its way through the cloud cover until it could see the brilliant sun above. I blinked back my own surprise tears when I realized some fell on my forearm, which brought me back to the earthly plane again, of the buzz of people's voices, the pings of the seatbelt-off signs, and the rattle of the stewardess's bar cart down the aisle.

For those few moments though, I felt like I was one with the flight of the albatross, fearlessly leaving behind the fuss and mess of the material world, and facing only forward, to carry out the mission of this flight - to seek the shiny sun in the sacred blue heavens above.

Celebrating Sunflowers

 

As August comes to an end,
And steps into September,

The days shrinking smaller,

The shadows falling longer,

Just when I'm starting to think

Summer's almost over,

I see a stand of sunflowers

All in a shiny row,

Tall and golden,

Happy and smiling,

Beaming faces following the sun,

From his rising to his setting,

They follow him along,

Praying, worshipping,

Till the last ray is gone,

And then they sigh and turn,

To wait for another dawn.

 -Saiisha, 2013

 

 

I felt like I found gold when I found these happy faces in my new garden,

but this little bumble bee found real gold: 

I brought in a couple and set them on the windowsill

and they make me smile every time I see them smile.

Nest in the Forest

Vanaprastha [vaa-na-pra-stha] Sanskrit 'Vana' forest, 'Prastha' gone to
It is the third of four phases of a man in the Vedic Ashram system. This stage denotes a transition phase from material to spiritual life.

Ever since I can remember, I was always drawn to quaint, quirky little houses set in trees and nature. My first favorite book that I re-read for many, many years was the Hollow Tree House. I couldn't get enough of the tiny little house in the hollow of a big tree that three small children made for themselves in the woods. And then who wouldn't love The Borrowers, the tiny people family who "borrowed" from human "beans" to make their own homes with stamps for art work, and blotting paper for carpeting.

When I was older, and started reading about the Buddha and Adi Shankara's writings, their way of life and teachings enchanted me. Even at a young age, I felt that they knew their way out of this world and its worldly ways. And then the world engulfed me in its ways anyway. I was lost. I couldn't see the woods for the trees. I was so solely focused on the tree that I thought I was, that I lost sight of the path I needed to follow. I followed the flow, the road most traveled. Because I was too afraid to make choices at my crossroads; too afraid to say no, too afraid not to please the people I love. I see all this about myself only in hindsight, looking back at the path I trudged these long years.

Once I started recognizing the pulse points of joy, like a bird that doesn't get confused no matter how dense the trees, I started following my intuition. I started journaling about my joys, I started being grateful for everything that was a blessing - whether I personally liked it or not - they were all lessons to lead me home; I started taking note of my blessings, and started making plans about how to follow my joy. It has been a few years since I started doing that, and even though I had no idea where I was actually going to end up, I knew that each step was going in the right direction - the direction of joy.

I stopped going to parties that terrified me, I stopped calling "friends" that just wanted to keep in touch without necessarily caring about me, I stopped watching news and didn't need TV to keep me busy, I stopped going to places of worship that seemed more like social gathering places; in short I stopped doing everything I could to not do things that didn't bring me joy. Instead, I started spending more time on things that did - plants, gardens and gardening, yoga, food, journaling, reading, nature.

And so following the path that I was meant to take, weighing each step of the way to see if it felt right has been my intuitive way of seeking joy. After all that stepping and walking and flying, this is where I landed:

I have long been inspired by Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." (from Walden)

This little blue house is my attempt to live deliberately, to live light as a bird, to make my nest in the forest. I recognize that this is not exactly the house of a hermit, however I believe it's a step in the right direction. A transition from material to spiritual; towards that fourth Ashram. And I'm filled with joy!

Not Just Veggies in my Garden

Some fun things that "grow" in my garden...

A tiny temple? Or a smallish Stonehenge?

A non-Nest of non-Eggs

Hens and Chicks: a family portrait

The Red Roof Inn in a pot

Grand Bazaar Giveaway! Jul 1-9

I'm still stunned that I got picked to be part of this, but MyWonderfulWalls.com offered to include one of my Etsy photographs as part of their annual giveaway raffle! They picked my Glowing Lotus photograph:

And I think my photo fits right in with their theme of the Grand Bazaar Giveaway featuring 11 handcrafted items from Etsy artists. The winner wins all 11 prizes!

To enter, visit: http://www.mywonderfulwalls.com/blogs/my-wonderful-walls/8238361-grand-bazaar-giveaway

Six Mistakes of Man

I found this little list of 'mistakes' while reading something else, and thought how profound they were, even in this day and age. They were originally written by Marcus Tallus Cicero, a Roman philosopher who was born in 106 BC. Cicero was a great lawyer, a persuasive orator, an important politician, a prolific writer, and a natural philosopher. So it's not surprising that so many of his works have survived the centuries. But these six short maxims seem to have had a lasting impact on mankind, and after all this time, we are still re-discovering and re-learning the same profound truths.

The Six Mistakes of Man:
1. The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others.
2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study.
6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

Enough said!

Delicious Daylilies

Yes, you know the ones I'm talking about -

the bright yellow lilies that only last for a day,

but bloom in profusion in the short June season that they love!

Did you know you could eat them?

Not only are they edible, but they're delicious too

I picked some fresh daylily buds this morning,

and some broccoli tips that bolted into flower due to the heat

I put them on a pre-made pizza crust,

added cheese, grilled it in the oven

and finished it off with some delicate tarragon -

isn't this the prettiest pizza you've ever seen?

Almost like a flower in itself!

 

A little slice of summer!

Laying Down

 

Sometimes when I stop to take a breath,

I'm overawed by how alive life is.

How eager, how fervent, 

How like a flame in the forest.

 

Restless,

Relentless,

Ruthless.

 

I look in the mirror and suck in a breath.

I see someone else - someone still young,

Her hair still dark and long, her teeth all in a line.

But me - I have an overwhelming longing to rest.

 

To rest,

Retreat,

Retire.

 

A need to reminisce,

To piece together my pieces,

To patch up the parts of my past,

Make a story and lay it to rest.

 

No more present,

past,

or prospects.

 

Only Peace.

 

 

 

A Little Bug Teaches Big Lessons

"An illness or loss or heartbreak is often a Hideous Damsel, or a Sleeping Giant, or a Strange Angel who wants to help us evolve." -Elizabeth Lesser (Broken Open)

So what is my illness trying to tell me when a tiny little tick that bit me behind my knee, actually brought me to my knees for a good three days? When I was convulsing with fever, chills, nausea, aches and pains, was there a lesson behind them all?

On the back porch of the little log cabin on the lake, even as I was peacefully reading a story from "Owning it", a Zen real-life storybook written by Perle Besserman - one was a story about a woman who had Lyme disease but was misdiagnosed as anything but, I had no idea that I myself had a tick biting through my skin. As I read in shock and horror the crippling lifetime implications of what a missed diagnosis could mean, I had no knowledge of what was happening to my own body at that time. A couple of days later, when I returned home, I found a tiny tick on my skin, didn't think much of it even then (after all, most ticks are benign), I pulled it out, and that was that. Or so I thought.

Exactly two weeks after my return from that retreat, I suddenly fell severely ill, I wondered if it had something to do with the little tick that bit me. I mean, what are the odds that the story I was reading in a Zen book (not a medical text) was actually preparing me for this moment? I hurriedly called my sister, and she agreed I couldn't afford to curl up in bed and go to sleep, but to call the doctor right away. I did. After a series of tests, the doctor concluded it was most certainly Lyme. She was happy that I had come in right away, and to have connected it to the tick bite, otherwise who knows what the rest of my story would have been. It was an amazing coming together of reading, remembering and recognition that probably saved my life. Much as I'd like to resist being melodramatic, it is true that I'm still in treatment for Lyme, but the fever has cooled, the chills have calmed, and the aches are soothed.

But what had they come to teach me? To be aware at all times? To never take my life or health for granted? To realize that I'm being protected and babied by an unknown hand? That even as I felt alone in my illness, I was never abandoned? That synchronicity is something real? They're all big lessons for me, which are also comforting at the same time. All I can say for them is a prayer of gratitude.

First Harvest of the Season - Peas

There's nothing like the sweet crunchy taste of fresh peas right off the vine. For the first time, I've been able to grow peas this year. Every year so far, they were stringy, weak, dying. This year, I think I sowed the peas at the right time of year, when it was still cool, and the rest of the season has been cool too.

Here's how my train of pea plants look now,

being pulled quite gamely by a polka-dotted ladybug

My first "bushel" of peas from the garden

 

 

Shucked and shelled...

 

 

Plus a handful of young lettuce leaves

 

Together, they make a good meal of quinoa salad:

 with peas, lettuce, and mint - quite summery!

 

 

My New Favorite Book

"Time itself is being... and all being is time... In essence, everything in the entire universe is intimately linked with each other as moments in time, continuous and separate" - Ruth Ozeki, paraphrasing Zen Master Dogen

Once in a while a perfect book comes along for me - equal parts of charm, humor, intelligence, all mixed together into the perfect blend of a book. This is a book I won't soon forget, but it will go on my very short list of books I'd want to reread.

A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING is about Nao (pronounced Now), a young Japanese girl who was brought up in America, but was forced to move back to Japan when her Dad lost his software job during the dotcom crash. She struggles to adjust in her new school, has no friends, strays, wants to commit suicide. But before she does that she wants to leave one thing behind that she'd be proud of. She decides she wants to tell the tale of her 104 year old grandmother, a Buddhist nun who renounced the world, and lives in a temple as its caretaker, in the remote mountains of Japan.

Ruth, living on a distant island in Canada, finds this tale washed up on the beach - a handwritten book in a Hello Kitty lunch box, wrapped up in layers and layers of plastic. She feels so connected to Nao that even though the book was written a long time ago, she feels like she has to try and see if she can help the young girl.

The book has many layers beyond Ruth, Nao and her grandmother - there's the beautiful island in Canada, quantum physics, Nao's Dad's story, modern Japan, Nao's great uncle who was a WWII soldier, Zen spirituality, all rolled up into one.

Read the book, feel the magic, and the supa-pawa (super-power) of Nao. She's a time being, so is Ruth, and so are we. I cannot recommend the story enough!

The Little Log Cabin at the Lake

With much sighing, I'm back from a lovely, languorous, luxury of a retreat at a lake cabin in Virginia.

 

The luxury is of the abundance of nature set on the banks of a 60 acre lake, of space - 30 acres of woodlands, of solitude - a 20 minute long gravel driveway crossing 3 locked gates, and of near complete isolation.

 

The languor was of days of doing nothing, seeing no other human being, hearing no traffic; just lounging on the big porch and letting the world leave me behind.

 

The loveliness was of Virginia wildlife - birds, beavers, bullfrogs; books - for lots of reading, a canoe to float along in the soft water, and trails for picking wildflowers.

 

After all that pampering by Mother Nature, it is so hard to come back to reality. Even though I'm revived and refreshed, the kinks in my neck and back gone, I'm so longing for the time to go back into the woods for good! 

House Under Construction

It all started with a broken pot. How I have a broken pot is another story for another day, but one day it was a fine whole pot carrying plants, and the next it was a sad broken pot in the corner of the garage. There it lounged for about a year or more. Finally when it was time to throw it out, I wondered what else I could do with it, and so here is the broken pot, aka, my new:

House Under Construction.



Here's the house, with a pool (clam shell)



So up the terraced staircase (broken bits of pot)
 



and Welcome Home! (mat - flat round stone)
 



The swan-in-residence (seed pod) watching over her eggs (snail shells)



And a fenced yard too (long abandoned play structure)

I plan to remodel this house and make it more rustic down the road, but for now, it's a perfectly fine, modest starter home... any buyers? :)