Hi Honey; I'm Home

I have returned from a trip at the behest of a kind and generous friend from Arizona. We spent part of our time at a resort and spa in Sedona located in an amazing red rock canyon. Yes, I did make some enso paintings; I even drew some in the red earth of the canyon. More on that later.

One morning I headed out to walk the trail running the length of the canyon and was profoundly moved by the rocks above me which felt like great benevolent gods. I tried to take photos, but it was not the best use of my time since my skill and camera were inadequate to the task. Finally, I decided to put the camera away. I realized it was getting in the way of my appreciation of my experience.

This led to an experiential insight. As is true of most insights, the raw material was already there, but my ability to appreciate the truth was stimulated by experience. I was able to understand that equanimity is to be cultivated not only around those things that are difficult or unpleasant, but also in relationship to that which we find pleasurable. This is not to take some sort of monastic or ascetic stance in regards to experiencing enjoyment. The need for equanimity comes in the attachment to that in which we find pleasure. These experiences, too, are fleeting and impermanent and by attaching to them we find ourselves unable to be present in the moment.

Being able to fully grasp the impermanence is something that can only add to the enjoyment of the experience. I have found myself fretting about the fact that my lovely experience will eventually end. Upon reflection, I realize what a waste of that opportunity it was to be concerned about the future such that it removes me from fully experiencing the present. Anthony Bourdain (my TV boyfriend) gave up taking photos years ago since he felt it did not do justice to his experience.

Have you ever found yourself in a place of unspeakable beauty, or experiencing an episode of profound bliss and found yourself grasping at the experience? Please share what that was like. What was it? How did it manifest for you? Where did you feel it in your body? Have you ever found yourself regretting it?

Enso It Goes

The last couple of times I've gotten acupuncture I've had these wonderful experiences where as I'm lying there, I've created paintings in my head. Interestingly, they've all been based on the enso. An enso is basically a circle, drawn/painted with (usually) a single stroke. It is an expression of the moment. It's everything. It's nothing. Very Zen.

My acupuncturist tells me that some of my problems are expressions of frustrated creative energy and these paintings in my head are a good sign. If I don't make good use of this stuff, however, I'll keep having the same problems.

As such, I am going to pack a few of my (now severely depleted) art supplies to take with me on my TRIP to Arizona (the universe will provide, as it turns out) and I'll work on making some stuff. If I make anything worth sharing, I'll post it here on the Blog.

The Big Math Test

I've gotten a lot of positive reaction from people on a particular topic regarding the Healing Presence. It is that changing yourself and your relationship to others and to your circumstances is not just a selfish act of self improvement. It is, in fact, a profound change that you make in the world.
The illustration I use to explain this is fractals. I have been intrigued to discover how few people know about fractals. I guess I'm just a bigger nerd than I thought. A fractal is a pattern that follows certain rules, including:

• It has a fine structure at arbitrarily small scales (even when you zoom in, it has a fine level of detail).
• It is too irregular to be easily described in traditional Euclidean geometric language (it has a very complex and somewhat irregular geometric shape).
• It is self-similar (it shows a similar or recursive pattern on infinitely small or large scale).

Fractals are produced by certain algorithms (a kind of mathematical set of instructions) and these algorithms can be used to predict weather, or allow a computer graphic designer to create realistic landscapes. They are found extensively throughout nature. We can recognize the frost on the windows in the winter, or the shape of sand dunes because they have a fractal nature that allows them to always have their distinctive shape while simultaneously being infinitely variable.

I like to think of the whole of human interaction as a fractal. One of the other things that defines a fractal is that when you make a change in the algorithm, or set of instructions, it must result in a change throughout the entire fractal on every scale. What this means to me is that every time we make a change for the better in ourselves, if it results in a more flowing and healthy interaction with ourselves and our circumstances, we change the larger fractal of human interaction. Making yourself better makes the world a better place.

Cloquet "Rendevous"...Now the Real Work Begins

Well, I'm back from Duluth. Lovely venue, lovely people. About 35 people attended my talk (there were multiple talks going on at the time) which made the room about 4/5 full. I was determined to be prepared so I took my information and arranged, rearranged, outlined, deconstructed, and threw it all up in the air and saw how it hit the ground.

In the long run, I ended up doing what those who know me well knew I would do: I winged it. I wonder, can it really be considered "winging it" if you've put that much time into preparing? There were several things that were good about winging it:

1. It felt much more authentic (have I written much about authenticity?) and that is of key importance to me.
2. It gave people the sense that they had permission to ask questions during the talk.
3. The questions and flexibility of my "open outline" allowed an organic flow that followed the interests of the group.
4. I was less nervous and less likely to get flustered than if I was following a script.

The thing that really helped me was that the night before I was delightfully distracted at the Rendevous, a very "casual" local drinking establishment in Cloquet, MN, in attendance at a celebration for a friend of a friend. Met nice people who expressed interest in my work and asked me good questions, had a couple of extremely reasonably priced cocktails, ate hot dish, and generally get good and relaxed. Which I needed. Badly.

The next day, I was very gratified that after I was done speaking, many people came back to my booth to talk to me, sign my mailing list and ask me "When is your book coming out?". Hmmmm....

The Big AHA!

Today I was speaking with a friend of mine (call her Meg). A couple of weeks ago she was telling me about a problem she was having with her main support staff person. This support person would ask her about her personal life and then make subtle, judgmental disparaging comments.

Meg wanted to keep her support person happy since her own work lives and dies at this woman’s mercy, but she was becoming very upset at the increasingly hurtful situation. She was reaching the end of her rope, and asked me for advice.

After talking through a wide variety of options, I finally suggested that the next time it happened, she say something like, “I know you probably don’t realize this, but when you say things like that it hurts my feelings.” Meg listened to what I had to say and said she appreciated it, and that was the end of it.

A couple of weeks later she called to tell me that she had taken my advice and she was blown away by the results.

The upshot of what happened is that another hurtful exchange took place. Meg says my words came to her head and, in desperation, decided to take my advice. The employee grew very sad and told Meg that she had no idea she was being hurtful, she was very sorry and that she valued their relationship, and would be more considerate.

A couple of minutes later she came to Meg's office and said that when she behaved in this inappropriate way, that it was really about her own pain which she went on to share briefly, candidly, and appropriately. She also said this was not something been able to talk about much before and appreciated the opportunity.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Healing Presence in action. I've been looking for a centerpiece for my talk, and I think it just got handed to me. Again, it's about vulnerability and, too some extent, surrender. When we make ourselves vulnerable we give other people permission to be vulnerable, a state necessary for healing.

When Meg shared that story with me, I told her that it made me feel that softness in my heart that allows me to experience compassion for this person I didn't even know. Meg responded that Yes! she felt softening in her heart in relationship to this person as well! That's exactly what it felt like!

You see, we were able to see the assistant's pain and understand what a wounded person she is. But it's about witnessing the pain; there was no attempt to resolve this woman's problem, nor was it necessary to share in or experience it. That's compassion. That's Healing Presence.

Beating it into the ground

My friend Dennis Cass, in preparation for a talk he was preparing for, made the commitment to blog about it multiple times per day. I told him that I supported this; that three posts might be shit, but they may lead to a fourth that is a revelation. I'll try to make my posts relatively interesting, at least to me...

As I draft my outline, I cannot help but think about the video sent to the Ortho-Bionomy® Yahoo Group of Jill Bolte Taylor sharing her experience as a brain scientist having a stroke. She is a powerful speaker. Why because she is funny and she allows it to be personal.

I am using this as a guideline. I have had discussions with many people who agree that my greatest asset is myself. (Note correct word usage -"myself " is hideously misused.) So, me it is.

Fasten Your Seatbelts...

I stated that the goal of this blog is to aid me on my path to embodying the healing presence. Since I am going to have to talk about Cultivating the Healing Presence for an hour in Duluth at the Northwoods Wellness Expo, I thought I'd make use of this forum to support me.

I believe that the challenge that confronts me is making it just one hour. I think I could talk for four hours - or four days, but one hour is a big challenge. How do I hit the highlights; be informative. I don't want the material to seem crammed, irrelevant, incomplete. I know it's considered bad form to dwell on that which you want to avoid, but often it's the only way to define what you would like to achieve. So what do I want? What are the opposites of these descriptives: Useful. Self-contained. Flowing. Complete.

What do I want for my audience? To feel gratified, educated, replete. To see me as a font of wisdom, a master teacher, approachable and entertaining.

No problem.

I have a reputation for being able to pull stuff out at the last minute. To quote my sibling: "For the number of things you can pull out of your ass, it should be a lot bigger." Granted, being able to do this has a lot to do with the fact that I've been cooking on stuff for a while, but I don't want to do it that way this time. So, lots to do. But I feel like I've made progress in defining what I want this thing to look like. Stay tuned.

Your comments and suggestions are always helpful and appreciated.