Synchronicity

I had a lovely and reassuring episode of synchronicity that occurred at the SoulCollage Training in California, and was a lovely bridge into my 10-Day Sesshin.

The training was over a weekend, and Saturday night, after a day and a half of being completely immersed in SoulCollage, we did readings. Seena encouraged us to ask manageable questions. Not too big: What is the meaning of my life?" Not too small: "What should I wear tomorrow?" But more like, "What are the card energies (Seena uses the word "Neters") that are going to be with me in the next week, or for this next project?" Like that. So I inquired about the card energies that would be with me for my upcoming 10-day retreat. Here is who came up:

Patrick, of course. The One who vowed to support my spiritual path. The One who will hold down the fort, take care of the house, take care of the dog and the kitty while I am away. The One who understands where retreat practice fits in our lives.

3rd Chakra Companion: Tiger I am the One who lives in the belly.
I am your gut instinct. I am the one with the fire and fierceness of determination.
I am the One who says yes or no.

Robin
My Dharma sister.
I am the One who appreciates your practice.
I am the One who is with you along the path.

So my plan was to focus on some Hara, or belly breathing during the retreat, regardless of what the practice would turn out to be. Usually in the retreats, there is a theme, and a recommended practice, like listening practice, or even "tongue practice" in which for a whole week, we focused on the sensations and movements of the tongue. The theme of this retreat was "Longing for the Ancient Way." I was not sure what the practice would be to go with the theme. Maybe Koan practice?

Well it turned out that this would in fact be a 10-day retreat with a focus on breathing practice. We breathed using an anchor word, "Buddha," in haling the syllable "Bu..." and exhaling the syllable, "Daaaaahhh." And all the while focusing the breath in the Hara. What are the odds, eh?

It seems there is no real consistency with writings about the chakras. Some say the Hara is in the 3rd, some say it's in the 2nd chakra. Nevertheless, I breathed the Buddha Breath constantly, lightly, intensely, gently, and fiercely. I put my Tiger card on my nightstand, and it was a comfort and reminder about bringing awareness to the Hara, learning about the Hara, feeling the Hara, being present with the Hara. I needed the fire of determination to stay with the practice, and there it was.

I also experienced a feeling of the belly's moving breath like that of a frog's throat moving in and out. A relaxed belly goes 'plop' -- sticking itself out right before an inhale, expanding to welcome an influx of air, pulling it in like a bellows. I must credit Linda Brice, a Transformational Voice Trainer, for first teaching me this concept, and allowing me to experience my breath in this way.

I also likened each breath to a flower, gradually opening, blossoming into fullness, then equally gradually declining, and disappearing, making way for the next breath.

I experienced a lot on retreat. More may come to these pages, but right now I am going on a birthday dinner date with two of my other soul sistahs, Rebecca and Kayci.

I am glad to be back. And breathing.

Going Deeper

This is one of my newest SoulCollage Cards.

Going Deeper

• I am the One who explores the depths inside.
• I am the One who feels apprehensive, but continues anyway.
• I am the One who is nervous and excited about inner discovery.
• I am the One who is courageous.

The main image, the man whose features are visible, was collected maybe a year ago at a SoulCollage workshop (Thanks, Suzie Wolfer). I felt a strong affinity with it, and it reminded me of inner psychological exploration. It still does.

While I was creating it, I thought about adding water images -- a diver or deep sea level fish -- but they didn't quite make it. The stalagtites are created with water, but I kind of wanted a more overt representation. And then I found these incredible images of a shipwreck. How perfect a representation for those shipwrecks of life that find their way to the bottom and continue to haunt our subconscious. So I cut out the ship wheel, and it went over his heart / hara.

It felt "done."

I realized that it was time for this image to come out now because I am about to go on a 10-day silent meditation retreat in September. So begins my commitment to frequent retreat practice in the fall / winter of 2008. September's retreat schedule includes even more meditation than usual every day, and I don't really see in the schedule where I will have the after-meal naps I rely on so strongly at the other retreats I have been to. I am apprehensive and excited about deepening my practice, and looking into the nature of my mind during this time. Did I mention apprehensive?

Having realized that, I nodded and worked on another card, had dinner, hung out with friends, came home, and showed Patrick my newest cards.

Now, Patrick is usually very conservative with his comments. He has a certain reverence for the cards, and tends to state what he sees, with little interpretation. Even if interpretation is encouraged, he is reluctant to do so.

So when he said, "Going deeper into Dharma practice," I was impressed that he would verbalize that intuition he had gathered from this image, and his knowledge of my process. I said as much, and then he pointed to the shipwheel, and said, "Well it was the Dharma Wheel right there. That was the first thing I noticed."

Okay, guess who was the last to know about that.

I am serious. I did not place that there consciously at all, though it certainly is perfect. The Dharma Wheel is often depicted like a ship's wheel, the eight spokes representing the Noble Eightfold Path:

1. Right Understanding
2. Right Thought
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

My subconscious, when I let it work on SoulCollage cards, creates magic.

A similar thing happened with this card:

Kwan Yin

Kwan Yin is the Bodhisattva of Compassion who "hears the cries of the world." Her element is water, and she is often depicted with a bottle, holding her tears, or pouring out the waters of compassion.

While I was creating this card, I placed her by a river, with ocean in the background, and the nautilus shell all as symbols of water, of the sea. This card looked exactly as it does now, and I clearly remember thinking, "Hmmmm, now what can I include to illustrate her listening capacity?"

A few beats later, it dawned that the nautilus shell is a beautiful reflection of the inner ear's cochlea, and also a representation of the childhood ritual of listening to the ocean inside shells... I laughed at myself and thanked this higher wisdom so graciously participating with me in the creativity of cardmaking.

Orienteering

It has been a long period of discernment. It felt very uncomfortable. Like drifting for two years.
I had a sense that traveling to China might possibly help put the last piece into place, but I didn't know how. Since I have returned, I am sensing that it has fallen into place. The part in my blog description about being a social worker "on the verge of a change" is what I am talking about. I moved from drifting to gestating at some point, and now I think I am meeting my new intention.
Backstory:
In October 2006 I attended the Caregivers' Retreat at Great Vow Zen Monastery; a weekend of meditation, education, and support for folks who work, paid or unpaid, helping others. Chozen Bays, the Abbess, is also a pediatric physician, and a specialist in the field of child abuse. She knows a little something about burnout, or work the difficulty level I liken to staring at the sun.
Hey, if a Zen Master can burn out, maybe I'm not immune. In a place of safety, we caregivers were able to speak from our hearts about the impact of our work. On ourselves. And so it was there that I was able to look at the list of burnout symptoms, and start to admit, quietly to myself, that I might actually have a touch of this. This was, as we say in the mental health biz, "ego-dystonic," i.e thoughts & feelings that are not consistent with my self-perception.I've been a degreed social worker for 15 years. I've been volunteering in the field since age 15, starting with facilitating peer support groups in high school. There I go again, justifying myself...

Anyway, my feelings towards my job kept returning to the realm of... tired. I could sum it up by saying: "I love my work -- there's just so darn much of it," in a high-volume, high-need county mental health agency with high-intensity clients. And there's the long arc of my career. Where was it headed? Towards more of the same.

So I took Step One, and stepped down to 32 hours. A fabulous quote I once heard in a conversation about the benefits of letting go: "Everything I ever let go of had claw marks all over it." Curious that doing something so pleasant would be so difficult. Why? I began to explore fear; financial of course, but also this sense of identity I have cultivated from being a social worker for15 years. Also see previous blog entries on my recovery from workaholism and the Protestant Work Ethic. Sheesh! My friend Becca eased the transition though, when she christened my Mondays off as "Camp Laura Day." Nice.

A lot of my trepidation came / comes from the worry that if I let myself consider leaving the field of social work, then I might leave the field of social work! Then who would I even be? What would I do? This was not helped by a story told to me by a friend and colleague about his psychologist friend who, in a similar period of discernment, took 6 months off to wander. After 6 months, and no further clarity, he wandered for another 6 months. And discovered that he wanted to... open a pet store. He is now apparently deliriously happy selling reptiles. Okay, so that freaks me out. Not the reptile part; the QUITTING part.

So a year plus of Camp Laura Day, and I'm not cured. Even though I knew / know that this is "Divine Discomfort," the kind of persistent itch that is trying to lead to some spiritual growth, my doubting and frightened mind began to turn to a favorite piece of dialogue from the Drew Carey Show:

Drew's friend: "I'm just not fulfilled by my job."
Drew: "Oh yeah? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY. They meet at the bar."

We all have an Inner Critic. And mine started saying crap like this:

"There you go, being totally lazy. Who do you think you are to even dare considering taking all this time off, making a big change? You have a couple of degrees, a nice indoor job, seniority at your workplace. You just started getting good at this. Lots of people don't get to do meaningful work. And now you are thinking you want to what? See, you don't even know. That just proves you are totally misguided. Misguided and spoiled. 32 hours. Next it'll be 20 hours, then none. What about your retirement? You're going to take time off, and fall apart-- have some kind of existential crisis -- meanwhile the rest of the world is going to work every day. Must be nice."

So I attended the week-long sesshin (meditation retreat) at Great Vow Zen Monastery on Life Vows in January of 2008. Please click here and here to listen to two Dharma talks from this retreat by Abbot, Hogen Bays. They are about the importance of creating / finding space through meditation to make room for waiting, discernment, clarity, confidence, courage, action. (Feast your mind and heart on a complete menu of MP3 Dharma Talks from GVZM.)

The retreat helped clarify for me that I don't need to relinquish my healer archetype. It is a part of me. It's just that some of the other archetypes in my soul would like to have a little room to breathe and a little light shining on them, thank you very much.

Here is a poem that came from this retreat:

"I Am Not a Thing, But a Process"

Bowing three times to Kwan Yin
Steeping in the waters of compassion
and the heat of practice.
Brewing the body and essence of Jomon
Accepting all THAT is.

Aspects of Life Vow emerge
One by one, like stars in the night.
As I emerge to look, listen, and love.
I have only to name them and connect the
constellations:  North Star, Practice, Truth,
Gratitude, Service, Healing, Receptivity, Creativity,
Liberation.
My guides.
Orienting to Openness.

Returning to sit,
Gestating under the golden gaze
of Jizo Bodhisattva,
A warm, undefended heart,
I vow to relieve suffering. 

Okay, but still drifting. Not sure what sort of action this translates into. So I waited. And waited. And then I went to China. And traveled with a spectrum of people from Zen Masters to non-practitioners. And I met lots of Buddhists who didn't speak any English -- from religious rockstar Abbots of huge world-renowned temples, to lay practitioners, to citizen temple-visitors.
What I noticed was the impact of practice. The fruit of practice. The light of practice that emanates from people's eyes, is palpable in their body energy, and flows through their actions. This is available to all of us. It just has to be uncovered. And there is a path, a way to uncover ourselves. It's meditation.

Action:
So I've duct-taped my Inner Critic's mouth, and made some decisions. Well, that's not entirely true. I've taken my IC's opinions and views into consideration, and put them in perspective. It's hard to write my decisions down, even with my little blog's limited distribution list. Making a vow public is one way to strengthen and support a vow. I have talked with my boss at work. And I am doing the footwork to make this happen.

I will attend a sesshin once every other month to start, and my goal is to go every month (except August and / or when Patrick gets to go) in 2009.

• This starts in July, when I attend a 10-day training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.
• Then a 10-day sesshin in September.
• Then a 7-day training in Voice Dialogue at the monastery in October.
• Then a sesshin in December.

It's like going back to school -- without having to go back to school (Thank God).

Whenever I return from a retreat, I know: Nothing is more important than this. This. Uncovering this moment. This life. This is all we have. This is all there is. And to cultivate the clarity, to settle the mind enough to even see what's important requires meditation -- in real time. Then the sky is clear, the North Star is visible, and I can begin to navigate this life.

SoulCollage

The Lovers


It's about time I write about this thing that has been a life preserver: SoulCollage. From the creator, Seena B. Frost:

SoulCollage is a process through which you contact your intuition and create an
incredible deck of cards which have deep personal meaning and which will help
you with life's questions.

Following the simple SoulCollage directions, your hands move fragments of cut-out magazine pictures around, fitting them together in a surprising new way and gluing them down on a card. Cards containing the images you select --- or the images that select you --- come straight through your Soul, bypassing the mind. This is a multi-leveled, creative process which anyone can do.

All you need is a good pair of scissors, pre-cut mat board cards, and images you can cut out from magazines, greeting cards, personal photos, postcards, catalogues, and calendars. It is wonderful to have other people with whom to share the process. The cards are fun to take to a friend's house, to work with in therapy or support groups, or to keep on your coffee table.

There are many wonderful things about SoulCollage. One, it is creative, and has created an opportunity for me to let my inner artist out of the basement and squint in the sunlight and fresh air. Two, it is therapeutic, and the cards become tools for emotional plumbing.



Yemaya: Goddess of the Ocean
I am the One who comes from and returns to the Ocean.
I am the One offering my gifts freely.
I am the One who helps scour the sharp edges.

I have been just about obsessed with the making of the cards, as opposed to the reading of and working with the cards. I feel a sense of urgency about making them, like these cards are the alphabet for my soul to spell out and express itself in these pictures.

Another neat thing is that you don't need your own cards; you can project your soul's interpretations onto other people's cards just as well. The SoulCollage process includes speaking for the images within the card, or the entire card itself, by repeatedly completing the sentence "I am the One who..."

Be sure to get a reading of your own here.

And while I'm at it, I simply must give a shout-out to the SoulCollage facilitator who has introduced me to this wonderful process. Suzie Wolfer. She'll give a half-day workshop through the community college about once a season, and various other workshops and groups to bring this process to people. She is passionate about SoulCollage and very kind. Check out her handout materials! Awesome.