Category: Uncategorized

Wonder

by LuckyPilgrim, posted in Uncategorized

 

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Photo by: canuckmom2013 Violet Awe

I would like to share with you two stories, three wishes, and an important secret.

I have always been a wonderer. I wonder about stuff. Constantly. Curiosity led me into many embarrassing predicaments. For example, when I was little I wondered if mothers to be got that way because they swallowed a watermelon seed. I wondered what would happen if I tried it. I knew seeds needed dirt so I ate some of that too. Then I sat in a sunny spot until I threw up. But this didn’t stop me from wondering if I could make my own gum. That brought the fire department to my house which is a longer story for a different day. I wondered what was in the glove compartment of people’s cars parked on our street. I was driven to examine the items the doctor’s cabinets and try to figure out what they did. Let’s face it, who doesn’t wonder about that?! I became obsessed with the idea that there were hidden rooms in every house and wondered what I needed to do to reveal them. Twist a knob on a mantlepiece, play a few notes on their piano, pull out just the right book from a shelf, and I was hopeful the floor would open up to a descending staircase leading to a chamber filled with magical samurai swords and dusty potions. I admit that I was influenced by the story of Anne Frank, my favorite book, The Secret Garden, and a fair share of Scoby Doo cartoons. Even though my nosey-ness often led to trouble, and I was almost always caught in the act, I never stopped wondering. I wonder about the word wonder. It can be a synonym for questioning or curiosity but also for awe, astonishment, luminous enchantment, and speechless reverence.

Recently scientists have studied the phenomenon of wonder, the speechless reverence awesome kind, the moments when we are stunned by the elegance of something in nature or life that humbles us and makes us realize that we are part of something grander than we ever imagined. What the scientists have discovered is that these moments change our lives in profound ways. The more often we experience astonishment, the less likely we are to suffer disease, the greater our personal happiness, and the more likely we are to want to contribute to the betterment of the world.

Rachel Carson wrote, “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.” I wish this gift for each of you. That’s my first wish. 

The first time I truly recall feeling a sense of wonder or awe was when I drove across the country by myself to start a new life in Los Angeles. I had everything I owned in a cruddy little hatchback and I was driving to the second largest city in the US where I didn’t know a soul. I had no job or place to live. It was risky but also thrilling. When I got to Arizona I came down with a terrible cold and the reality that I was headed into a very uncertain future alone began to take hold. Nevertheless, I decided to drive the two hours out of my way to see the Grand Canyon. I got there late in the afternoon. When you drive in the park you don’t see the Canyon. You have to walk to the edge. I will never forget it. As I got closer and the sublime immensity of what I was looking at opened up, my legs gave out. I fell to my knees. And I stayed that way for what seemed like hours because time stopped. My life was different after that. I can’t tell you about it in words really but Annie Dillard wrote, “We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.” And that moment and others I’ve been lucky enough to experience, mostly in nature, have felt like waking up…in a good way, not like with the alarm clock, but after a long, delicious sleep. So, that was the second story. And my second wish is that life presents you with mysteries that bring you to your knees. Many of them.

 

Socrates tell us that wonder is the beginning of wisdom. 

Einstein said, The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.” 

Rilke wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” And, that is my third wish, that you learn to love and live the questions and when you find an answer, realize that this is not the end of mystery. Mystery is infinite.

I believe wonder and awe are a form of prayer. Wonder lets us see with new eyes. It connects us to the consciousness of the cosmos. Which leads me to the all important secret….Are you ready? You are the greatest wonder of the universe. Yes, you, human, sitting here in this particular body, with this unique mind and heart, in this moment in history are the greatest wonder of all the galaxies because you get to behold it all. There never was and there never will be another you who notices and feels and appreciates and hopefully loves the other wonders in quite the same way. So, open up and let it all in! Even the stuff that hurts or confuses you. Live the questions! Love the Mysteries! Or, as Dr. Suess says, “Think and wonder. Wonder and think.”

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Photo by MagsBlackDetroit

Disclaimer: This post originally appeared in the Eminent Tech Blogspot in April of 2015.

Spring

by LuckyPilgrim, posted in Uncategorized
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Photo by: MagsBlackDetroit

For some folks it’s Passover. Others Easter.  For us, it’s porch sittin’ time.

Spring is here! Along with hopeful buds. Healing blossoms. Green, green grass and dandelions. No wonder the collective fervor.

And yet there is so much sorrow as well. Terror. Atrocities. Big men. Big egos. Bigger evil. Conflicts so ancient and twisted and complex I don’t know what to think anymore. How to help? And then there are the soul crushing issues in my own row to hoe. Prayer isn’t enough. I must DO something. But what?

My heart is so small
It’s almost invisible.
How can you place such big sorrows in it?
Look, He answered.
Your eyes are even smaller.
Yet they behold the world.
                    ~Rumi

Look. The goodness of this Earth is everywhere evident. Daffodils emerge from the thaw and offer their sunny vision.

Everything is everything. This winter was bleak. Days of gray on gray on gray. Ironically, it was not a good winter for snowflakes. Those of us left of a bleeding heart must hold our anxieties. Trust that the goodness of humankind will win out over the worst in our nature. Remind ourselves that while we are the same species responsible for creating the circumstances that put us within a psychopath’s whim of world annihilation, we also invented macaroni and cheese. It is difficult to fathom that people are capable of composing symphonies, devoting their lives or laying them down for others, and also crimes of war, crimes of privilege, rape. We produced Hitler and every despot compared to him. But Mother Teresa also walked amongst our ranks. Both wolves live inside us. Actually, an entire pack. Our choices of which hungers to feed will determine what results from this interesting time. 

And the outcome is beyond my control. Or yours.

What is in my control is the decision to feed my own wolves gratitude for the first Oberon of the season. To behold what is given. To smell the sweet Spring air. And be glad for the happy heart of my dog stretched on the driveway. Watch the neighbor kid play with his shadow in the rosy hue of sunset against the garage door backdrop. Listen to birds. Glide. Taste: The warming wind. The glowing green. The promise of lilacs.

Practice

by LuckyPilgrim, posted in Uncategorized

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Technically, I am not a Buddhist. But I like a lot of their teachings. I share the Dali Lama’s core belief that, “Loving Kindness is my Religion.” However, I am profoundly human in my ability to live out that belief. That’s OK. The point is to practice. And I do. Sometimes more adeptly. Mostly, like a beginner.

Good Buddhists follow the Noble Eightfold Path. I think it is an excellent road map but like most religious texts composed long ago, not very practical for today unless you develop a personal interpretation. The Noble Eightfold Path is a sort of less bossy, more complex, Ten Commandments. Except that the Eightfold Path isn’t rules per say. More like habits or skills you practice. Like snowboarding or playing the tuba.

Of the Eight Right things to do on the Noble Path the one that presents the biggest daily challenge for me is Right Speech. We have a history, Right Speech and me. Issues!  I’m a blabber. A bean spiller extraordinaire! What’s more, I tend to embellish, hyperbolize, and add a spicy dash of fiction to my facts.

When teachers talk to parents about kids who are dishonest, we say, “They tell stories.” It’s gentle. “Suzy likes to tell stories.” Instead of, “Suzy will, balls out, lie to your face.” Like Suzy, I am a storyteller. Also a Ballsy liar on occasion. The things that have fallen from my mouth have often returned to drown me in an ocean of shame. They cost. Dearly. And so, I practice Right Speech.

Like any novice, I over compensate. For a long time I felt right speech meant I had to lay bare every bitter truth I encountered. Not realizing that the truth is a tangled mess of Christmas lights.  I over share. Over communicate. Natter. Confess. Enough, you get the picture.

So now, Right Speech is about practicing silence. Listening. Asking myself some hard questions before I speak, type, or text.

Questions like:

  • Why do I want to say this?
  • Will this cause harm to others or myself?
  • How can I say this best?
  • Is this the right time?

As you may have guessed, I only intentionally practice this once or twice a day. And mostly with others I know will be forgiving and patient toward my awkward attempts. The pauses alone are maddening. The false starts and jumbled metaphors, forget about it. In this instance, practice will never make perfect. I’m no monk. But the intention keeps me moving down the path, in my own time, with my own stumbling swagger.

 

Work

by LuckyPilgrim, posted in Uncategorized

I’ve been a lot of things in my life. By that I mean, I’ve worked a lot of jobs. Many of them in the service industry. When I was in high school I helped prepare, serve, and clean up meals for a cast of irascible elders in a nursing home. I also babysat, mowed lawns, and painted houses.

Before that, in middle school, I worked for an Italian priest. Father Nick. He ran the printing presses for several church papers in the local Archdiocese. Way back in the day, a person had to slip sheets of paper in between the newly printed pages so that the ink didn’t smear. It required concentration and rhythm. Fr. Nick hired me for my penmanship. I did some calligraphy and helped layout the publications. Other duties with the Padre involved going with him on various outings and keeping track of Monsignor Hickey. Monsignor Hickey was ancient, tiny, and crazy as a loon. I kept a firm grip on him while Fr. Nick placed bets at the race track. I steered him around Eastern Market while Nick bought the week’s produce for the rectory and convent. We made a wacky trio. Between Fr. Nick’s mischievous, booming presence, Monsignor Hickey’s silent, twinkling eyes, I was an awkward teen-aged girl, a head taller than either of them, along for the ride.

I moved from hostess to waitress to bartender back to waitress when I was in college. I loved the hustle of the restaurant. I loved serving people delicious food and drinks. Despite working at one of the most popular eateries in Chicago, I was always in need of a few extra bucks. So, I would don costumes and sell my dignity by handing out flyers and holding signs for Carson Pirie Scott on the Magnificent Mile. After graduating, I did a very short stint in room service at a high-end hotel in the Chicago Loop. It didn’t end well.

I moved back to Detroit to get out of debt and save money to move to LA. At first I found a job in a china shop. I learned a lot about knick knacks and how not to imitate your boss behind her back. This brought me to the metaphysical bookstore. Suffice it to say that the shop, my coworkers, the owner, and the regular customers, could have been the premise for a great sitcom. I did garner a few useful skills such as reading tarot cards and astrological charts.

When I arrived in Los Angeles I got a job as an interior landscaper which is a fancy pants term for “The plant lady.” I watered green growing things all over the greater LA area. Learning to drive and navigate the City of Angels was a trial by fire. No GPS, just a godforsaken Thomas Guide and a lot of cursing and crying. Once, in a fit of ferocious frustration, I yanked my sun visor completely off the lid of my car. LA is a sunny place. I lived to regret that. While working as a plant lady was for the most part very enjoyable, being utterly invisible to most, or treated as a lesser human domestic, was not. It also gave me a good gander at the nether regions of Hollywood. They stank. The time had come to set aside the actor’s life and find a new career.

I floundered. I took classes. In the meantime, I supported myself by being an office manager for an acupuncturist and Chiropractor. They shared an office and a tremendous amount of animosity. I loved making the herbal tinctures and learning about their healing practices. I hated billing insurance, balancing their dysfunctional mix of personal and business finances, and navigating their growing feud. When the opportunity to move to a Learning Center presented itself, I took it. It was there, I discovered my calling for the next twenty years. Teacher.

Somewhere along the next two decades, teaching stopped being a job and became a part of my known self, my core identity. Few professions are as all consuming. In fact, I started to write about what it is like to teach but realized the brevity of a blog post would never do it justice. And the point of this post is that I believe my time as a teacher has come to a close as well.

The secret to a long life is knowing when it is time to go. All signs point toward the exits. It is time to move on but also hard to let go. A lot harder than quitting a job. I want to leave with grace and gratitude. Before I jump the shark. It would be nice if I had a clear path ahead. But, I think this adventure requires a fool’s hope, a shot of bravado, and a faith in my inner compass. I’m curious. Let’s go.

Words

by LuckyPilgrim, posted in Uncategorized
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Photo by: MagsBlackDetroit

Few things in life are more seductive than a snazzy vocabulary.  I love words. Never mind my horrific spelling. It isn’t so much how words look on the page but how they sound, how they feel in your mouth, and of course, their meanings. Strung together they gather power. But even on their own, words have magic.

Onomatopoeias are a favorite of mine. Even that word is spectacular! My personal favorite: hush. Why did that word fall from fashion? I don’t use it out loud very often because people, kids, look at me like I’m even more of a gassy, old nutjob than I am. But “Hush” often arises in my thoughts like a whispered command. Especially when walking in forests. All the onomatopoeias for quiet are lovely. Those for noise can be obvious: whiz, bang, boom. Or Gross: slurp, hack, ooze. Or they just might tickle your fancy: bumble, ka-ching, snort, or waffle.

Change one letter in a word, one sound, and the entire meaning transforms. For example, you can metamorphosize rupture, a word fraught with pain and loss, into rapture, a state of exquisite bliss with one little vowel. Fascinating!

Some words are fun to say. Beyond cussing, which is always lively and restorative. I’ve notice that fun to say words often involve math or food. Multiplicative feels like a tap dance in my mouth. Quantitative too. Qualitative is a graceful leap. Anecdotal stumbles but in a charming way.  Baba ganoush wins for the most merry making word I ever uttered. Followed closely by fattoush, burrito, gulab jamun, palak paneer, and coq au vin. I would almost rather say these words than eat them.

I have a crush on these words: Spindly. Reconnoiter. Ferocious. Remedy. Discombobulate. Dazzle. Jiffy. Infinitesimal. Rickety. Noggin. Wizened.

There are few words I dislike but here is a random list: Pop. Moist. Grammarian. Puss, (either pronunciation.)

I keep a list of words I wish to attentively seek a way to wield. Perhaps I heard them used by others wiser and more eloquent. Maybe I read them and guessed at their meaning in context. I don’t keep a dictionary handy when reading but I do use my digital tools and I keep my notebook and pen close. Some of these words are new to me but others have been neglected since I was a wee girl. I won’t give these away just yet for they would lose their spells. And, words are holy. And, that was one.

Guru

by LuckyPilgrim, posted in Uncategorized
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Guru Coco  Photo by John Hardwick

Little did I know when I met a six toed, scrappy little mongrel named Coco she would become my greatest teacher and best friend. Like most heroes, she came from inauspicious beginnings. Her mother escaped a fighting ring with bits of wire fence still embedded into her cuts. Coco’s Mama was so sick, wounded and starving, no one believed she could bring her pups to term, much less give birth to ten with eight survivors.

One of the smallest in her litter,  Coco still ran the lot of them. Bright, quick, and agile, her Kung fu was strong! Yet she was a sensitive, kindhearted Dom. A mush-pot. Already, I was learning from her.

On the long ride home I discovered the six toes. She had gnarly, dangerous dew claws in the back, dainty ones up front. The back pair needed removal before they caught on something and crippled her. We arranged to have them amputated when she was spayed and micro-chipped so that we only needed to sedate her once. Unfortunately the surgery proved more complicated than anticipated. Her temperature dropped on the table. The new technician assisting in the surgery  placed a hot water bottle on her side to bring it up. In her inexperience, she forgot to check the temperature. Coco was severely burned.

No human realized this until nearly a week later when her hair dropped out and her skin turned black. In the meantime, she forgave us the countless times that we must have caused her agony by lifting her and holding her in this area. As she forgave and continued to trust, so did we. The veterinarian and the vet tech both cried when they realized what had happened. They took full responsibility and gave her extra special care for the many months of her recovery.  Receiving and offering redemption, are there really any bigger lessons in this world we need to practice over and over?

Coco continues to teach me. Simple wisdom. Without words: Wake up happy. Stretch and shake. Eat. Sleep. Play. Walk. Comfort others. Give hugs. Only kiss the people who want them.  Take gently. Enthusiastically welcome. Love unconditionally. Trust. Except for squirrels. Squirrels are evil.

Get to know the sort of creature you are. Never be ashamed of your animal self. Not that I am advocating licking your privates in the middle of the living room rug. Or smelling the privates of others for the information therein. But I believe we were given this particular existence for a reason. These strengths and limitations are ours to explore. Enjoy your body and all it can do with a glad heart.

When all was said and done Coco was left with a nifty scar that looks much like a lightning bolt. Not unlike a certain Mr. Potter. She is “The chosen dog.”

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Begin

by LuckyPilgrim, posted in Uncategorized

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Rely, therefore, on radical trust, even though the moment may call for you to leap empty-handed into the void.   ~Ralph H. Blum

I’m afraid. Because, what if….

What if this blog is mediocre? Trite? Forgettable? Too much? Not enough? Irrelevant?

It probably is. Or will be to most. And, I’m OK with that.

Begin anyway. Proceed with this as a given. Lucky Pilgrim is a practice. A practice to articulate my awareness with loving kindness, with humor, with humility, with honesty, and hopefully with growth.

And so, begin.

Begin to notice, to appreciate, to witness from the inside out. To seek and capture the light. To sit and listen in the dark. To tell stories, to share failures and findings, to trust in my farting around, my experiments, my wandering mind, heart, and body. To surrender to all that is possible including failure, embarrassment, irrelevance. Take the blows. Take stock. Keep trying.

What if? So what?!

Begin.