When Yes Means No.

My Grandmother & Father in1933

May our ancestors smile
as they observe our choices.

My writing coach provided a subtle kick in the pants yesterday. It was not just encouragement, but a velvet provocation. "You need to finish your project." I have a little book about the cabin that was saved from a land sale several years ago. It's a good book that is nearly edited. Yet it has sat on the shelf for almost two months.

I've been thinking about the "Yes Man", a popular book and movie. the plot entails a supposedly true story (in the book, not the movie) about a man who says "yes!" to every request made to him for a year. My default answer for projects in my life has been yes. Yes, yes, yes. So many yeses that I often get about 90% of a project done before I put it away, often forever. The future makes a request that I can't refuse.

In the movie, as in my life, the man finds he can live only superficially when he is so scattered. He ends up discovering that stripping away many options and distractions is the only way he can get what he truly desires.

A sense of despair can even arise from so many choices and so many irons in the fire. One example from my life is working on this land and home. I have a hundred agenda items for my work on our little farm. A chicken coop, the barn organized, the cold frame insulated, the compost bins rebuilt etc etc. It feels like the tyranny of too much. Too much tending and beginning and fixing. It seems like our society is just waking up from being spoiled by so much busy work and consumption. And the result on a societal level and a personal level can be depression. The economy of choices and time can come crashing down.

So many in our world live with only the harshest of choices merely for survival. We, the rich with resources, have the privilege of choosing most details of our life. I think that our ancestors and the very Earth Herself watches us with anticipation and hope. What will I do with the choices I have at this moment? How do I want to say yes to being alive today?

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Connectivity

The computer is not connecting, not jiving with what I want it to do. The picture won't upload. A setting in the network is crossed up. The WIFI in the coffee shop seems to be down for the moment. Screen is diffuse with odd characters. No connectivity. I pause in the flickering. I recall a quote by Marie Whelen:

The Greatest

Gift Is Love,

Not Visions

I look across the little cafe. There is a buzz of people chatting. Beside me is a table with eleven women knitting while they tell stories. Mostly older. A lot of silver and gray hair. A lot of wisdom and experience. Weaving laughter with silence. They seem like long time friends.

I'm reminded again and again of how much we need each other. Being connected with loving people is the foundation for happiness. I soak in the colors and threads of conversation, remembering what I wrote to you about depression yesterday. I'm a little embarrassed by what I revealed. I'm also a little relieved that the connection went through between words of the brain and the song of the heart. Then I sent a part of our shared humanity out into the world to you.

Blessings to you today... this day to connect with the tangles and skeins of community.

The monitor blinks. The letters make sense now. The web comes alive again on the screen.

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Naming It With Compassion

The Desk Tilting and Groaning Under the Weight

My wife and I have been watching a series on PBS called This Emotional Life. Last night the series addressed post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. I was struck with the information that came out in the program, information that I already knew but suppress. Emotional disorders are disorders of the actual physical brain including the neurotransmitters and the architecture of the tissues. Depression happens to be a physical illness that affects the brain.

The cool thing about the brain is that we have many tools to rewire the well worn pathways of fear and despair. Certain forms of psychotherapy (e.g. cognitive and meditative) and medications can be very effective. The insidious part of depression is that we can assume that what we feel or not feel is something that is a character flaw and normal. We can habituate to a mindset that is not healthily or productive.

A young woman spoke on the program. She said that “The opposite of depression is not happiness, it’s vitality.” Then a whole line of folks described how depression and PTSD often get worse and more entrenched when one resists naming and addressing the issues. One would wonder “Why would I want to talk about all that stuff and just stir it up again?” Because the talk and the retelling the stories can help when under the guidance of a therapist that holds you in unconditional positive regard. There is no guarantee of relief. Past trauma can become rerouted out of the “constantly afraid and vigilant loop”. Feeling all our emotions, especially happiness, can become the norm. But it takes work and persistence. Which are energies that are in short supply for someone with difficulty even feeling or following through with a task.

I talk about this because I lost both of my grandmothers to depression. One died from suicide and one attempted suicide two times after lingering in a vegetative life. I also lost several clients in the most traumatic manner. I talk about this because I am deciding to reveal more about the human condition by telling you about my experience. I take three pills every night just to sleep. I am triggered into a vigilant state with even the hint of aggression. The friends I have left, the ones that can be patient with me, know that I sometimes disappear for months.

It’s fairly easy to be anonymous and serve up platitudes and trite fixes when one writes a blog like this. I don’t want to do that. It’s also easy to say “Look at me, poor me.” on the web. I want to educate myself by coming out more in the world as the person that I am. Part of me is never safe, always on alert and posing as competent and assured. A big part of me. After hearing glimmerings from my community acquaintances and watching the PBS program I understand that much of the world feels the same way. The bible talks about the groaning of the world as it tilts into despair. It also talks about the glory and comfort of the Divine. I feel both poles within me. Today I’m simply struggling to feel worthy and unafraid.

It helps to break through the biologically based denial and habits of depression. But right now I’m not able to get myself out into out in the world of work or paid service because the images and experiences from past events feel current. In fact I'm not comfortable even leaving my land. How many others are in the same boat? Many. I want to continue this conversation with you. I hope it will help others seeks compassionate help. I hope to experience a broader range of my joyful life through the revelations.

Here's a Link to the PBS series: This Emotional Life

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Showing Up

Field of Seven Houses

This morning I made it to the writing desk by 7:30. I sat. I wrote a vision statement for the year. Then I dabbled out a circle of affirmations and intentions. I sat some more. Watched the field and the rain and the cat. I felt listless and a little put off that there were no fireworks in my writing at sunrise. Only gray.

I left the cabin after two hours of sitting and listing, mostly drifting inside. Personal clarifications came out of the pen and onto the paper. But nothing appeared that seemed worthy of this online journal. I traipsed out to the barn and began to shuffle through a reckless pile of scrap and beams and insulation. I addressed clutter that had languished for eighteen months. As the dust was swept and the shelves set up I began to sing a little. I felt my body dancing with the pleasure of working and sweating. By dinner time the floor was clean and the wood neatly stacked.

Now it is late night. And I have a better view of what the writing process is for me. The creative process is not served well by forcing a product to come forward. Many times just the act of showing up brings clarity. Perhaps the true face of writing is not bound up in the screen or the text. My day of writing was spent clearing out old scrap, then seeing the potential in the raw material I'd organized. And I found a touch of joy by surprise.

I walked out into the pitch dark of drizzle at 9 PM. I was so quiet in my steps that I could hear the creek moving through the forest far below me. I could feel the silent wings of my breath moving in and out. The vision statement I wrote this morning became a heart connection with this land and with my day.

The soul of the few words I'd written this morning became me.

Became Me? What does that mean? It doesn't matter if I can express it clearly. I found a better clarity. I hope that sweeter vision seeps out onto the keyboard as I write to you over the next few months. I hope that the colors of the field ride onto the computer screen, even in the dark drizzle of a winter night.

The simple gift that comes with creating is the act and the process of the creation. Not a product or recognition. My insight is to not expect poetic wit and passion in the words. Just show up. See what happens. And even love what is born in a simple act, even if that means cleaning out cluttered barn.

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(c) Richard Sievers, January 2010, All Rights Reserved

Medicine

Much of my recent life has been shaped by the passing of beloved family and friends. These deaths offer a challenge to me, to all of us. Who are we? What are we doing here? What is the point?

I was standing in line at the pharmacy considering the templates I have lived by. One is a schema of vigilance, where the world is both terrible and beautiful at the same time. I divert a huge portion of life energy watching for the dangers that may affect me or my family.

Another mode that I have lived with is that the sacred and the ordinary are separate, or at best only mix minimally where there will be some lesson or inspiration. I observed all of the ordinary folks in line ahead of me. Each seeking medication or assistance. A young woman clinging to her mother. A farmer fidgeting with a palsy. A well adorned woman looking off into space. And me. All of us seemingly alone. All of us together.

The third assumption has been that preparation and hard work are the cornerstones to character and what a person produces in their life. That discipline means hard work, which is rewarded with being witnessed or understood. I wonder, doesn’t everybody have huge corners of their life and personality that are left unseen?

It’s very possible that my rules for the universe have helped to create the very reason I was standing in line at the pharmacy. All of us human beings there at Fred Meyer Pharmacy together. Seeing their faces I was struck with the tension between fear and awe. A familiar pang came as I thought “This could be the last day of my life.” All of us waiting for the medicine, so fragile and beautiful.

When my turn came to step to the counter I took my prescription gratefully. I want to sleep better. I want to be a more solid person in my sensitivities and emotions. I took my medicine. I came home with my little white bag. I opened the three amber bottles and pulled a pill from each one. There was a potent trinity to aid me as I am learning to navigate between what is a personal problem and what is a universal opportunity.

Now, I feel a little less sobered by how people close to me have died. As I age I feel a more innocence and even delight in another question that rises from the back of the line:

“What if this were the First day of my life?”

What would the possibilities be if I saw everything and everyone as if it were the first time?

Vigilance is akin to Awareness.

Separation is part of Universality

Discipline needs the joy of Discipleship

I scrawl these statements and questions on sticky pads and place them on the edge of the computer screen. Today these are more contemplations than truths. These are queries to wonder about in this brand new life on earth.

Peace to You in your Holy and Ordinary Trinity.

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(c) 2010 Richard Sievers, All Rights Reserved

Notions

Fort Clatsop State Park near Astoria, Oregon

"But for her novice
the sea grew white."***

I've spent much of my life as a puer, which means the eternal (or holy) boy. Puer described me for decades. The boy in a man suit. Instead of hot cars or cool abodes I had mostly spiritual ideals, heart highs and mystical adventures. I'm grateful for that prolonged phase of my life. I still have that idealized monk mindset inside of me. Really there is not much that is nothing ideal about being a monk, or even a poet or artist.

Throughout most of my life I've had notions of what the life poetic would be. I had visions about how I could access inspiration from everyday events readily, almost greedily. This evening my beloved wife softly said to me "How are you doing on your blog? Don't you need to write tonight.?" The day had faded to twilight. I mumbled that the day was "already gone." Besides I don't really have anything to wrote about. And hidden in my mumbling reply was that notion that I need to write something of titanic proportions, that I will be naturally inspired and graceful and eloquent.

I've been contemplating a poem by poet Richard Murphy. His poem The Drowning of the Novice, haunts me. It is about a "lapsed Benedictine" that saw the sea as an idyllic place that was made for his nourishment. He went out on the quiet sea not respecting Her terrible beauty and shimmering power. A storm came, as storms do. In the end he lost his life to the sea. Parts of his boat washed up on the shore like notions to be collected by beachcombers.

I came out to my computer in the dim drizzle of January with the light of a poem glowing in me like a lighthouse. Even the safe harbor of writing something average is acceptable. So here I am. Showing up. And it's difficult, this work, difficult. I respect the sea of words and songs in my heart. And I also depend on on this ocean for my sustenance. And I have a family, community to love and land to steward.

I wonder about the notions we have about the workings of the universe and of inspiration and of prosperity and of work.. I have a suspicion that knowing much real truth about life is beyond the parameters of my biological equipment.

But here I am. A small and loving voice propelled me out here in the night to sit beside a single light and a hissing heater. I have notions about where life is heading. I have notions about why I'm here. Notions about where the words want to go. Yet I don't believe these notions in a wholesale naive manner anymore.

Life will teach us humility and awe and wonder in one way or another.

I might be writing something that is halting or mediocre or simply human. But I hear the sea now. When the salt and tides sing inside it is no longer just some heavenly vision or mud bound metaphor. There is no purely right brained or left brained explanation for what comes.

I see the notions
of my life all around
me, washing in and out.
I see them and pick each
one up, sea stranded treasures,
things sparkling or broken,
things I will show
to my friends and family
when I walk back
across the yard into
my home. In my eyes
I pray that something bright
burns and floods. I pray
that the the great Ocean can be
seen beyond and beneath
all these words and ideas...

that somehow I bring the ocean's nourishment into the world as more than just an a particular ecstasy or a metaphor.

Do the dishes.
Weed between the corn rows.
Stay up with the crying children.
Call the friend back.
Pay the electric bill.
Come always to the ocean and breathe.

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*** Quoted from the poem "The Drowning of a Novice." in Richard Murphy's book of poetry: High Island, New and Selected Poems, (c) 1974, Harper and Row Publishers, New York

(c) 2010, Richard Sievers, All Rights Reserved

Two of Swords

Blessings to you for 2010.

I have the honor of assisting with a sweat lodge in a community of diverse and loving people. I don't actually go into the lodge as the circle prays and sings. I stay outside with the fire and the stone people. Every time I am there as just another part of something simple and prayerful. One of my duties is to bring the stones from the fire into the lodge. Witnessing the ancient ones glow orange white while they sing with steam always deepens and heals me. I'm grateful for the stone people.

Last night a friend and member of the community stayed out of the lodge to hold space with me. Lately I've been tending the stones alone. So I felt an initial tug of resistance when she offered to help. But that tug let go quickly.

One of the duties of a stone handler is to sweep the stones with boughs of trees. This cleans the debris of the stone before entering the lodge. The more important aspect is one of seeing and welcoming the elders into the lodge. It's also an act of preparing them for their work with the people inside. My friend swept the stones with such solidity and respect. She also brought out her rattle to sing with me outside as the rain poured... as the water and prayers poured inside the lodge of our elders. The clouds whistled through the forest. And the stream danced a burbling song in the distance. Such beauty!!

I dedicate myself this year to release the resistance to working with others. No one said it would be easy or clean to be attending to a task with other human beings. But sometimes it is absolutely divine. In these perilous times our working together seems to be absolutely necessary.

Last night another friend did a tarot reading for our community. One card of interest to me, the Two of Swords, came forward. I understand very little about tarot. But my friend explained that in this instance this card meant that working side by side for something good and right is a necessary aspect of bringing healing and love back to our mother earth.

I'm reminded of the Buddhist thought about the sword that cuts us together. The very thing that you may think is inconvenient or hurtful is often the very thing that will recreate and heal us. There is so much adversity with the uncomfortable shifts occurring in our world right now. And there is so much potential.

I vow to stand with my friends to sing about ideals of freedom and service and being inclusive. These very challenges can bring us together as easily as they can separate us. I guess that is our choice as human beings, either to separate ourselves, become numb or even cynical. Or we can grow beyond our original premise that we are separate and alone. That's a big challenge for me. My friends last night gave me a glimpse of what can be true in our world.

I'm very grateful for a chance to be a small part of something loving and necessary in our challenging world. Here's a link to our community of the braided way:

http://www.peopleoftheheart.com/

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