shifting venues

Good morning!

I have moved my blog to my new website. Here's the URL:

possibility of fire

Please update your bookmarks, and if you have linked to this blog (thank you!) also consider updating your links so that they point to the new site.

I will not be making new entries here.

Thanks - WCH

PS - If you are reading this, you don't have javascript enabled on your browser.

open foot, insert mouth

Joe Lieberman does it again. First he can't imagine why the liberal wing of his party might think him a little too Republican in his support of the war. Then he can't imagine how an upstart like Ned Lamont would have the termity to imagine challenging his eighteen year old hold on his Congressional seat.

Finally, he can't imagine why his Democratic party peers might question his party creds after his announcement that he would run as an unaffliated Democrat because "independents and Republicans" would elect him if Democrats didn't. Mr. Liebermann doesn't seem to have much imagination.

Mr. Liebermann, if he had the power of the convictions he so loves to claim, would tell the party hacks to pound salt. So what does he do when faced with criticism from inside his party? Back pedal, it seems.

This isn't the first time that I have had the opportunity to question Mr. Liebermann's sincerity. It probably won't be the last.
_____
tags: democratic party, liebermann, politics, opinion

Severance, Threshold, Return (vi/vi)

I recently returned from a week-long group and solo retreat a canyon whose mouth lies near the Delores River. I have posted some stories from my time there over the last week or so. This is the last one. -- WCH
________________________________

Fractal. Each phase of the entrance into and return from liminality holds within itself the complete and perfect reflection of the complete cycle. Like a fractal. I sit with my back against Big Rock, feeling the cycle of death-transit-rebirth. I stumble. Reference points disappear. Sitting, watching west and waiting for dawn, have I been here an hour, a day, a lifetime? Looking up at the mirror-rock canyon wall, looking at the mirror-rock I hold in my hand, it seems absurd to wonder. Like a fractal. An hour, a day, a lifetime? I realize that it doesn't matter. Rock reflecting rock. Cycle reflecting cycle.

Talking Stick. Death Lodge. Vigil Circle. No way to say big or small, long or short. Each is the nature of the cycle from which it came, each contains within itself the cycle waiting to be born. It is, as they say, “turtles all the way down”. Rising. Abiding. Ceasing. Each perfectly containing and reflecting the others. The lessons, then, are always here, always available to be learned, even in the mirror of my habitual patterns. The form changes, but the essence? Dogen Zenji said:

The self and the things of the world are just as they are. The gate of emancipation is open.

The sun lights the sky over the canyon behind me. I unseal the Eastern gate of the Circle and offer the last of my tobacco and water. It is time to walk home.

_____
tags: personal, vision fast

Direction (v/vi)

I recently returned from a week-long group and solo retreat in a Utah canyon whose mouth lies near the Delores River. I am posting some stories from my time there over the next week or so -- WCH
________________________________

Still determined to have my own way and certain that my vigil circle needs to be in a certain direction, I spend the afternoon of the third day north of my sleeping place, looking. The search reflects my mood: frustrated, resistant, doubtful. I am, I tell myself, too skeptical, not honest enough, not quiet enough. I haven't worked hard enough.

I don't deserve it. Pure and simple. So why would it happen?

Disgusted with myself and certain that vigil is pointless, I walk back to Cornerstone, ready to return him to his place. I climb up the draw, drop him onto the redrock sand and then turn to see the vigil circle in a ring of stone and junipers. It is lower and in the exact opposite direction of my searching. I pick up Cornerstone again and, for a moment, beat myself up for continuing to be willful. Will I ever learn? Yes, but slowly. Like a rock. Like me, says Cornerstone.

I begin drumming as soon as the rain stops. I drum my contentment, my wet feet and my gratitude. I drum a prayer that my guides and teachers, my fellows, out in their tarps and tents are okay after the wind. I drum the thunder and my fear that nothing will happen, that I will hear the morning bird call but not an answer to my question. The drumming is finished. I sit down to wait.

The light of the almost-full moon comes and goes as the clouds scud across it. I am cold, wet and still too full of myself to hear anything but my own story. It is difficult to stay awake. Crying, I begin talking to the stone and juniper that hold me. I tell them about everything that has happened so far, what I learned watching the Talking Stick come to be, what the Death Lodge wraiths had to say, why I have come to sit here and wait for the sun. I thank them for their implacability in the face of my unwillingness to let things be as they are. I cry and talk until I am, for a moment, empty.

Two words. A question. Eight words. Silence.

Later, holding Talking Stick, I remember a bit of Adrienne Rich.

Nothing but myself? ... My selves.
After so long, this answer.
As if I had always known
I steer the boat in, simply.
The motor dying on the pebbles
cicadas taking up the hum
dropped in the silence.

Filling up again, I pull my tarp up around my legs and watch for the Sun.
______
tags: personal, vision fast

An Insight (iv/vi)

I recently returned from a week-long group and solo retreat in a Utah canyon whose mouth lies near the Delores River. I am posting some stories from my time there over the next week or so -- WCH
________________________________

The Cornerstone of the Death Lodge is heavy and rough, rougher than the rocks around it, as if it has consciously resisted all efforts of rain and blowing sand to make it into something that fit in with its fellows. It doesn't announce itself and it isn't until I watch it for two or three minutes that I see the thin, alternating bands of blue and white that swirl around one another. Like Van Gogh's Milky Way. He agrees to be the bedrock of the place I will build. Later he would help me in other ways.

As I carry him to the place that will serve for remembering, Cornerstone describes to me the space I am to build, the way I am to enter it, how I would know that it is time to leave. Yes, this too, has its severance, threshold and return, he said. If you are willing to let the unfolding happen, the one who returns will not be the one who entered. Perhaps “too many consciously performed ceremonies can mask your essential experience”1 but this doesn't feel like too much. It feels right to be listening to a rock, to be preparing to sit on the ground and talk with spirits and demons, to be rattling and offering. How much more essential could things get then to make things right? How could I do so without asking one who knows what to do, what to do and then doing it?

The rim of the canyon is bright red as I close the north wall behind me. I rattle and drum, make an offering and sit. I remember a story that my Zen teacher told, that Zen teachers everywhere2 tell, about trying to make mirrors by polishing bricks. I don't know if I am the brick or the one polishing but I begin sitting zazen, like the old days.

Ghosts come and go. Contracts are presented. For payment. For forgiveness. For remembering. I laugh at myself. So many deals I made, so many deals.

Do you understand what is to be done? Severance is not enough. The trees along Beaver Creek rattle dryly in the evening canyon breeze.

_____
tags: personal, vision fast

catalysis (divertissement)

You arrive early, as you usually do. You are having dinner with an old friend, one that (suddenly) you realized has been part of your life for a quarter-century. You can't imagine how you could have gotten old enough to have anyone in your life for that long, let alone managed to navigate with them, for all that time, the rocky shoals of friendship. Yet here you are, about to enjoy the profoundly simple act of sharing a meal. You touch the quiet joy beneath this realization and wander into the bar to wait.

As you pass the dining room, you notice several tables have been pushed together and set for a sizable group, perhaps nine or ten. You wonder if it is a birthday celebration or rehearsal dinner and, over a glass of wine, you drift and remember tables at which you have sat. You half watch people arrive, choose seats, shake hands, chat, hug.

You recognize a face.

And then another. And another. Soon the table is filled with people you know but whom you didn't realize knew one another. They seem to be on very familiar, friendly terms. You are puzzled. Given what they do not have in common, how could they possibly have come to be together?

A wave of remembering and melancholy washes over you as you realize the catalyst for the gathering. Nostalgia threatens, but before you can drop into a reverie of sorrow, your friend's hand is on your shoulder. You turn with a small smile and ask, do you mind if we walk to the place down the street? He nods, knowing well enough that he will find out why in good time.

Talking Stick (iii/vi)

I recently returned from a week-long group and solo retreat in a Utah canyon whose mouth lies near the Delores River. I am posting some stories from my time there over the next week or so -- WCH
________________________________

After she heard the news, Juniper offers the three foot limb, hairy with bark but free of leaves or berries, with a loud snap. Older and wiser than me, she sees the Talking Stick hours before I do. I want a different branch, one better suited, I think. Juniper is patient, though, and allows me to worry a couple of alternatives before reminding me, do not take what is not offered. I give some tobacco to the wind and ask that she forgive my stubborn nature.

I don't expect Talking Stick, but then, very little of what I expect to happen is happening. I sit and feel the weight of it in my hands, wondering at the way the branches join the main limb and try to figure out what I am to do next.

Stubs of once-joined branches, bark and sweet-smelling shavings grow in a pile between my legs. I try to sit quietly each time I don't know how to do something – smoothing the knots, preventing splitting as I carve, staining the bare surface to protect it, – and let the wood show me know what is needed. Rising, abiding, ceasing. Juniper branch, paring away, talking stick. Severance, threshold, rebirth. Taking the leather thong from my rattle and fastening it around the large, hooked knot that is there to hold it in place, I touch something: what would I be if I was able to let things just happen sometimes? Maybe Talking Stick will remind me. Not to expect. To listen. To wait.

Maybe.

_____
tags: personal, vision fast

The Mirror (ii/vi)

I recently returned from a week-long group and solo retreat in a Utah canyon whose mouth lies near the Delores River. I am posting some stories from my time there over the next week or so -- WCH
________________________________

The mirror rock walls of the canyon reflect perfectly: how I show and hide myself, what bugs me, what doesn't, how I move, sleep, demand, eat, shit. Whatever I present is offered, in flawless detail, for my consideration. After a while, my guides and fellow seekers start to reflect, too, as if the canyon is seeping into them, like mineral-laden water works its way into soft stone, changing them into same mirror-rock that towers above me, that glitters in every draw.

It is awful seeing this constant, perfect display of my habitual patterns, my character flaws, my defects. It is worse seeing my inability to set them aside. I try to cloud the mirror over by telling myself more stories, by beating myself up, by criticizing my guides, by judging my fellows. Anything to generate obscuring smoke. Finally, I run out of fuel. It is only now that I begin to see something else, something more completely human, something workable. I set an intention to pay attention without judging. Sometimes I do.

_____
tags: personal, vision fast

Three Gifts (i/vi)

I recently returned from a week-long group and solo retreat in Utah. A canyon whose mouth lies near the Delores River. I will post some stories from my time there over the next week or so -- WCH
________________________________

A talking stick.

An insight.

A direction.

These were among the gifts I received in Beaver Canyon. There were others, too, many of them, but I won't talk about them now. I couldn't offer anything of like value in return for any of them. I worried about my lack for a while, but the Canyon reminded me it is in the nature of a gift to be without the quality of expectation; I tried to write these stories with the same intention.

I won't speak of what was contained by each gift; to name them is enough and, anyway, what they are is a private conversation between me and Reality. That, too, I learned, is the nature of a gift, especially from Reality: what it means is between giver and receiver. But I will tell you a story or two about how I received them and about the places in which they were offered to me.

There won't be a great deal of why or even how in it. Why didn't really matter much to juniper, hawk, rock or lizard. How seemed beside the point to wind, rain, sun or sky. After spending a week with all of them, I tend to agree. With that, here are a few stories about what-happened-out-there.

___________
tags: personal, vision fast

on retreat

I am, or soon to be, in my truck and driving toward Utah for a wildnerness retreat. I will, I imagine, be back in a couple of weeks.
_____
tags: retreat, personal