Kids in the House

For the Thanksgiving holiday, my son Roy and his family are visiting.  Having 3 children from 10 months to 5 and a half years old in the house for a couple of days is hectic, fascinating, energizing, consuming, and exhausting.

How they act is tightly coupled with how they feel right now - tired, hungry, well-rested, jealous, afraid - and nothing seems to last for very long.  Three children cycling somewhat independently through various emotional states creates a lot of different combinations.

The energy qualities and level in the house change dramatically. The cats are very tuned into this, and respond by finding the quietest spots to hang out while the craziness swirls around.  To help them out, we turned one room into a safe zone where they could spend the day.  When the kids go to bed and things quiet down at night, they venture back out and reclaim their normal territory.

While the cats' response is to escape, our response is active engagement.  This makes a day with the visiting kids almost entirely different from our normal life.  It helps to simply put aside expectations about how the day will go and what may be accomplished, and just flow along with what happens.

Today, the two older children were up before their parents, so the day began with getting them an early breakfast of fruit.  There was more time in the music room, which seems at some point to lead to conflict over them wanting to play the same instrument, a short drive to a park for fresh air and activity, a couple of meals, and some evening games.  Then more fruit, before a little bedtime battling over stuffed animals.

The thing I enjoy most about the kids is seeing how they learn; how they put what they already know together with new experiences.  

Thanksgiving

Gratitude is a powerful thing.  Meister Eckhart is credited as writing, around the turn of the 13th century,  "If the only prayer you said in life was 'Thank you,' that would suffice."

Our society takes one day a year to celebrate and be thankful, but gratitude is a state of mind that doesn't lend itself to being turned on and off, and certainly not turned on for one day out of 365.

Still, it's nice to have this day of special focus once a year - often spending it in the company of some of the people we are most thankful for.

On this day, I was particularly thankful to Pam for preparing a wonderful meal, for Roy and Nicole and their three children for driving 4 hours to visit us, for Evan and Jenn, and Tanya and Sylvain taking time to video chat as a family, and for the technology that makes an intercontinental video "hangout" possible.

It was a cold, but sunny day, and Rachel and Lydia helped me rake up some leaves that had recluttered the yard during some storms in the past week.   Then we walked down to the park where I provided some power to propel their swinging, before returning home in time for dinner.

I am thankful to have such energetic grandchildren who are so inspired by going to the music room and enthusiastically playing the instruments - especially drums.  And I am thankful that they are now in bed for the night.

When to Change Plans

The Thanksgiving holiday is the day after tomorrow.  We stopped at Whole Foods tonight on our way home from yoga.  It was raining heavily, but the store was packed with people stocking up for the event.  This time of year, on through the next few months, the weather is the major unpredictable and disruptive force that can make us change course, and present challenges to our comfort and even safety.

The news tonight has much about the large storm that has moved across the southwest, midwest, and tonight and tomorrow will be sweeping through the Mid-Atlantic region and up the east coast.  Such a storm, landing right on top of the Thanksgiving holiday, disrupts travel plans, strands people in airports for many hours, forces a multitude of decisions - to go, to stay home, to try to change flights, to leave earlier and drive before the storm hits - and for some, turns a holiday trip into a deadly tragedy.

We control so much in our lives - so much is routine and predictable day after day - that it is sometimes difficult to realize when events have tipped past the point of control and safety, and demand a different response, caution rather than complacency.

I can think of several times when I carried forward with a plan and didn't adjust to new information.  The most terrifying of those was a trip from Goodland, Kansas back to Denver to catch a flight.  There was a winter storm in the works. The first half of the trip was fine, but suddenly, just after passing Limon, Colorado, windblown snow caused a whiteout.  I couldn't see the road at all.  I couldn't see where the shoulder was.  I didn't dare pull over for fear that I would be plowed into by a vehicle, perhaps even a big truck, coming behind.

My only hope was to stay right behind a semi, close enough that I could see its tail lights, and hope that the driver could see where he was going.  I traveled like this for miles, usually going significantly faster than I wanted to.  Occasionally I almost lost track of the lights, and for all I knew the next moment would bring disaster.   Each time I was able to reestablish contact, and eventually the whiteout eased and the rest of the drive was uneventful.

Had I been more cautious, I would have stopped at Limon and waited for the weather to clear.  I might well have missed my flight.  In retrospect, pushing on was not worth the risk, but by the time I realized the danger, it was too late to do anything but put my trust in a random truck driver and hope that he would stay on the road.

The Done List

I usually have a "to do" list.  Actually, I usually have several.  There's at least one at work, and one at home, and one in my head, and the one from a few days ago that is partly checked off and has some of the same items as the new one, but only because that's what I could remember after losing the list in the pile of things I was sorting while working on the "sort the pile" item on the list.

OK.  Enough of that.

The "to do" list certainly helps me get things done, but I'm not convinced it helps me get the most important things done.  If I use it as a way to keep track of everything that is begging for attention, there is always much more on it than I can keep up with.  It's like I'm stuck in a swamp of stuff, and whatever is closest gets the attention. No matter how much I do there's still too much stuff left.

I needed a way to step out of the swamp.  From that vantage, I can look into the swamp and decide what is important enough to pull out and work on.

Lately, instead of focusing on the "to do" list, I've been creating a "done" list each day.  It starts out as a blank sheet, and I only record something on it when I've finished it.  I have to think about what I'm going to do next, which gives me an opportunity to pull something appropriate out of the "to do" swamp - something that I want to do and fits the time I have for it.

After I've chosen the task, I have one thing clearly in mind to do, so it's easier to stay focused on it.  Sometimes I get interrupted, or have to go to a meeting before I finish, but I come back to it.

At the end of the day, I can review the accomplishments on the "done" list.  Everything on it is completed - some are smaller pieces of a longer project, of course.   I'm usually pretty satisfied with the results.  I know that everything on the list is something I made a deliberate choice to do.

Tomorrow I will start a new list, but standing outside the swamp, not hip deep in it.

A Little Order from Chaos

Between work, home, things I'm interested in, things that arrive in the mail - both the slot in the front door, and the email inbox - there's a steady stream to deal with.  There's a 5 step pattern in my life that repeats with some regularity:

1. resolving to keep up with things
2. doing so for a while
3. starting to slip behind
4. things build up until they trigger action
5. much energy is put into reviewing, sorting, acting, and throwing away

Today I found myself at steps 4 and 5.  Mail, books and magazines I was reading, or wanted to, and a variety of notes from yoga classes and star watching, health insurance and financial things were loosely organized, but cluttering the desk by the computer, the top of the piano, and a couple of end tables.  

In addition, there was a slow draining tup upstairs, a leaky faucet in the bathroom, the furnace room to straighten up, laundry to fold, and to top it off, a button that popped off of my shirt and rattled to the kitchen floor just before dinner.  

By the end of the day I had put the furnace room back in order, treated the tub drain, organized and shelved the books, and ridded out a lot of paper, consolidating important information in a better organized fashion.  I tackled the leaky faucet after dinner, taking it apart and replacing a couple of washers.  Success.  Then I grabbed a needle and thread and sewed the button back on the shirt.   

I have a tendency, when first confronted with something like a button coming off, to add it to my "to do" list.  But today, after putting so much energy into taking things off the list, I didn't want to put things back on it.  So I just took care of it, and was surprised at how little time it took - perhaps 5 minutes.  

So now I'm back to step 1.  I'm going to work on this, so that when things start to move to step 3 I will intervene more quickly and pull myself back into the habit of taking care of things as they arise.

Rational Impatience

I don’t like waiting.  In particular, I don’t like waiting when I don’t know when the wait will be over. 

If I’m driving somewhere, I’d rather take a back road route that I believe will have flowing, if slower traffic than the freeway if there is a chance that I will get stuck in a traffic backup. 

The delay doesn’t have to be long before my anti-waiting reflex kicks in.  It can happen in a fraction of a second if the computer doesn’t respond in the near-instant time I expect. 

Do I have a problem with impatience? 

Probably, but it seems that the accuracy of time framing is important to our human minds and to decision making. 

Maria Konnikova, writing recently in the New York Times, discussed research indicating that what we might perceive as a lack of self-control – the inability to pass up a short term superficial reward for a greater long term reward – might not have to do with “willpower.”  Instead, it might be caused by uncertainty in, or an inaccurate understanding of, the delivery of the longer term reward. 

One seemingly logical idea is that the longer you wait, the closer the reward is to being delivered.  But the opposite is often the case.  If you expect something to happen in 5 minutes, and 10 minutes have gone by, it may be a more rational decision to abandon the wait than to continue it. 

If this is how our brains work, we have to think about why – and not in the context of waiting for the next Metro train or getting stuck in traffic due to an accident on the Beltway. 

It is probably due to decisions more like – “I thought if I came here at dawn and sat for an hour, the antelope would come to drink and I would have something to eat.  It has been more than an hour - no antelope - I need to go find something else, sooner rather than later!"

This has opened up a good area of exploration for me, giving me some ideas, and tools to better understand how I deal with the frustration of waiting in uncertain situations.  

The Lost Story

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in stories about previous generations of the family.  In my case, those don't go back very far - the earliest glimmer on the Tromble side is from the mid 19th century, and it's the tenuous information that my great-great grandfather, Edward, had come to the U.S. from Quebec in his late teens.  Then he was in Southeast Nebraska with a family, and then in Northwest Kansas as an old man where he died and was buried, before a few consecutive years of drought forced his sons who had moved there to homestead, but leave and move back to the central part of the state where relatives could help them get a new start.  

In contrast, a friend of mine, from England, knows the date in 1624 when his 10x great grandmother (one of them anyway) died. 

I would like to know where my ancestors came from.  It would be even more interesting to know what they did - what kind of lives they had.   But that information hasn't been kept, and passed down.  It is possible that some deeper family history has been kept in another branch, and genealogical research might make a connection from us to them.  That would be an interesting development.   

My own conclusion is that life was often just too hard for people to value the family history.  It certainly doesn't really matter, if you are trying to find or keep a job, grow food, feed a family, survive or escape a war, etc, what your great great great grandfather did for a living or where he was born or when he died.  

Our modern lives, more stable and secure, give us the time and energy to wonder about the web of lives back through time that leads to us.  But modern life may also make us unsure of who we are and how we relate to the world which is changing so quickly.  Perhaps, in wondering about our past we are looking for the earlier chapters in the story that could help us make sense of our lives and understand the story we are living.  

Broken Things, Mended

Two fixes to report today.

First, the water pipe was replaced.  The plumber didn't have an easy job of it, and spent all afternoon when he probably planned to spend an hour, but it's done, and we have lots of shiny new solder in the furnace room.

Second, Muffy seems to be OK.  She started nibbling at food some days ago, but I didn't think she was getting nearly enough.  Each day though, she seems to be eating more.  She has lost some weight, but is acting normal again, and if her appetite continues to return, it seems that she'll be fine.  We have no idea what caused the problem, and I suspect we never will.

Here's a photo of Muffy on my lap tonight.

That's the good news.  The other is that the furnace appears to be on its last legs, so we have a quote coming for a replacement.  And we're going to need to have some more plumbing done, as the pipe at the main water line coming into the house is not in good shape.  

But we're very happy to have the pipe repaired and Muffy on the mend.

A Little Decluttering, Perhaps?

Repair of the leaking pipe is complicated by the pipe's location between a wall and the main heating system ducts.  The plumber yesterday was able to patch it, but will be back tomorrow to do a permanent repair.  One end of the pipe can be accessed from the furnace room, but the best access for the other end is in the adjacent corner of the next room, an unfinished space of the house we call the "box room."

When we moved in almost 10 years ago, the "box room" was the place we neatly stacked boxes that we didn't want to immediately unpack.  Most of those are still where we put them, then.

In the ensuing time, the "box room" has filled to capacity, with boxes from computers and appliances, trumpets and other assorted things.  This evening I moved some of the empty boxes out to another room to make some temporary space, and we could then move a couple of stacks of boxes out of the corner to give the plumber good access.

Once the pipe is repaired and the "box room" can be rearranged, I think there will be at least a little bit of ridding out, which is long overdue.

Hey There, What's That Sound....?

Just gone to bed - early morning ahead.  What's that sound?  Faint.  A pretty regular somewhat metallic tapping sound, a little resonant.

I couldn't imagine what it was - not a cat... maybe caused by the gusty wind... no that's not it.  The only thing I knew for certain was that it was the perfect kind of sound to make it impossible to fall asleep. Well, it can't stop me!

My first instinct with things like this is to try to ignore them - it doesn't make sense so it must not be important.  This may not always be the best instinct.

I did fall asleep.  I woke up about 3 am and could still hear the sound.   I got up, and as I walked across the quite room, I located the source of the sound as a heating system air return vent on the wall.  I walked around the house, upstairs and down, and could hear the sound every time I passed an air duct.
OK, it's 3 am, but I can eventually take a hint.  Down to the utility room.  As I approached, the sound was louder.  I opened the door and there was water on the floor.  Now the sound isn't the most pressing issue. I moved things out of the room that were in the water, got an old towel and a bucket, and picked up most of the standing water.

By then I knew the sound and the water were coming from the large ducting at the side of the furnace.   But where was the water coming from?  A leaky fixture upstairs?  A leak in the roof and rain blown in from the storm the day before?

I got a flashlight and made another tour of the house.  I pulled down the folding stairs to the attic in the upstairs bedroom and climbed up into the cold space to look around - no sign of water anywhere.

Back to the furnace room, where I went over by the ducting and thought I felt a cool mist on my head. I waved my hand overhead and indeed, there was a mist of water, but I couldn't see anything.  Back upstairs to get a step stool.  

Then I could see the source of the problem.  A copper pipe running between the ducting and the wall had corroded through and developed a pinhole leak, which was spraying a very fine mist out onto a large PVC pipe, where the water coalesced into drops and fell onto the side of the ducting, causing the regular metallic, slightly resonant sound.

I traced the pipes back looking for a valve, and concluded that the only way to cut it off was to shut off the main water supply line to the house.  So I did, then went into the laundry room and opened a faucet to relieve any pressure in the pipes.

Back in the furnace room, the mist was stopped, the drip silenced, the floor reasonably dry.

I went back to bed.  Ahh, quiet.  And a few hours to sleep before the first task of the morning - calling a plumber.

I really need to reconsider that first instinct of mine.

An Invisible Boundary

I have walked to and from work almost every work day for the past 9 and a half years.  I have experienced all kinds of weather, from sweltering, humid summer days to icy days with wind chill around 0 degrees.  I've been caught out in thunderstorms, though I try hard to avoid that, as a lightning flash almost simultaneous with a deafening thunder clap right overhead is a sure sign you are in the wrong place and time.

It has been cloudy for several days.  Last night it rained, and there were strong winds as a front moved through.  This morning the streets and paths were covered with leaves, but the sky was clear and blue and the morning sun glistened off the wet landscape.

The temperature was cool, but pleasant to walk in.  About halfway to work, I felt the air get warmer, as if I had stepped from outside through a door into a warm house.  I can't be sure of the temperature change, but my guess is about 5 degrees.   Mid-stride, the temperature changed - there was no gradient as far as I could tell.

I've experienced this before on my walks, not often, but a couple other times over the past nine years.  It's a strange sensation - there is no warning - nothing you can see - but there is colder air here, and warmer air there.  I've experienced passing storm fronts when there is a quick temperature change, but there's usually wind, a lot of movement in the air, and often there are clouds blowing in, which give a visual clue that change is coming.

Things like this are the small rewards of walking to and from work - spending about an hour a day experiencing whatever the weather has for me that day.  This morning it happened that two air masses nudged up against each other about perpendicular to my path, giving me a surprising sensation at the start of my day, and reminding me that I can never know for certain what the next step will bring.

Musing about Myth - part I

I’ve been enjoying reading the late Joseph Campbell.  Campbell, who died in 1987 at age 83, was a leading expert in comparative mythology.  After studying mythology and religions from throughout the world his whole life, he had a gift for distilling seemingly big issues down to their essence.  In his book, “Pathways to Bliss,” he says this about the concept of God:

 “We personify the mystery of the universe as God.”

Some might question summing up such a big idea in 9 words, but my reaction on reading it was more like “Oh…. Duh.  Of course that’s right.”

As humans have expanded knowledge of the universe back in time to the Big Bang, out in space to the galaxies beyond ours, and down to the fundamental makings of matter far smaller than the atom, the nature of the mystery has changed.  But there is still much mystery to be personified, should one care to. 

Another observation of his that I found profound was his clear identification of elements of religious mythology, including things like the virgin birth and the resurrection (both of which occur in many other mythologies besides the Judeo-Christian), and his straightforward assessment that the error of many religions is to think that their myths are historic fact. 

I think that he believes that myth actually has more power and relevance if it is understood as such, and that insisting that people believe in a myth as if it was historic fact misses the main point of what people need from the myth.  In the worst case, when the historic fact is revealed as clearly false, the believers either cling to the faith and become disconnected from reality, or give up the religion and its mythology entirely because their faith depended on the events being historically true. 

Mythology is deep cultural knowledge that served to help people understand the world and their role in it, and in their specific society.  Of particular importance was its role in transitioning children into adult members of the society, and in helping people deal with the reality of death.

The premise of the book is that modern society has basically neutered the old myths – and that change happens so quickly now that there isn’t time for a new mythology to develop.  But he thinks we still need the kind of help that mythology provides, and he explores the idea of an individual exploring to find their own path – a personal, rather than cultural, mythology. 

Consonance and Dissonance

I went to a jazz workshop today, run by my friend, saxophonist Jeff Antoniuk.  The theme was the music from Herbie Hancock's great 60's album, Maiden Voyage.

It has been about three years since I played small group jazz regularly and intensely.  At that time I had memorized the melody and harmony for about 100 tunes.  In the summer of 2010 I went to some open jam sessions in D.C., and generally felt good about my playing.

But there was a dissonance, I think, between what I was experiencing and what I was looking for, though I didn't really know what that was, and my playing tapered off after that fall.

Music is a special way of relating to time.  Each piece has a beginning and an end, and for the several minutes between them the music structures the time - the motion and the momentum are like a wave to ride as you play.

I enjoy playing music - the feeling of being inside a cloud of sound - melody, harmony and rhythm - and helping to create the energy and mood of the performance.  Ideally, the experience that is absorbing, powerful, smooth and beautiful.  What I sometimes experience is more like driving too fast for 20 miles on a potholed gravel road.

Today I was reminded of how persistent ingrained patterns and held emotions are.  As soon as the group assembled, my mind and body began playing old tapes.  Will I play well today?  Do I really know how to play over that section of chords?  Will people like my sound?  Suddenly, I felt underprepared (indeed, I was).  

I understand how much time, energy, and dedication is needed to play really well.  I've spent a lot of time over several decades playing music, leading groups, and composing.   My devotion to it has tapered off, because I didn't have a compelling vision of where it was leading me.  For the past several years, I haven't been making the investment needed to get off the potholed road.

I learned a number of things today that I could apply to my playing and study of jazz and become a better player.  But do I really want to do that?  What is the right relationship to music for me?

Watching the Whirlwind

Sometimes I wake in the morning and my mind is running through a list of things that "must" be done.  I think this comes from fear that some item on the never-ending "to-do" list is essential to the continuance of my life.  Or at least that not doing it will result in some unpleasantness.

This morning I found my mind leaping from one thing to the next, too quickly to evaluate or resolve anything.  The image of objects caught up in a whirlwind came to my mind.  As they spun around, they would move in and out of view.  Almost as soon as I recognized one, it would be gone and another would emerge from the swirling dust.

At the same time, though, I was aware that I was not caught up in the whirlwind - I was just watching it from a bit of a distance.  I felt that the whirlwind would like to catch me up and pull me in to the swirl of things to worry about, but I knew that I didn't have to go there.  I felt in control of my relationship to all that stuff.  I recognized some of the things as important, and in a way was glad that the image had come up to remind me of them, but I wasn't overwhelmed by them.

Meditation practice teaches you to observe without the need to engage, without the habitual emotional attachments that pull you into the whirlwind before you know what is happening.  It helps you maintain a safe distance, so you can consider the thing, and let it be in your mind, then decide how to engage with it, or perhaps to just let it go.

What To Do About A Mystery?

Collectively, we humans know so much, and we have so many tools, methods, tests and sensors to figure things out, that when something comes along that eludes explanation, it seems abnormal.

A few days ago, one of our cats, Muffy, was showing signs of intestinal distress and lost her appetite.  This was especially jarring because Muffy is, to use an intra-species metaphor, a chow-hound.  Whenever anyone is in the kitchen, Muffy is there, signaling in unsubtle ways that she would like some food or snacks.

So, after a couple of days, it was natural to take her to the vet to find out what was ailing her.  But none of the obvious first tier explanations checked out - she was poked, prodded and squeezed and didn't show signs of being in pain or having an obvious blockage.  So, blood was sampled and sent off overnight for tests.

The test results came back today.  Everything was normal, or nearly so, and the anomalies were likely due to mild dehydration.  Next step, x-rays, to see if she had swallowed a wine cork, rubber band, string, etc.  (OK, the wine cork would be highly unlikely - but this is Muffy).

So, back to the vet.  A few hours later comes the report.  Nothing shows up in the x-rays.  She was sent home after getting an anti-nausea shot and some subcutaneous fluids.  I'm not sure what's next if she doesn't resume eating.

Maybe things will improve, maybe they won't.  Without knowing the cause of the problem, there's no clarity on what action to take.  Knowing provides security.  Not knowing feels insecure.  But I think that there really is not so much difference between knowing and not knowing.  The apparent difference results from an often false assumption that knowledge will let us control the future outcome,  and unnecessary grasping to the idea that to feel OK about a situation we have to understand it and control its fate.

Muffy's mystery ailment is a reminder that life is full of things that we don't know and can't control, and freedom comes from being OK with that - even while we continue to care for and about Muffy and try to help her be well.

A Receptive Mind

A meditative mind is a receptive mind.  This awareness came to me some months ago when I observed that, after meditating, I saw more, and perceived things differently.

Meditation clears the clutter out so I have more capability to deal with what arises.  Today, what arose was that I was at work, and in the late morning called home to check on one of our cats.  Muffy had become sick, and had not improved since the day before.  I thought we should call the vet, and Pam, not feeling well herself, asked me to call.

When I did, and found that they could see Muffy at 2:30, my mind was completely clear that I needed to request the afternoon off, walk home, and take Muffy for a checkup.   I was out the door in 5 minutes with a feeling of complete surety.

As I walked home, a falling leaf caught my attention, and I watched its path through the air to the ground.  [See my post "The Mindfulness of Falling Leaves"]  After focusing on a couple more leaves as they tumbled earthward in the breeze, I turned my attention back to the broader landscape.

As I took in the string of clouds in the sky and the signs of late autumn all around me, I realized that the value of using a falling leaf as a meditative trigger, to find focus, stillness and calm, was really not in those few seconds, but was in how it prepared my mind, making it open and receptive to what the next moment would bring.

It is always the present moment.  The question is whether I am with it or not.

Clear and Crisp

Tonight will be the first really cold night of the fall for us, marking the turn of fall in the direction of winter.  It is 35 degrees now, and headed down to perhaps 25 degrees by morning.

I walked home from the Silver Spring metro station tonight.  Pam was sick, so I didn't have my usual ride home from yoga class in Takoma Park.  For the first half of the walk, I knew the sky was clear because I could see the moon, but until I got past Spring Street and into the residential neighborhood there was too much light pollution to see any stars.  It was a little disconcerting, as the sky looked black - just black and empty.

As I walked along Fairview, I looked for the darker places between the streetlights to orient myself to the sky.  I quickly located Cassiopeia and the Pleiades - which I can see as a fuzzy light patch in the sky, but not make out the individual stars.  A little farther on I recognized Orion, in a different orientation than I was used to, rising in the east behind the bare trees.

Orion was on its side, the stars of the belt lining straight up and down.  I then could better conceptualize the arc that the stars trace across the sky through the night as the earth turns.

When I arrived home I grabbed the binoculars and went back out.  The stars of the Hyades cluster near Aldebaran and the Pleiades jumped into clear view - I could see more of the fainter stars as well - the clusters are complex and beautiful.

I'm beginning to feel more of the rhythm of the night sky - how it changes subtly from night to night and will progress through the year as we turn away from some constellations and towards others.

I'm reminded of the value of returning again and again to a subject to look for subtler and deeper things, of being patient with the process of learning, enjoying each new discovery.

Being With

This weekend - a long one thanks to the Veterans Day holiday - I spent about an hour each day in the early afternoon sitting alongside Sligo Creek.  I have no particular purpose other than to just be with that place, and to experience what occurs while I am there.

The rushing sound of water flowing down the creek, pooling next to my boulder and then pouring over a log and between two rocks perhaps 18 inches apart, is constant.  It is there when I arrive and when I leave, and I'm sure it continues the other 23 hours of the day.  This time of year the water is crystal clear.

Other energies come and go.  Warm, bright sunlight.  A breeze or strong gust of wind.   Animals scurrying around or passing by.  Children playing across the bank at the playground.  Runners, walkers and cyclists passing on the trails.

I sit, breathe, watch, then close my eyes and listen.  Sounds. The murmur of the falling water, a hiss from wind rushing through the high tree branches, the creak of tree branches rubbing together, the rustle of blowing leaves - or something moving in the leaves.

Opening my eyes, I see a gray squirrel moving toward me along the bank.  It disappears from my sight then suddenly pops up atop the boulder by the little waterfall before me.  Seeing me, it stops, hesitates, then scampers up the bank into some shrubs.   I hadn't moved at all, except perhaps to blink, but it was clear that I was recognized as not part of the natural landscape.

A small piece of bark fell on my leg.  I heard a tapping sound, and looked up to see a flicker digging at the sycamore bark about 20 feet above me.

Today, bright sun throughout the morning was gone, hidden behind a layer of cloud, by the time I arrived by the creek.  It was cooler than I had expected, and the scene was much quieter than the day before - bright sparkles and dark shadows replaced with a flat gray light.  As the end of my time approached, the clouds moved through and the sunlight once again could flood through the trees and onto the water and the rock where I sat.

Before rising to head home, I sat for twenty breaths, focusing my attention on the sunlight sparkling off the ripples of the fast current running through the center of the pool.  Being with.

Smaller than Small, Bigger than Big

The telescope and the microscope both appeared in the 17th century, beginning a revolution in seeing that has reached out to the edge of the universe and, down to the atom.  Until then, human experience with objects was limited to what the eye could perceive, which is just a tiny fraction of the universe that we can now observe.

A couple of years ago some clever young brothers, Cary and Michael Huang, did an animation of the scale of the universe, from the smallest conceptualized thing - the Planck length, to the diameter of the observable universe, which is approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger.  To view the Huang's animation, go here.

It's interesting to me that our own size, and the scales we find most meaningful in daily life - the inch, foot, mile, etc, lie very near the middle of this huge range of scale.  In other words, as immense as the universe is compared to us - we have seen objects as far as the distance light can travel since the beginning of the universe about 14 billion years ago - which is a long way, since light can travel about 176,000 miles in a second - we are that immense compared to a single neutrino.

The mind-boggling size span of things in our universe leads to fascinating trivia.  It has been estimated that the length of DNA in a single human cell - if it was all unraveled and laid out, would be about 2 meters.  That alone is hard to grasp since you need a powerful microscope to even see the DNA.  But then think how much DNA is in your body.  There are approximately 100,000,000,000,000 cells in a human body, so all the DNA in your body, end to end, would stretch about 200,000,000,000,000 meters.  How far is that?

Well, the average distance from the sun to Pluto is 3.67 billion miles.  The DNA in a single human would stretch 124 billion miles, or just under 17 round trips from the sun to Pluto.  It took Voyager 20 years to travel from Earth as far as Pluto.  Does your head hurt yet?

I just hope my DNA doesn't spontaneously unravel -- it could tie the whole solar system up in knots.

Grasping the Familiar

A week or so has passed since we had a clear night.  Around 10 last night I went outside and found the Pleiades rising in the east and Cassiopeia overhead.  Earth had not yet rotated into view of most of the stars I've been familiarizing myself with.

I woke up a little after 5 this morning and went out again.  The air was cold and crisp and the sky very dark.  The Big Dipper of Ursa Major was bright and high, visible from the porch.  That was a surprise, as in earlier fall mornings about this time it has been much lower and farther to the north.

I moved around to the west side of the house, which is dark and has an opening through the tree canopy.  There were a few stars overhead, but no pattern I could recognize.  I had to move out in the street before I saw the top of Orion over the house and was able to orient myself to how much the sky had rotated.  Then I could find the Pleiades again, moving down toward the western horizon and partly obscured by bare branches from a tree next door.

I realized how quick I was to look for the familiar, stars and constellations that I recognized that would orient me, and how unsettled it feels to be looking up at stars without that sense of knowing.

Why is that?  The star isn't changed just because I recognize it as a particular object that someone else has named, and I can attach that name to it.  If it is familiar patterns and orientation that I am the most drawn to, rather than the stars themselves, what does that mean about what motivates me, what I am really looking for when I go out in the dark to look up at the heavens?

The familiar gives a sense of security.  It also seems that the recognition of something new, as an expansion of knowledge, an addition to the inventory of known things, is somehow compelling, and to recognize something as new you first have to recognize what is already known.

I had the thought that instead of trying to learn the accepted star map and focusing on whether I can recognize this constellation or that star, I might enjoy just making my own.   The two things - my own exploration and sorting out of patterns and relationships - and the commonly accepted constellations and asterisms - will connect eventually.

Recharging Time

Though every day that passes brings change, the fall seems to bring more intensity in the change. Much is happening - noticeably shortening days, the changing colors of foliage, the trees shedding their leaves, the large temperature swings, cold nights.  The hour shift when daylight savings time is replaced by standard time is especially jarring.  Of a sudden, it is getting dark right after work.

Much is happening that can be unsettling, and sometimes it feels like the change is becoming chaotic and taking over.  Extra attention to the simple, basic aspects of life is needed to compensate.  We have a 3 day weekend ahead.  I'm looking forward to catching up on some things - reading, planning for the holidays, some house cleaning, and another round of leaf cleanup in the yard - hoping that the weekend can be settling and restoring, rather than unsettling and draining.  

Winged Burning Bush!

An email I received today from the Montgomery County Weed Warriors program announced a work day on Saturday in one of the parks to remove winged burning bush.  Winged burning bush - what is that?  It's a common name for an ornamental shrub of the genus Euonymus, native to Asia.

I've been a Weed Warrior in the county program for almost 10 years - working to remove invasive plants from county parks - in my case, mainly Sligo Creek Park near our house.

When we take organisms out of the ecosystem they have evolved in and move them to an exotic locale, they often become invasive.  Lacking their natural controls, they spread unchecked and displace native flora or fauna.

Here's some information about winged burning bush from Wikipedia:

"The common name "burning bush" comes from the bright red fall color.

It is a popular ornamental plant in gardens and parks due to its bright pink or orange fruit and attractive fall color. The species and the cultivar 'Compactus' have both gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

This plant is an invasive species of woodlands in eastern North America, and its importation and sale is prohibited in the states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire."

That entry reveals so much about humans, our motivations, and how we make decisions.  We're so attracted to colorful and novel things that we seek out plants from around the world to decorate our lawns and public spaces, without consideration of the potential consequences.

Not all pretty plants become invasive, but many do.  Some of us don't care.  So long as we can enjoy the plant in our yard, we don't consider the broader impacts.  Others value the native ecosystem and feel strongly enough about conserving it to advocate for laws that prohibit importation and sale of the invasive plant.

So we have these competing motivations and interests.  I could go to a local nursery and buy a winged burning bush to plant in my yard, while my neighbor might be participating in a Weed Warrior work day to laboriously remove the same species of plant from the park down the street - which has to be dug up from the roots because it is so hardy.

While I may be agitating to ban the sale of invasive plant species, nursery owners and ornamental plant lovers will be lobbying to retain their ability to sell them.

Who is right?

Sleeping Enough?

A recently publicized study in mice gives insight into one of the important functions of sleep - during sleep the brain flushes out chemicals that accumulate during the waking hours.  These included the plaque causing substances associated with Alzheimer's disease.

The benefits of adequate sleep and the detriments of not sleeping enough continue to mount.  It seems that it is natural to spend about 1/3 of our time asleep, and more than that, it is important to our health. The business of life tempts us to spend more time awake, "doing" things, and to see sleep as time lost from the list of "productive" things we could be doing.

We would do better to place more value on sleep.  Adequate, quality sleep likely leads to better health and it improves performance during the waking day as well.

I have chosen a schedule, because of some particular yoga classes that I like to do, that leads to me having a sleep deficit for a couple of days in the week.  I'm very aware of feeling more tired and having less energy and focus on those days.  In spite of the value I get from the classes, the impact on my sleep is a countervailing factor that I need to consider.

I understand that I need to make adequate sleep a priority and that if I do I will feel better overall.  I wish that I didn't have to give up any of the activities that I value, but some choices will be needed to find the right balance.

Too much to digest?

The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, and the earliest signs of life date from 3.5 billion years ago.   Humans with the anatomy we have appear about 200,000 years ago, but the development of agriculture and the settling down that led to what we consider to be civilization emerged only 12,000 years ago.  The earliest written records that have survived are much more recent than that.

The acceleration in our knowledge and ability to manipulate our environment in just the past few decades is really beyond astonishing.

Genetically we haven't changed much from our ancestors of just a few centuries ago who used the several hundred most visible stars as a screen on which to project their mythology.   Now we think there are 300-400 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and our tools like the Hubble space telescope have reached out to find evidence of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe - or rather the part of the universe "near" enough to us that light has been able to reach us in the 13.8 or so billion years that the universe has existed.

Though we know these new facts in one sense, I don't think we have really integrated them into our minds to comprehend their meaning.  Perhaps we can't.  After all, our particular form of DNA replicators has survived and prospered because it has been successful at surviving and replicating.  The fact that we can build a Hubble telescope and put it in space to gather data back to the beginning of the universe and even comprehend what a galaxy is astonishing in itself.

It would be yet another incredible leap if it turned out that our brains, which needed only to be adaptable enough that we would survive on this planet, could fully understand the universe.  In short, I conclude that our survival required us to be able to process complex data from our senses, and once we mastered the manipulation of matter and the building of complex tools, we have been able to create new sensing devices that have provided us with an incredible amount of new data - indeed, extending across billions of years and distances truly beyond comprehension.  But I'm not convinced that we have the capacity to digest and integrate all that information.

We understand now that the universe is incredibly more than a storage device for our cultural myths, but I think we don't comprehend what it is  - we're buried in an ever growing pile of facts any one of which - the age of the universe, the amount of energy produced by a star in a single second, the number of stars in our galaxy with planets that could support life, and on and on - is too much to digest.

Balancing Act

All yoga postures involve a balance of some sort - whether an obvious balance in gravity like an inversion or a pose standing on one leg - or the balance of muscular engagement and flexibility of a seated twist.   Finding ease in the pose requires finding and maintaining the balance - one reason that yoga is so good for cultivating awareness and staying present.

One challenge with learning a new pose that is particularly challenging in balance - such as press up hand stand - is finding a safe way to put the body in the posture - or a close approximation to it - so that it can learn, and build the strength, flexibility and coordination needed to refine and master the pose. 

In the workshop I took yesterday, I learned some techniques that got me tantalizingly close to lifting up for the first time.  They involved standing on yoga blocks - 2 in my case - to compensate for hamstrings that aren't quite flexible enough - and using a wall to support and stabilize the pose.  

The basic mechanics of the pose are simple enough - if you can get your hips up over your center of gravity, the legs will come up easily.  The two key factors are how to get the hips up and over, and how to balance while the legs are coming up, during which the center of gravity is constantly and subtly changing.  The blocks help with the first issue, and the wall with the second.  

After work tonight, I gave it another try - not expecting anything more than to gain some more insight into the mechanics.  But on about the 5th attempt, I found things working and was able to lift my feet off the blocks and bring my legs all the way up into handstand.  I relied heavily on the support of the wall, so am far from being able to claim success at a press up hand stand.  But it's the step I needed to take - finding how to safely put my body in the vicinity of the pose so it can learn what to do.  I'll eventually be able to wean myself off of the props, and some months or years in the future the full pose will come.  

Life is full of opportunities to find balance - balance between activity and rest, between routine and new stimulating activities, between energy and time devoted to work and to family and personal interests.  

When there are changes, and you need to find the new balance, it may take energy and experimentation to move toward the new balance point.  As with press up hand stand, it may take a while of being in a state of imbalance - but closing in on balance - so that you can, through trial and error, learn how to find balance and stay in it.  

The props to help you may not be as obvious as yoga blocks and a wall.  They might be the support of a coworker, friend or loved one.  They might be removing some other stressors so you have the emotional energy to deal with the trials of finding the new balance.  Whatever they are, use them to help you on the way, but don't accept them as a permanent crutch, or you may get stuck short of the balance and ease you are seeking.  Most of all, accept that things will be shaky for a while. The imbalances are necessary steps in the path, and the best way to move past them is not to fight them, but to fully experience them.

Hand Stand - A Journey to Upside Down

I went to a workshop this afternoon to learn more about hand stand.  It was about 2 years ago that I first tried to do a hand stand, and this coming January will mark 2 years since I flung myself upside down for the first time.

Since then, I have practiced hand stand almost every day, and seen the results that come from experimentation, diligent practice, and patience - increasing ease and fluidity, learning how to balance and gradually growing the needed strength and coordination to find more stability and confidence in the pose.

Like any skill that involves a lot of coordination of the muscles, senses and nervous system, the body has to learn how to do it, and the way it learns is by experiencing the pose and reacting and adjusting.   That takes a lot of repetitions, and on a daily basis you may not be aware of much progress at all.  That first breakthrough experience of kicking up and (usually) crashing against a wall - but then finding yourself upside down and thinking "I did it!" - is just the beginning.

Through hundreds, even thousands, of repetitions over time, you - your body and your mind together - learn how to be more efficient, how to sense what is happening in this upside down position - and how to begin to control your body in this new orientation to gravity.

Yoga isn't about instant gratification - at least not in attainment of the perfect position.  If you could read a book or see a demonstration and then pop out a perfect pose, there would be little value in it.  The value of yoga is in the journey, much more than the destination.

But, approached with an open mind and a desire to pursue the experience, there can be a great deal of instant gratification - in the mindful awareness of the moment as you do the practice - experimenting, sensing, thinking about what is happening, adjusting and refining, and knowing when to let it rest until tomorrow.  By letting go of the need to perform a perfect hand stand to feel satisfied, you can appreciate and celebrate every small step on the journey.

I have learned how to swing myself up to hand stand, and my mind-body has experienced this enough and refined its actions to the degree that I often can float up to balance with a good deal of stability and control.  Yet I know that there are months, or more likely years, of regular practice ahead of me.  I know both that my hand stands will improve, and also that there will always be room for more progress.  And I intend to enjoy the journey.

The Mindfulness of Falling Leaves

This time of year the trees are shedding their leaves.  There are thousands of them from a single tree - I found one reference that a single mature tree could have 200,000 leaves.

Each of them has a journey of a few seconds as it falls.  I have seen a couple of plate sized sycamore leaves float slowly down with almost no other motion.  Other leaves plummet almost as if propelled. But most flutter, twirl or tumble through the air - some with ease and grace - others more fitfully.

I enjoy watching falling leaves as an awareness opportunity - a short meditative moment.  From my point of view, the appearance of a falling leaf is random, unpredictable.  I have to be aware and in the moment enough to notice the falling leaf and immediately put my complete focus on it.   Any distraction is readily apparent.

Even in the space of a few seconds that it takes for the leaf to fall from tree to ground, my busy mind sometimes tries to move away to some other thought or stimulus, and it takes conscious effort to keep my focus on the leaf.

The focus and connection can be strengthened if I catch the falling leave at the beginning of an exhale, and then mindfully follow the leaf and my outflowing breath as if there are a single event, finishing the exhale when the leaf touches the earth.

There's something about a falling leaf that speaks of things in my life.  I am reminded of the inevitability of change, the reality that, just like the leaf, there are times in my life when change will come that I can't control.  I also recognize that every one of these many millions of leaves is unique, and each one has its own journey to take - some will be longer, some shorter - some will be smooth and graceful, some will be chaotic and full of twists and turns.  Some will fall softly through calm air, while others will be buffeted and blown downward by strong winds.  A metaphor for so much of life in just a few seconds of transition as the leaf breaks it's connection with the tree and floats down to connection with the earth.

A few of them I will see and experience in a focused way.  The rest will still fall, but their journeys will remain outside of my consciousness, a reminder that what I truly see is just a tiny part of what is.

A Friday Miscellany

Today's post isn't about a thing.  It's a miscellany - a collection of several things from this first day of November, 2013.

The weather has been unsettled the past few days.  Last night warm moist air moved in and we had quite a bit of rain overnight.  The rain brought down a lot of leaves, particularly from the tall tulip poplars, which are one of the first trees to shed.  The lawn was covered with leaves this morning, and the street gutters were filled with piles and drifts where the running water deposited them.

When I left the house, it was 72 degrees, and with the high humidity it was too warm to wear my jacket.  I didn't trust the weather for the rest of the day though, so I stuffed my jacket in my bag rather than leaving it home.

I crossed Dale Drive and headed along the foot path that runs the block between Dale and Highland Drive.  There are a couple of vacant, wooded lots there that provide good cover, and I spotted the two does and fawn that had been out in the neighborhood the morning before.  I watched them watching me for a bit.  I'm sure these are the deer that much our plants, and it's possible that the fawn is one that was born just across our back fence.  I saw it there one day when it was just a tiny spotted thing, first starting to walk.

When I started on again, I watched one of the does quickly disappear from sight as the angle of my path brought a bush between us.  Just a couple of steps, and I couldn't see her even though I knew exactly where she was.  Then I thought - perhaps she moved away - but I retraced my steps and she appeared again, right in the same spot.  This was a good reminder that what I see is not a reliable measure of what is really there.

Just a few steps from the office building door, I felt a cooler breeze and a raindrop hit my face.   By the time I got upstairs and looked out my office window, it was pouring.  Good timing for me, as several folks arriving just a few minutes later got quite a drenching.

The temperature dropped 10 degrees as the front moved through.  By afternoon though, the clouds were breaking up and the temperature rose into the mid 70's.  The trees in Rock Creek Park and out across Northwest Washington have finally turned color.  If we don't get another storm in the meantime, the view from work will be very nice early next week.

I've been thinking about the extent to which my work experience can be described as one or the other of two states.  The first is an action, or "doing" state.  The second is a distracted, drifting, uncertain state. It does seem as though I can identify, at any given time, which state I am in.  They seem to be quite distinct, and to have a clear dividing line between them.

I want to spend more time in the action state.  It is much more energized and productive.  It seems to not matter much what the specific action is, just that there is some active, motivated "doing."   But I too often find myself in the other state.  I think the technology we use is partly to blame.  Reading email can be done in the action state, but more often for me it is a distracted activity.

When I become aware that I'm in the distracted state, I can usually move myself into the action state by taking some specific, even if small, action.  This afternoon I got several tasks done this way, and the day was more productive than it might have been.

I'm interested in identifying the triggers that enable me to slip into the distracted state, so that I can minimize or eliminate them.  One of them seems to be in how I typically react to new, unexpected tasks that arrive in my email or come from a messenger who appears in my door and says "Do you have a minute?"  I need to do more data collection and reflection to figure this out.

I went to the mid-day yoga class at the fitness center in our building.  The regular teacher was out, so Anil, who teaches classes earlier in the week was subbing.  Anil is from Nepal, and learned yoga there.  He has a much different approach than any other teacher I've encountered, and I'm still figuring out how to integrate his teaching into my practice.  He uses some very active warmup movements that are worth exploring more.  These classes, because they are "all levels," are an interesting comparison for me to observe changes in my abilities over time.  A couple of years ago, I was learning how to do "downward facing dog," and now I'm one of the more capable practitioners in the group.  Frequent, dedicated practice does pay off.

The Friday miscellany finished off with another visit to the gym where I met up with Pam, followed by a week-late wedding anniversary dinner before heading home.