Compassion is Not a Luxury

It Is a Necessity for Us to Survive*

I am revealed to myself
Over
And
Over
Again
Through
Other 
People.

There is a member 
Of the 12 Step meeting
I am newly attending
Named Fred.

Daily
Fred
Teaches me
About myself.

What I see about myself
In this man’s reflection
Is not comfortable.

To me, when he shares, 
He goes on.  
And on.  

To me, 
When he shares,
His tangential thoughts 
Tangle my mind.

To me, 
When he shares,
I work hard,
Too hard
Tracking 
His threads.

To me, 
When he shares,
I get frustrated
And 
Mostly,
Bored.  

Bored
And 
Annoyed.

Compassion
Doesn’t feel
Accessible
To me.

My boredom
Takes me away.

I know better.
I want to stay with him better.

Yet
I cannot find
Access
To 
Compassion.

Or curiosity.

Or interest.

Nada.
Nothing.
Just
Bored 
And
Annoyed.

Until today.
Something quite 
Horrid happened.

Although we are all muted during the calls,
But for the rotating speakers and the chairperson,
During Fred’s sharing,
(As I was willing myself to 
Attempt listening),

Someone
Really
Rudely,
Really 
Loudly
Really
Abrasively
Said
For
All to hear:

“What is this guy still talking about?”

It was mean and harsh and inappropriate and wrong.  

It violated every tradition of the Fellowship and shade of decency.  

The speaker, Fred, 
Absolutely heard,
Appeared appropriately 
Flummoxed, 
Said something quickly,
And abruptly ended
His sharing.

I was horrified.

Horrified.

Something so sacred
Was violated.

In the bigger picture,
It all worked out.

Texts were sent.
Fred
Was
Supported.

The offender,
Not a regular,
Disappeared.

And I learned something.
I saw something.

In the intense echo,
The shock of 
This total absence
Of compassion,
I woke up.

I saw Fred’s pain.
I imagined his embarrassment.
I felt his rejection.

Perhaps the total lack of compassion,
The existence of horrifying meanness
Can awaken me.

Perhaps I can look around,
See the absence of compassion
And utilize that
To return to a place
Of caring
Inside of me.

Perhaps I can look to
Others,
Their
Both positive
And
Negative actions,
To
Springboard
Into my own caring.

OH!
I don’t have to do it alone.

OH!
I don’t have to find my way
By myself.

OH!
I don’t have to struggle
To reunite with myself.

OH!

~~~
Dear friends, I’ve spent some time this week collapsing into YouTube.  Surrounded by fields of ragweed, a major immune system combatant of mine, I surrendered to Couch and Animals.  Yes, I confess, I’ve had a deep dive into the vast, delicious, and ridiculous subculture of animal videos.  This one, with some skittish hesitation, I must share.

It’s about the animals, of course.  But notice the people.  Notice—the amazing, compassionate, beyond-the-call-of-duty-kind-people.  And watch the flourishing of life and love and freedom, the direct result of human compassion.

Ram Das had a picture of Donald Trump on his altar.
I am not there.

I woke last night, annoyed at yet another awakening.

Sleep, 
My-Almost-Enemy,
So elusive,
Offering
So many 
Doorways
To 
More
Disturbance,
More 
Unrest.

And then
I heard it:

The sound of the owl, hooting, soft, insistent,
Surrounding the house.

The owl
She 
Must 
Have
Been
Moving
From front to side,
Back to side
To front,
Making her way
Around the house.

Much time passed.
Maybe an hour?

My annoyance
Faded
And Melted
Into
Awe.

Then morphed
Into greed.

I wanted to see her,
This owl
This nighttime
Harbinger
Of 
Mystery.

I peered out the windows,
Almost-full-moon
Blinding.

The owl
My blessed visitor
Had revealed herself,
Plenty
For my heart,
Not
Enough
For my head.

My heart is
Pretty good.

My head?
A bit less.

This week my fear built.
Violence in the street
Usurped,
Used
Politically
For leverage,
For personal/political gain.

Pandemic,
Thousands upon more thousands
Sick,
To be sick,
Gone,
To be gone,
Usurped,
Used
Politically.

What if….?

That thought I had not allowed myself,
That sentence,
I cannot
Conceive….

What if?

This week
My fear built.

And then I heard
This poem
By Juan Ramon Jimenez:

~~~
I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit
And whom at other times I forget;
Who remains calm and silent when I talk,
And forgives, gently, when I hate,
Who walks where I am not,
Who will remain standing when I die.

~~~
Then I remembered.
Then I wasn’t scared.
For a few breaths.
For a few minutes.
For a few….
???
~~~

Dear Friends,
We must open our hearts to
Ourselves.

We must open our hearts
To
Each other.
~~~
Question of the Moment
From My Heart to Yours—

What does it take for your heart to remember?  For your mind to quiet?  For oneness to reemerge?  What’s the portal, the doorway for you to return home?

Here’s my current-list-of-the-week:

• Awakening into the hoot of an owl, softly wrapped around me
• Observing the rising full moon, emerging from a bank of dark clouds
• Witnessing the tiny and so feisty black squirrel fully amusing herself in the yard
• Remembering the child I was—the child I am—holding my guitar against my belly—sounds vibrating through and in me
• Allowing myself to feel the disconnect, the aloneness, the separateness—and meeting that disconnect, that aloneness, that separateness with kindness
• Smiling at the Christmas trees, patient, oh, so patient in the morning fog
• Touched by the morning sun, breaking through the awakening trees

That’s my list.

What’s yours?

~~~
Dear Friends,
I was blessed to participate in a retreat last weekend with Roshi Joan Halifax from the Upaya Center, with her co-teacher, Frank Ostaseksi, Zen hospice co-founder and author of The Five Invitations.  It was a deep dive into kindness, exactly what this aching heart needed.

Here is a meditation with Roshi Joan, as she leads and guides us to grounded-ness, to center, to All.

~~~
On a more current note, to support our challenged, 2020-pandemically-impacted immune systems, here is probably one of my more favorite tunes, of the same-yet-different-ilk, Leonard Cohen, 2009, on his London tour:

And, if you care to, Blessed Leonard’s lyrics:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=leonard+cohen+lyrics+halleluhah

~~~
Dear Friends,

I write this on the eve of my sober anniversary.  On August 27, some years ago, I was literally taken off the floor of my apartment, carried to my telephone, and literally deposited across the street to a Twelve Step meeting that was starting in a few minutes.

For every single moment of these years, the ones I liked and the ones I did not, the ones I celebrated and the ones I ran from, for the entirety of green kale I consumed and every bite of the Crap-Franken-stein-Food, for every single moment I was able to practice and trust and remember, for every single nanosecond of my lapsing and forgetting and acting out and being terrified–for all of it,

I am grateful.
This is the trip.
Right here
And
Right now.

With gratitude for you all,
For us, all,
Be well and safe,
Aruni

~~~
ONE SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT

Wisdom Circles

We are not alone.  You are not alone.  Let’s come together, to remember what’s real and what is important.  Create community; connect to yourself, to one another, and to our simple and sustainable teachings.

Our circles are held on Thursdays.Thursday, September 3, @ 2:00 EST  http://coacharuni.com/thursdaycircles/

“The sneaky and myriad ways I withhold love from myself……..”

I was three-quarters resting with my eyes opened, mostly/somewhat participating in my 7:00 a.m. zoom 12 Step meeting, when these words penetrated the fog of my being.  I swear, I sat upright, looked around, held my breath.

The sneaky and myriad ways I withhold love from myself!

Who said that?
Who knows me so well?
Another participant,
Of course.

I will add, I believe our tendency of self-withhold is exacerbated by this unprecedented (there’s that damn word again) situation we are in.

Pandemically speaking, that is.

Exaggerated.
Magnified.
Intensified.

The blocks that keep me from taking care of myself intensified—and intensified—during these past months.  Spending time alone, lost behind my own fear, clouded with anxiety about the future, lack of regular structure……as externals changed, as things continue daily to unravel…….

A perfect storm.

Self-care?

Self-care pandemically, speaking for me, does not mean a rigorous workout plan.
It just cannot.
I cannot.

It cannot mean for me clean and sparkly riverbanks of whole food.
It just cannot.
I cannot.

But it can mean—it must mean—
Kindness.
Me to me.

What brings me solace?
What comforts?
–
When I was a little girl growing up in the 1950’s in Northeastern Pennsylvania, disguised to myself as a child, with my speech impediment hobbling me, wanting to kiss Natalie Wood (all the time, one giant and never-ending kiss), I knew the answer to all of my problems.

I knew the answer.

I was positive that
Becoming a cowboy
Would make
It
All
Okay.

Thinking cowboy,
I coerced my parents into guitar lessons.

My first guitar was a rental,
Made
From an
Undefined
Wood-like
Perhaps-plastic-like
Material.

It had
Stenciled
Upon it
A
Cowboy
On
A
Bucking
Bronco.

Oh!

It rocked.

How I held that guitar close to me.

She comforted me.
She brought me solace.
She eased my frightened heart.

By holding her close,
By her association,
I rocked,
Too.

And I played
And
Played.

Never successfully for others,
Anxiety too-too
Strong,
Its own rhythm.

But for me,
With me,
About me,
How I played.

Probably nothing
Has been
So about me
In my life
As playing
The guitar.

Then
At 17,
I stopped.
I
Just stopped.
Cold turkey.

Why?
Too much?
Too much what?
Pleasure?
Expectation?
Anxiety?
College?

Who knows.

Life continued,
As
It
Does.

Throughout,
In
And
Out,
And
During
Different facets,
Phases,
Iterations
Of my life,
I would
Play
My
Guitar.

Wildly and gloriously
For a few months,
Weeping
With
Joy.

And then
I would stop.

In last year’s
Iteration
Of
My
Life
(2019?  I wonder who I thought I was then?)
I took classical guitar lessons,
A silent, forever-desire of mine.

Life gave me the perfect teacher,
A kind and funny Englishman.
A recovering hippy/folk music dude
Like myself.

I adored it.
It was
Both
An old,
Ancient
And
Deep knowing,

And new!
All new!
Strumming and picking,
All different.

Elegant and efficient,
This
Ancient system
Of creating
Beauty
With
Sound.

And then
There was
A pandemic.

And then
I developed
A trigger-finger.

(left hand, ring finger, anular, in classical guitar parlance—same finger as my mom’s trigger-finger, hum.)

And then
I stopped.

I just stopped
Giving myself
This kindness
This solace.

My guitar sits here.

Simply living with her
Is a comfort.

(Isn’t she beautiful?  Check her out.  What a looker.)

Oh!
How I want to hold her.
OH,
How she wants me to do that.

The sneaky and myriad ways I withhold love from myself!

Amrit Desai, our former Kripalu guru, used to talk about bliss tolerance level, a brilliant term.

Is it just too much pleasure?
What would happen
If we gave ourselves
What we want,
What we need?
What would happen
If we blessed ourselves
With consistent,
Tiny
Yet
Massive
Actions
Of
Kindness?

I must say, in my own behalf, that I am doing well enough with self-care; I’ve initiated rituals, consistent prayer, walking daily, zooming Twelve Step meetings, fully savoring the making of my bed (hard to explain the joy of this), eating well enough, mostly.

But,
Oh,
How
The
Child
In me
Longs,
Aches,
To hold
That
Guitar.

We’ll find
Our way
Back
To
Each
Other,
She
And
I.

We
Always
Do.

~~~
Six months ago, I would have talked long and hard about five pillars of self-care.  (nutrition, movement, stress-reduction, sleep, connection).  Today, I talk about kindness.

Some simple considerations for your self-care, pandemically speaking:

What is the kindest, simplest gift you can give yourself, with ritual and consistency?  What would self-care in this moment look like for you, today?

~~~
Dear Friends, please consider.  Let me know.  What kindness, what simple gift of care can you give yourself?  Speaking it aloud, emailing another, always deepens practice.  I am right here, supporting you as you support me.

All blessings,
Aruni