Mom

Tillie Futuronsky

November 19, 2023

Dear Mom,

Here you are, Mom, so clearly you.  I never saw this picture before today.  After all this time, you continue to reveal yourself to me.

Without even knowing it, for so very long, I wanted you to be different.  Your quiet depth, while holding me and protecting me, didn’t offer easy access to your heart.  

I wanted you to be different.  What did I think I wanted from you?

• That you be a fancier, warmer mom?
• That you be a mom who didn’t work in the grocery store with Dad, six days a week?
• That you be a mom who was there when I woke up?
• That you be a mom who was home, fluffing up pillows, waiting for me?
• That you be a mom who didn’t fall asleep in temple?
• That you be a mom who made dinner all afternoon, not just coming home at 5:30 from the store, rushing to make a 6:00 meal, for Dad to nap and go back to the store by 7:00?

• To know your silent strength, without my self-centered reaction to it.
• To appreciate your depth, the privilege of sitting quietly with you.
• To see the beauty you created all around you without comparing myself to it, and coming up short.
• To appreciate your capacity to change—(“Daddy didn’t like it when I read,” you told me, as you blossomed into an avid, book-a-day reader, bosom buddies with the town librarian who brought you books to your door.)

Strong Back, Soft Front*

Do You See Moses Over There? 

The daylight shortens.
The darkness settles in.

Quick—
Grabbing the dog.
Walking, 
Racing against the quickening sunset.

Geese fly overhead,
Heading somewhere
For deserved
Rest.

As do we.

All is so right 
With the world.

And so not.
~~~
Do I write every week about contradictions?
How can it all be true, simultaneously?
In the same breath,
The beauty,
In the same breath,
The suffering?

How do we continue to walk
One step at a time
Forward?

Where do we find that strength?
While—
At the same time,
Opening 
Our
Hearts
To ourselves,
To one another?

Roshi Joan Halifax says,
Strong Back.
Soft Front.

Our strong backs—
Practicing equanimity,
Our capacity to hold
All things
In equal
Regard.

Our soft fronts—
While opening ourselves
With compassion,
With kindness
To the world.

My only response?
Today.
And
Probably tomorrow:

We practice.

We simply
Practice
Kindness,

Starting,
Always starting
With ourselves.
~~~
I met Roshi Joan Halifax, abbot of the Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico, in 2020, when I began a year-long training in Socially Engaged Buddhism.  Immediately I was comforted by her profound kindness and made comfortable by her strength of focus, her strength of purpose.  The program was life-changing—it took me into the world in a different, a more alert and responsible way.

Roshi Joan’s teachings continue to guide me.

Here is a wonderful 14-minute meditation with her discussing her core teaching of Strong Back, Soft Front.  You can begin the meditation at 27:38.

Give yourself these 14-minutes with Roshi Joan.

Gratitude—It Works

Words elude me this week.

Midweek
Procrastination rolled upon me,
Like a stuffed sloth,
Settling in.

Not wanting to write…
Nothing to say.

I actually pondered—
What if I posted a blog that was a blank page?

That reminds me of my first college dorm poster.
It was either 1966 or 500 years ago.

WHAT IF WE GAVE A WAR AND NOBODY CAME?

What if I posted a blog and it was blank?

This week?
Oh.  This week.

I’m awed, tiptoeing quietly along the edge
Of overwhelm.

I’m awed about how it is ALL TRUE.
So many contradictory things existing
In the same reality.

How is that possible?
How are we to live with that?

I don’t know.
I’m finding my practices hard.
My prayers, unfocused.
Meditation, a wandering journey.

And then I remember—

The One.
The Thing.
The Practice.
The Strategy.
That
Always
Works.

Gratitude.
Okay!  Phew.  

No matter what’s happening
Around me,
Or
Inside of me.

Around us,
or
Inside of us.

As I look for the demonstrations of gratitude.
As I focus on what is.
Rather than—
What is not.

(Aruni—
Look for the beauty.
Look for the grace.)

Everything changes.
Even if just momentarily.
The spell is broken.
My anxiety 
Is released.

The door opens.
Even if just
For
A
Breath.

~~~
A gratitude:
Nik the Dog in a wild zoomie,
Making circles in a pile of leaves
In the woods,
Playing with her Poodle friend
Atreyu,
Who stood watching her
From afar,
Slightly bemused
At his smaller friend’s
Frenzy,
Her demonstration
Of Ultimate Glee.

I am grateful.
Thank you.

10,000 Joys & 10,000 Sorrows

Moonrise

          “When you open your heart, you get life’s ten thousand joys, and ten thousand sorrows.”

Taoist sage Chuang Tzu

I just ruminated
For 30 hours,
Intricately planning
A detailed, 
Perfect solution 
To
Something that 
Didn’t 
Even 
Happen.

Oh, friends, the sorrows I bring myself, doubting life’s capacity.
Doubting my own.
Oh, friends, those self-inflicted sorrows.  

So, we practice.  It’s what we do.  We practice leaning away from our expired behaviors, the ones that once supported us, the ones that do not support us now.

Like old, expired food in the refrigerator, we practice releasing behavior and bringing in new ways of responding.

Those self-inflicted sorrows.

~~~

And then, oh, friends, the external sorrows.
The inevitability of our aging, our dying,
Living and witnessing the losses, the heartbreaks.

The inevitability of sorrows.

The inevitability of sorrows,
Our human dilemma

~~~
Yet now, oh, friends, now.

Now we share something else.
Now we share the intensity
The immensity
Of cosmic sorrow.

We share each other’s pain.
And what a time it is.
What a time
To bear witness.

Can this be who we are?

As a species, can it be?
Are we really a people who think killing other people will bring…..what?  
Freedom?  Safety?

As a species, can it be?
Are we really a people who pour gasoline on 
The flames of separation
Of hatred,
Of genocide,

Thinking that
Is the solution?

Are we really?

We are here to bear witness to the larger, the cosmic sorrows.
We always did—we always were.

Now, the intensity increases.
Now, the darkness,
The hopelessness
Settles.

Now,
We feel the pain of others in serious harm’s way.
We share the pain.

~~~
And it’s all true!

The more we open our lives up,

The more we choose a path of presence, of being with what is,

The more joys emerge, too.

Today?  Today alone, in these past three hours since my rising?
What were the joys?

Nik the Tiny Dog galloping up and down the hallway, 
Shaking her toy with total commitment,
Total abandonment
Total engagement.
Thank you.

The lightening of the day,
From darkness to light,
Thank you.

The soft warm home I leave,
The crisp cool air I breathe.
Thank you.

Thank you for the joys.
Thank you for the sorrows.

We get it all.
~~~

Did you have a cool-things-to-read-in-high-school-phenomenon?
We did. (We = me + Gladys.)

Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger—oh, so cool.  I was Holden Caulfield.  Or, perhaps more truthfully, a wannabe.

Atlas Shrugged, although I never really managed to wrap my head around it.  The concept of the book was much cooler than the book itself.

Then, The Prophet by Kahlil Gilbran—that was cool.

Although Gladys, my monogamous friend since age 8, my official life archivist (do you have a friend who remembers everything?  She is My Gladys), she has unusually limited memory of The Prophet.  Which shakes my own belief in my memory.  She believes one of our Girl Scout Camp counselors read it to us.  I surrender and choose that as my memory, too.

Sorry, I do digress.
Initially I considered The Prophet so cool and poetic.
Then I grew into a slight embarrassment of it.  I got too cool.  It sounded too cheesy, too corny.

Today, here is The Prophet.  Today, I think this is beautiful:
~~~

On Joy and Sorrow

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

By Kahlil Gilbran

~~~

Today I end with this interpretation of Jewish liturgy—

May you shelter us with your presence.
May you let our burdens release.
May you guard and protect our hearts and our souls.
Please hold all of us—
All of us 
Beneath the wings 
Of your peace.

All blessings,
Aruni

What Is There to Say?

Oh, friends.
I’ve been so rallied around the crisis in the world, imperfectly trying to balance my news intake with personal sanity.  My grip is weakening.

I’ve been sitting, staring at this blank page for a few days now.  

What is there to say?  What to write?
What to believe in?  What to hold close?

Oh.  I remember.
I believe in the practice of kindness.  
Plain, simple, kindness.

Kindness
To myself.

Kindness
To the people I randomly and perfectly encounter on my trek-of-the day.

Kindness
To the people, closer to home, harder to practice, deeper tucked in my heart.

~~~
Tara Brauch, in her wisdom, says:

I found myself praying: ‘May I love and accept myself just as I am.’

~~~
I say:
Let us practice
Forgiving ourselves for being human.
For our forgetting.
Our struggling.
Our doubting.
Our wanting it to be different.

Despite all of the data 
We have
That tells us—
It is okay.
It really is.
As it is,
Okay.

No matter what is happening, 
We will find our way through.

No matter what is happening,
Our tendency is to struggle,
That pesky human dilemma. 

I say:
Let’s practice
Relaxing into what is,
Rather than constricting against it.

I say:
Let’s practice 
Granting ourselves
Permission to be human,
Which is already
Fully granted.
~~~
Here is a meditation/tiny podcast on the Practice of Kindness.
I hope you can find something, some solace, a syllable, something that supports you.
From my heart to yours: