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To Remember the Sacrifices

06/11/2023 by Aruni

To Remember the Sacrifices


This blog post is also available on my Facebook page to make sharing it with friends and family easy for you to do.

My dearest monogamous childhood +++ friend, G., is a child of Holocaust survivors.  I spent much time in her childhood home.  I remember her mother, wrapped in silence, standing at the sink, her back to us as we sat, quietly kibbitzing at the kitchen table.  

Washing dishes, washing dishes.  Standing in silence.  Wrapped in silence.  Washing dishes.

I remember.  I remember that G. and I talked all the time, all the time, about everything, Everything, but not, BUT NOT about the war, her relative-free family, her parents’ unusual behaviors.  We were forever-friends, bonded without words by the differences each of our parents stood within.

I remember her house, silent, seemingly hollow, upscale furniture, nice things, wrapped in heavy plastic covers, wrapped in silence, wrapped in hushed tones.

G. used to read this blog.  I don’t believe she does now.  I am still wrapped in silence; I don’t want to hurt her, to offend her, to say the wrong thing.

I’m hoping after hope that she won’t read this.

Of course, they didn’t talk.  How could they talk?  What was there to say?

Wrapped in silence.  Wrapped in denial. The depth of unspeakable, unimaginable trauma.

Don’t say it.  Spare the kinder, the children.  Don’t feel it.  Don’t go there.

And it stays.  There.  Constricted.  Frozen in silence.

Speaking is the doorway.
Naming is the blessing.
Keeping alive the memories,
The direction home.

And I totally understand,
TOTALLY understand,
I’m tip-toeing around it now,
65 years later.
~~~

Ireichō
The Book of Names

“For the first time, an accurate and comprehensive list of every person of Japanese ancestry incarcerated in the World War II camps will be compiled in a book called the Ireichō.

The idea of a book as a monument is inspired by the Japanese tradition of Kakochō (literally, “The Book of the Past”), a book of names typically placed on a Buddhist temple altar and brought out for memorial services when the names of those to be remembered are chanted.

The Ireichō monument will be on display at the museum for a year. The public is invited to view and acknowledge the names in the Ireichō by placing a Japanese hanko (stamp) underneath the name of each individual in the book.

The seventy-five internment and concentration camps are represented by wooden plaques.  

(The Japanese-American National Museum)

~~~
To remember.
To bear witness.
To memorialize.

We are here to witness each other.
Forgetting is not an option.
Memory must live onward.
~~~
Please look at this page, the words, the pictures.  Please look at the faces:

Read Here 

~~~
The United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., committed to keeping alive the memories.  As the survivors die, how essential, how imperative is their work.

Look at their articles, the video of the murder of lesbian and gay men during the war.

My experience in their Memorial Museum was life-altering.

Read Here

~~~
And the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Lynching Museum in Montgomery.  Look at the pictures of their memorial, honoring, remembering, holding close all of the lynchings

 

~~~
How do we choose to remember?
To memorialize?
To hold close
The sacrifices made?

I don’t have answers.
I only have intentions.

Where does this all land,
Dear folks,
For you?
~~~
I have no words to complete this blog, to bring closure..  This song by Sweet Honey in the Rock says it all.

Ella’s Song comes from the actual words of civil rights activist Ella Baker.  Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon turned Ella’s words into an a cappella piece for Sweet Honey in the Rock.

First, the lyrics:

We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons.

That which touches me most
Is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me.

To me young people come first
They have the courage where we fail
And if I can but shed some light as they carry us through the gale.

The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hands of the young, who dare to run against the storm.

Not needing to clutch for power
Not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be one in the number as we stand against tyranny.

Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot, I’ve come to realize
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survives

I’m a woman who speaks in a voice and I must be heard
At times I can be quite difficult, I’ll bow to no man’s word.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

~~~
And the song:

~~~
May all beings be blessed,
May all benefit
From the work
We do
Together
And
Alone.

Thanks for your hearts,
Dear Friends,

Aruni

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Sanctuary & Sangha

06/04/2023 by Aruni

Sanctuary & Sangha

This blog post is also available on my Facebook page to make sharing it with friends and family easy for you to do.

As a kid and a not-such-a-kid, there are numerous pictures of me standing apart from the group.  

Whatever group.  

Any group.

Here is a picture of my Aunt Geri, my mom’s younger sister.

Can you find me in the frame?  

I learned to hide well.

(Hint: far left, one with the trees, not so much with the people.)

I understand my Lone-Wolf responses.  I wrote books about them, taught workshops about them.  Yet now, I find myself diving deeper into my aloneness.

The aloneness of that child, who had so many reasons to hide.

The aloneness of me, the adult, who is tender and healing.

The early pandemic, living alone, I met my introvert, my tender child, differently.  It was deliciously right to hang alone, to have permission to not be with people, to be thoughtful and cautious about interactions.  I befriended her broken heart, and we had a good time together.  (Lots of take-out food ensued—I’m not sure why or how that emerged as a response to the pandemic for me.)

That time worked.

Now, back home with my dear one, I am living into a time of physical healing and transition.  

I am discovering a new portal, an unraveling of the obstacles, that have blocked me from a deeper relationship with that aloneness.

I feel quiet and almost-shy, wondering where my people are (the answer? right here), wondering why I am feeling so young as I hover on my 75th birthday.

I dive deeper into my separate broken heart.  And it is a gift, a blessing, an unraveling with space and air and breath and possibility.

It’s just—well, not my plan.  Not my mind’s plan.  Perhaps a bigger plan?  

Yes, a bigger plan!  And I am okay with it, especially now that I am feeling physically more level.

I might as well be okay with it, since it is happening, right?


The interplay of the personal and the collective, our unique separateness coupled with our profound need for connection, is a dance long-considered in the wisdom traditions.  Here are two of today’s most elegant, more relevant, most accessible teachers in the Buddhist tradition, Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.

This six-minute video says so very much.  The first half is excerpted from Jack talk on “Sanctuary“.  The second half comes from Tara talk on “Sangha”

 

~~

Friends, for your contemplation:

  • Where are your places of individual sanctuary?
  • What do you receive for yourself in those places?
  • Your sangha?  Your choir?  Your community of comfort and choice?  What do you receive?
  • What do you offer back to your sangha, your people?

~~

With gratitude 
For what was.

With commitment 
To what is.

With the possibility 
Of what might be—

Stay blessed,
Aruni 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Dancing Together—Will & Surrender

05/28/2023 by Aruni

Dancing Together—Will & Surrender

This blog post is also available on my Facebook page to make sharing it with friends and family easy for you to do.

On a scale of 1-10, I would rate myself 13.7 on the Spectrum of Willfulness.  I learned to:

  • Do it.
  • Do it well.
  • Then do something else.
  • Keep doing it.
  • Then do the next thing.
  • Hope that maybe someone will like me.
  • Keep moving.
  • Don’t stop.
  • Make it happen.
  • Hope that maybe someone will love me.
  • Maybe not.
  • Better keep moving.

It kind of worked.  For a while.  
Oh.  At great cost.

When I was active in my addictions, I believed I was living in some cool counter-culture, some anti-silent-majority, a matriarchy of radical change.  Actually, however, I was dulled and drugged and not a member of any community, yet alone the matriarchy, yet alone, a community of self.

My willfulness in those 20 years manifested as righteous indignation.  Railing against what was absolutely spun me around and around, a cyclone of one problem leading to the next, rather than part of any fragment of any solution.

Then it all changed.  
Getting sober.
Coming to Kripalu.
Blessed be.

During early ashram days, I entered a phase of premature surrender.  Positive that surrender was the evolved stance (and then people would love me), I prayed and hoped and practiced like wildfire, ignoring my human responses, denying my need to take action, surrendering without touching into my human self.  And bingo, same pattern.  Flip side of the coin of the above list.

  • Do nothing.
  • Have no preference.
  • Have no response.
  • Have no action.
  • Surrender.
  • And then they will love me.

Time passed.  
Somewhere wrapped into those years, I incrementally realized—

ohhhhh! 

The right use of will,
A posture of such maturity and evolution!

Will and surrender
Dancing together.

Take action.
Let go of the outcome.

Attend to your humanity.
Your needs, your preferences.
And let go. 

Suffice to say—
The interplay of will and surrender is at the heart of Kripalu Legacy Teachings
And offers an effective and comfortable platform for living.

~~~
Here is the most wonderous, the brilliant, the bright light, Leonard Cohen:

“If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will.

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing.

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing.

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well.

And to draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light.

In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
If it be your will.”
~~~
And now, the song, If It Be Thy Will

~~~
Dear Friends,

On we go with this
Wild, this wacky
Experiment
Of
Living
Our
Lives.

On we go,
Day after day,
Experience
After
Breath
After
The
Next
Experience.

And here we are.

Practicing.
Living.
Feeling.
Relaxing.
And
Practicing.  

Human and divine,
Wrapped in a body.

Stay blessed,
Aruni

Filed Under: Uncategorized

To Heal

05/21/2023 by Aruni

To Heal

This blog post is also available on my Facebook page to make sharing it with friends and family easy for you to do.

 

We know this part, right?  Healing =

  • to make free from injury or disease
  • to make sound or whole
  • to make well again
  • to restore to health
  • to heal the sick
  • to mend.

Now check out the seemingly enlightened folks at Miriam Webster:

“Healing occurs through the integrating forces that restore, transform, sustain and nurture the whole person (body, mind, spirit) at each phase and in every dimension of life, and within relationships of the person to the creation, to other people, and to a sense of spirit.”

If you are reading this blog, I suggest that you are on a healing path, whether you know it or not.  

Whether your healing is physical, spiritual, energetic, emotional, relational, financial, etc., etc., etc., etc.

We are on the path:

  • To alleviate, 
  • To assuage, 
  • To relieve, 
  • To ease, 
  • To help,
  • To release
  • Suffering.

One day, one step, one moment at a time.
~~~
Note to self:
Healing is not a straight line.

This is not the journey from bad-to-okay-to good-to-better-to best-to-done.
We are traveling a road, dear friends.  
And it is fluid, and it is curvy, and it is all over the place.
And we are on it.
And—there is
No done
On this path.
It’s not over yet.
Oh, that sounds familiar…

Not Over Yet.
Title of my last book.

Simple Strategies to Struggle Less 
And Savor More.

~~~
I am of the Sturdy Constitution.
I always jokingly called it my Russian peasant stock.

Not a joke—a blessing.
I have been profoundly fortunate with my health.
Whatever has come up, I have been able to move through.
Only now am I living into a life-altering 
Physical experience.

“Wreckage of the past.
That rapacious creditor.”*

Gratitudes beyond gratitudes,
Not life-threatening.

Yet again, blessings abound.

So much to learn.
So much to honor.
So much to listen to,
To attend.

Learning how
To ask for help.

Learning how
To rest.

Learning how
To allow the fluidity
Come and go.

I am tired of it and so ready to be done.

Yet I am certain—
Befriending rather than exiling 
Is the way.

So, I learn, as best I can.
I listen, as I am able.
I make remarkable and obvious mistakes.
And learn more.

And on it goes.
Life in a body.
Life in an aging body.

A good life
In
A
Good
Body.

I am blessed.

~~~
Dear Friends, what is the nature of your healing journey?  What are you learning?

~~~
The Weight—Playing for Change

Look at these faces.  People from around the world, this glorious world of ours.  Making music.  Creating harmonies.  Individuals coming together, in the healing journey of music, from individual to collective liberation.

I loved this song 50 years ago.  I love it perhaps more today.

~~~
For the life I have been given, I am grateful.
For the body in which I live, I am grateful.
For the moments of clarity and health.
For those of fuzziness and pain.
For all of it,
One breath at a time,
Inevitably 
And
Eventually,
I am grateful.

To your brave hearts.
Thanks for being
In this world.

Stay blessed, 
Aruni

*quotes from 12 Step Literature

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Perfect Time for Coming Back

05/14/2023 by Aruni

The Perfect Time for Coming Back

This blog post is also available on my Facebook page to make sharing it with friends and family easy for you to do.

Practice.  They said, practice.  They didn’t say—get it right and check it off the list.  What is this wacky human need we have to get finished, to be done, to be over it, for once and for f—ing all?

I feel too old to push myself in the same way.  Have I outlived my wacky willfulness?  To a degree?  A smidgen?  Even if a tiny degree, I accept!  I imagine, no, I’m positive, this is a victory.

Strange.  I feels, quite frankly, more spacious exhaustion rather than a confetti moment waiting to happen.  Funny, doing the right thing doesn’t always feel like one needs confetti.  Nevertheless, It’s a miracle, of course.  I have been the doer, the tap-dancer (not literally, folks—I’ll tell you about that some time.).  I have wiggled and wormed and danced around some core contradictions:

  • See me.
  • See me.
  • No, just kidding.
  • Don’t.
  • Yes!
  • Do.
  • Love me.
  • Please love me.
  • Do you love me now?
  • I can do more.
  • Will you love me then?

I’m getting exhausted just thinking about it.  

Practice.  Lean in the direction of relaxation, Aruni (and anybody out there who would like to join this subgroup).  Notice.  Breathe.  Soften around whatever is happening in your body, in your mind, and around you.

Self-observation without judgment, dear Bapuji said.

Notice.  And any time, ANY TIME, in any moment, when we see the push, the tap dance reemerging, that is the perfect time to keep coming back. 

Come back to the breath.  To the affirmation.  To the sensations in your body.  To prayer.  To candle flame.

Come back to:

  • To the red-winged blackbird.  
  • To the squawking crows.  
  • To the crystal in your pocket.  
  • To your dog’s smile.
  • To your touchstone.
  • To the smell of the air.

Come back to grounding, to neutral.   Come back to self.  To you.  To a self-blessing.  To a tap on your heart.

Folks—we cannot possibly do this journey wrong, this moment, wrong, this decision, wrong.  THERE IS NO WRONG HERE.  There is only practice.  

Watching and noticing and realigning and blessing ourselves.

By the way, the perfect time is the moment in which you notice, and you are able.  

The perfect time is when you do it.  When you return home.

And there is no wrong time.  

~~~
Here is my meditation on The Perfect Time for Coming Back.

Listen Here

~~~
For all I have been given in my life,
I am grateful.

For the people in my life,
I am grateful.

For the lessons
That continue
To grow me,
I am grateful.

For my heart
That is willing
To serve,
I am grateful.

Eventually 
And
Inevitably,

I am grateful.

Stay blessed,
Aruni

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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