by susan | May 8, 2022 | Uncategorized
all he needed was courage, correct? and after convinced he’d been given a healthy dose of courage, he began to act courageously.
l. frank baum, through his character the cowardly lion, drew a picture for us all of both the placebo effect and the importance of our internal dialogue and beliefs.
I think about this daily, this understanding of myself, that I could cower inside my introverted self, or I could pretend I am courageous and thus do things that scare the bejeezus out of me. I’ve been working on this for years–decades actually–and I, like the cowardly lion, have made progress. sometimes acting “as if” actually works.
and at times I fail. at times, fear takes over and I become reactive or recessive.
prajna is a buddhist concept, essentially meaning clear insight, intuition of ultimate truth, pure and unqualified knowledge.
when we can connect with intrinsic truth, in whatever our situation, by digging down, distilling, letting go of our protective devices, peeling off all the layers down to our essence, we practice prajna. and this can tell us where we need to go.
breath, life. essence, peace.
by susan | Apr 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
a couple years ago I had an encounter with an owl. it swooped across my chest as I was cycling one dark, pre-dawn morning, which scared and excited and thrilled me. I’d been in the midst of heartbreak and despair, and the message I took from this experience was, there is more to come. everything will be okay. life will continue to present you with opportunities to expand, to experience awe and wonder.
today I again sit with heartbreak. and twice during the past few days I have seen an owl, perched on a branch of a tree, near that 2019 encounter. while one message could be that there are owls everywhere, I choose to take it as a reminder that life is everywhere, life continues, life will always offer me opportunities to expand, to experience awe and wonder.
and yes, there are dragons.
here be dragons is the english translation of “hic sunt dracones,” a phrase purported to have been written on maps, long ago, to denote uncharted territories–potentially dangerous and filled with monsters, serpents, and unknown evils. one intrepid researcher found not a single ancient map to have those words written upon it, but did find the words upon a globe built in 1510. regardless, the phrase represents all the potential pitfalls out there in the unknown.
I like the idea of dragons in our uncharted, unknown reaches. we know they’re there. what we forget is that we are all, at heart, dragon tamers. we rediscover courage when we remember this piece of who we are.
and then the owls. they are there, too. to remind us that life is filled with the spectacular, the unexpected, the curious. albert einstein is credited with telling us that we may either consider that nothing in life is a miracle, or that everything in life is a miracle.
live the latter.
by susan | Apr 10, 2022 | Uncategorized
not that I’d rather be something else, but being human is hard. damn hard.
yesterday I wrote a bigger-than-expected check for taxes, received word that I did NOT receive a residency I’d applied for, had a client cancel last minute, and broke a tooth eating a carrot.
today has been better.
tomorrow… I have no idea.
where do we find the courage to continue?
I began this post three years ago, march of 2019, an entire life ago. and I pulled it out of my drafts folder last night when my dog peed on my new rug, my electrical outlets in my bedroom stopped working, and I found myself tearful at dinner with friends because they all seem to have better connections with their loved ones than I seem to.
it’s damn hard to be human.
in the past three years I have experienced incredible moments and times and events, felt awe and wonder and gratitude and appreciation. I’ve been gifted with love and support. I’ve received over and over again. I’ve experienced times of belief in both myself, and in my ability to create the fulfilling life I desire. and I’ve also experienced loss, grief, frustration, impotence. anger. sorrow. moments of hopelessness. times when one of my first thoughts of the day is, I can’t wait to put my pajamas back on and go bed tonight.
and yet, here I am.
hear I am. listen.
like most everyone else, I will keep moving. I will listen to myself, to my heart, and make every attempt to follow where it wishes to lead me. it doesn’t always make sense to me, but I continue to believe that one day it will. rachel botsman describes trust as an active, responsible ‘confident engagement with the unknown.’ let me, let us all, learn to truly trust.
signing off, perfectly imperfect human that I am,
and sending all the love in the world your way. may you always feel the hands and hearts of others holding you.
by susan | Mar 21, 2022 | Uncategorized
I have large hands. Strong, capable. They can reach a tenth on the piano: an octave plus two. I’ve at times been embarrassed to hold hands with a boy because mine often equals in size or—quel nightmare—outsizes his. Sometimes it’s a delightful coupling, fingers knit together, skin smooth, a bone match.
Lifelines, fingerprints, things we are born with, that die with us, unique, designs of our skin.
Long ago, perhaps 800 years before us, a gathering of Anasazi built a home in the cleft of a rock ledge. They built rooms, separating them with walls made of rock and mud. They created look-out holes, and places to store corn and seeds and nuts. They added decorative touches to some walls—small stones of varied colors—and painted others. Some walls were smoothed by the passage of time, moisture, wind. And others were smoothed by hands.
There are myriad ways to play with mud. A potter shapes clay, a toddler splashes dirty pools of water with hands or feet. Some squeeze it between their toes. Others pay hefty fees to sit in it, be coated with it; some of us have the same experience at the edges of riverbanks. Soft, moist earth is sensuous, decadent, pleasure inducing.
It can also be practical, necessary; we build tools, instruments that facilitate our daily tasks. As the Anasazi built pots and urns and walls.
I stand before a handmade wall at Moon House Ruin. The red brown mud, patted into place all those centuries ago, still holds fingerprints, lifelines, the unique designs of those hands that created this wall. I lift my hand and place it gently upon the indentation of someone else’s hand. Gratitude, honor flood me. I am somehow able, through solidified earth, to touch one facet of a human who created a home in this cleft of rock ledge an eon ago. Eight hundred years ago the human being who shaped this wall could never have imagined me, in my Scarpa shoes and Outdoor Research jacket, my Old Navy tights and Smartwool socks, my iPhone and Camelback and Kind bar in my Osprey backpack. Who else has placed their hand against these dips and swirls and indentations? And for how many more decades, centuries, will others continue to do so?
I have found a man whose fingers knit with mine, whose palm neatly presses against my own. He stands with me at this wall, places his hand into the same whorled depression, and shares with me the wonder of being a human upon this earth.
Moon House Ruin is on Cedar Mesa in Bears Ears National Monument.
by susan | Apr 26, 2021 | Uncategorized
Two and two are four,
Four and four are eight,
Eight and eight are sixteen,
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two…
As a little girl I sang these words over and over; something about the melody mesmerized me, a bit forlorn, a tad melancholy. As I consider the lyrics today, I feel two forms of pertinence.
First, the inchworm is being chastised for measuring the marigolds while not connecting with the beauty they hold. An ever-present lesson.
Second, there is a subtle message that small movements-pieces-parts add up, eventually, to something much more significant.
As we sit in the latest iteration of our global pandemic, with frightening case numbers in India and significant reluctance in the United States to vaccinate, I cling to what nature’s beauty and the promise of small steps assure us: this too shall pass. Stay grounded, stay purposeful.
Two and two will always be four.
And a close-up view of a marigold is worth contemplating.
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