KING LEAR IN PRISON

A few weeks ago, a friend pointed out some lines from King Lear. Lear has been betrayed by two of his daughters, while the one he rejected, Cordelia, has come back from France to defend him. He and she learn that one of Lear's sons-in-law intends to imprison them.  Cordelia wants to escape but Lear stops her.

"Come, let's away to prison.  We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage.
When thou dost ask my blessing, I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness.  So we'll live
And pray and sing and tell old tales and laugh
At gilded butterflies and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news and we'll talk with them, too
Who loses and who wins, who's in and who's out
And take upon 's the mystery of things
As if we were God's spies."

Lear, not blamelessly, has been besieged on all sides; the picture he paints of prison would be a huge relief. No pressure, no attacks, no losses -- it's prison as a refuge. He and Cordelia will be completely reconciled and can spend their days telling stories, gossiping, and take the time to contemplate the mysteries of the universe.  Ah, bliss...

To come in from the cold, to get out from under, to shake off all responsibility, to be taken in and taken care of - how often I've longed for that. I used to think that in some magical way, I could arrive at such a place and all would be easy, delightful, effortless.  I know now that such a place can never exist because, no matter where I am, life keeps happening; one challenge is met and a new one begins.  I am always coming a great distance in order to begin and so it will go to the end.
     But there is a place of what, under the influence of Shakespeare, I'll call surcease.  It's that expansive place beyond my conscious mind and I can be there for moments from time to time.  But it's also in the search for those moments, in the effort I make to get quiet, to focus, to turn down the chatter occupying my mind. The  journey, not the arrival, matters. Simply trying contains its own rewards. 

A WEARY WETNESS

The weather today is my favorite - around sixty degrees and light rain. I like the grayness and the rain so light I feel I could walk between the drops. Somewhere in Raymond Chandler, I think The Big Sleep, Marlowe says, the world was a weary wetness. He may have said, warm wetness - but I like weary better with its suggestion of stillness. In weather like this, everything seems suspended, quieted, and when I look out the window things blend in the low contrast and become all of a piece.
     Stillness and all of a piece...they're so difficult to find as I move through my days. So often my mind is very loud, with non-stop chatter about superficial things, and instead of feeling all of a piece, whole and harmonious, I feel conflicted, ambivalent, full of doubt. Those feelings grow out of what I think of as my terminal self-consciousness, my ego constantly weighing and measuring how I'm doing, am I right or wrong, can I do everything, or anything, right, what if, if only, I should have.... 
     Over the years, I've learned how to step back from that constellation of black stars. I've learned how to let go, to turn my angst or fear over to whatever exists beyond my babbling ego. I've learned in meditation to find a still point which I have only for moments at a time, but it means everything to know that stillness is inside me, a refuge that is always there. 
      Dante's Inferno begins, "In the middle of my life, I came to a dark wood." I feel so often in the middle of a muddle, but I'm not heading to darkness as I used to fear, but to light, to moments of stillness and harmony. I have to surrender the muddle again and again, but each time I do I'm pierced with the possibility that I can live with the light inside me, always available when I reach for it. It's more than a possibility; it's real and there and steady.
     Each surrender is a new beginning. I'm always coming a great distance in order to begin.

RESISTANCE, AGAIN

I'm in awe of people who embrace routine. Housekeeping, exercise, work - they feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from doing daily things. 

     I'm the opposite most of the time. I resist doing, getting up and doing, even things that I know would make me feel better. Exercising self-discipline in general would give me a real boost of self-esteem.  I know that and still I resist. Resistance has a certain feel in my body and I recognize it. You'd think being able to identify it so specifically would help me get passed it. But old habits die hard and I've had such a long time of falling back when resistance comes up.

     I've thought long and hard about why this is true. My childhood, my depression, my lifelong default position... those are interesting whys but as well as I know them, that knowledge hasn't led me to changed behavior. There needs to be some other way.

     In meditation, if painful feelings come up, I know not to run from them. I turn my attention to where that pain is in my body - my chest, my belly - and when I concentrate for as long as it takes, my attention eventually dissolves the pain. That practice can help me with resistance. When it comes and I feel it in my body, I can focus on it and let my attention dissolve it. Even if I don't get up and do, I'm sure the repetition of that focus, dissolving resistance again and again, will help. It may be in the long run, though I put so much pressure on myself to make it the short run. I can relieve some of that pressure, maybe most of it, if I cultivate patience and lovingly forgive myself again and again.

     Change will only come if I'm willing, and willingness only comes out of surrender, and asking help from the Spirit of the Universe or whatever it is I find myself asking for help. Something greater than myself, out beyond my conscious mind. I must remind myself over and over again to ask for this help. I know that simply in asking I'm helping myself along the way.     

     

STICK TO IT!

I discovered meditation long before I knew what mediation was. Sometimes, trying to fall asleep, I found myself focusing on a spot just past my nose. I always found it suddenly and it felt as if my whole scalp tipped forward. In a sense it did tip forward - into a focus that calmed my mind and centered me. I called it thinking with the front of my head.
     That may be why the first "official" time I meditated I had a very good experience - I closed my eyes, focused on a spot at the end of my nose, breathed in and out and stayed motionless for the hour we sat. My mind calmed down after about twenty minutes and there were moments when it was as if my mind was in front of me, hanging out for an airing.
      I went home determined to begin a consistent practice. I set an alarm for forty-five minutes, sat down and began. It did not go well. I felt an intense restlessness, a barely resisted desire to open my eyes and get up. I knew enough to try to focus on the restlessness, to soften it, to remind myself that it was only a feeling passing through. I managed to stay seated and hoped the next time would be better.
     It wasn't. The restlessness, the desire to leap off the cushion, grew even more intense. I stayed seated - I understood that meditation for me was now solely about the discipline of sitting for the time I said I would. After what in my memory was a few weeks but may have been only a few days, the restlessness reached a fever pitch. I felt as if I had swallowed another creature who was battling inside my skin, pushing out the outline of its arms and legs as if we were in a cartoon.
     Then just at the moment I thought I had to give in to the restlessness or spin off into space, the bubble burst, the fever broke. As if a switch had clicked, the restlessness was gone. I felt calm, centered, able to sit until the alarm went off. 
     I think of that experience often; I see it as a process for every aspect of my life. Don't run, stay with discipline, keep to your commitment. But perfection will never be my strong suit. I don't make it much of the time. At least I keep trying.

GETTING OFF MY CASE

I don't know why it's so hard for me to get off my case. I know that the voice in my head that tells me I'm not enough, I don't do enough, is only attached to ephemeral thoughts floating through my mind. I know that I am not what that voice tells me. I know getting on my case is a very old habit - sometimes I think I was born with the on-my-case button already installed - and even the oldest of habits can change.
     God, I know a lot! And none of it helps me when the voice is on me. The reality of that voice in my head is stunning, powerful, all-consuming.  I think of Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show" - sometimes I'm encased in a world that feels absolutely real, that I completely believe, but when a chink appears, a sliver of light, I see that I can step through it and find myself in a new and expansive place, a place where I'm enough, I do enough and there's no reason to get on my case.
     I am my own chink in the sky, my own sliver of light. They are inside me and I know a few things to help me find them. When the voice has claimed me, I've learned to shake hands with it, to say you're smaller than I am and you're not all of reality. And repeat it until I really hear the words. Like an actor in a sense memory exercise, I work to summon up the feeling of fullness that tells me I'm enough. I remind myself I have some accomplishments and have done some good things. I picture the people in my life I care about the most. I especially think about how far I've come on this path of change. Then like Alice I step through the looking glass. In that new land, acceptance blossoms inside me, along with humility which allows me to be who I am, and gratitude for what I have and what I've done. I take a deep breath, come fully into the moment and find myself in that place where I and the world are enough. 

THE BLANK PAGE

Meditating on the blank page, the white computer screen. Focusing, centering, and waiting to see what comes. I can remember those times that filled me with so much anxiety my eyes would literally slip off the page; I didn't have control of them. The double fear: nothing will come, what comes will be bad.

     That doesn't happen writing here. I've learned how to wait quietly, to focus my eyes on the middle distance. I don't try to figure out what to write. I wait for something to come. I think, now it's time to connect, to let the connection between my heart and my hand emerge. There's nothing to be anxious about. I'm not trying to have opinions or make any case or create a story that will bring the world to my door.

     I'm just trying to get quiet, not even so much to write, as to feel the connection with a very deep part of me. If I can bring out anything authentic and true, that's where it comes from.

    Getting quiet, waiting to connect with the stillness beyond my conscious mind and the energy that connection creates in me - it's not only the way for me to write.  It's also the way to live. To be receptive, without the narrowness of preconceived ideas. To move through the day with a sense of that live connection, that energy, and feel the confidence that it won't turn off and leave me stranded. When I'm connected to that deep place there's no chance of that. Words like "stranded" have no meaning. Nothing abrupt and disorienting or "bad" can happen. I feel my experience as a flowing unity, always arising from moment to moment, and I'm able to take in whatever comes, process it and go on to the next. I have equanimity.

     Needless to say, I don't feel that connection all the time. Anxiety, doubt, resentment can all come up and claim me. But now that I know what the deeper connection feels like, I can always get quiet enough to go looking for it and in looking I find my way back.