The Slow Lane

The storm had already broken when I began to write.  I was decimated by the stroke, and further assailed by brain damage. I began the Slow Lane while I was going down. It looked, and felt, like I was dying — losing functioning on a pretty regular basis. I wrote in some desperate attempt to feel like I was of some use. Nothing was very pretty or elegant.

In the beginning, I called it “Reports From The Slow Lane,” thinking that the challenges I was experiencing might be useful to my community. Amazingly, I could still think of others, as I was being pulled under.  In part, the writing of ‘reports’ gave me a sense of connection. I needed to feel less alone. I also felt like what I was going through could be meaningful to oth

“The Slow Lane,” from its advent, was an attempt to integrate the role of tragedy in my / the community’s life

Later on, I’m not sure when, I received the first gift of awareness that transformed my suffering. I didn’t know it at the time. I was too consumed with going down. But I fairly quickly realized I had been slowed down, and could no longer function at cultural speed. Suddenly, I got how much I was missing, when I operated normally. “The Slow Lane” became about speed, physical, psychological and spiritual. It hasn’t always been consistent, but speed has been a regular subject. The world changed as slowing occurred.

I started writing as a drowning man. Strangely, as I lost functioning, I gained awareness. New parts of me, came on-line. I was going down, but becoming new, a better, more aware me. I hope I captured some of those changes in those lost and confusing years. “The Slow Lane” helped me integrate a slow-breaking miracle, a time where nature re-made me. I discovered I could swim in the darkness. Writing took on a new meaning.

Since that time, “The Slow Lane” has taken its current form. It was written partially for you the readers, and partially for me, the writer. Hopefully, I have conveyed the benefits of hardship, and how much life shapes us using pressure. That is a lesson that we could use right now. I also hope “The Slow Lane” does something to increase awareness of the true miracle of being human. Human’s, I now see, become more as they become less. It has been a painful but enduring lesson. A lot of Slow Lane pieces have been about that. Reassurance as we age.

Now, it’s morphing into something else. I think it will always be about slowing, and the human condition, but I can feel some other awareness pulling me into another orbit. The monk side of me is trembling. The writer, is going to be more of the ventriloquist in the future. Meaning: the dummy will keep going. I am also going to be getting even slower. Feeling the call more. Going farther astray. Eventually gone.

There isn’t much, in the usual sense, to look forward to. Life is moving me slowly towards the barn. I intend to keep writing, to be smitten with learning, to be more and more at home with myself, but I feel the weeds parting, and me moving slowly towards them.  So, be forewarned, we are all headed in that relieving direction. The Slow Lane is too.

I’m not sure of the when, where, or how. I don’t know how imminent change is. I’m very human in that way. The unknown stalks me too. But, I can feel something coming, and I have a sense that it is beyond undoing. The moment remains a great favor to us, and I intend to be in it thoroughly. I want the Slow Lane to be there with me, but I’m not sure it will be.

 

 

 

  

Sitting In Limbo

Life passes. There is no wave, no conclusion, forward signal, or stop sign. The air is not quite immobile, not quite moving. Stillness prevails. But it isn’t peaceful stillness. There is a sense of stasis. It is, as if, there is a long pause between breathes. I don’t know if it is ‘in’ before ‘out,’ or ‘out’ before ‘in.’ But I know I’m in-between. Paused.

I can’t say what is happening. If, anything. The world hasn’t stopped, but things are happening in slow distant motion. Silently. As if, some kind of regulator was inhibiting the moment from proceeding. Awkwardness fills everything with pensive uncertainty.

It could be as obvious, as waiting for the new administration to take over on January 20^th. I’ve never felt so much like a lame duck. Or, it could be like knowing an asteroid is headed this way, but isn’t here yet. Something is getting closer and closer. I can feel it in the stillness of the air, in the aimlessness of my life, in the suspension that permeates things, but I can’t name it.

My days hold a strange purposeless purpose. I am on pause, but I’m not sure why I’m on hold. The Sun, Moon, and Universe are all doing their thing, faithfully, so I am not worried about being at the end, it is more like some new beginning is about to start up. Yes, this is some sort of pregnant pause.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really been good at these moments. I don’t usually react well to being on hold, or anticipating. Limbo and I haven’t been good friends. So, you can imagine my uneasiness. The longer hold lasts, the greater my dismay. Walking on eggshells is play, compared to what I’m feeling now. I’d rather be struck by lightning, blasted into pieces, than endure this much uncertainty.

Having said all of that, helps convey the discomfort I feel in the midst of this prolonged pause. Maybe, its just me, I’m just making up being here. I’m already disrupted, between who I used to be, and who I’m about to become. Am I somehow not me, or some other me? I don’t know for sure. The moment has blinded my usually sure inner eye.

I feel something weighing on me, it isn’t some gravitational thing, it’s more like portent, throwing my rhythm into an uncoordinated mess — a halting, faltering, semi-collapse. I’ve been caught outside my oyster shell.

It might just be I’m getting older. Aging is disruptive, inconvenient — and is a pause that renews — but usually only in ultimate terms. I can’t fathom what I sense. My senses have been made dull in worldly ways, but certain inner faculties have sharpened, and these, lead me to notice the strange pause that is occurring. Maybe it is because I’m getting older, that I’m able to feel it. 

In any case, I’m assailed by this sensation —while I’m on hold — something slinks towards us.

Something is poised.

 

 

 

  

Life’s Life

There is an antidote to the madness in the world now. While things outside us, which we have little power to influence, are deteriorating, inside each of us there is the possibility of serenity. This is a story of how that has become possible for me, and of how a variation of that, could be possible for you.

A few months ago, at age 99, my mother died. She left me lots of memories, and part of her estate. It turned out to be more money than I knew she had. Though surprised, it still didn’t put to rest my fear, that my money might run out before I die. A friend of mine helped me realize I was living in fear, and acting like I was disconnected. For some reason I heard her. I knew I had lived differently after my stroke, and that my name “Lucky” came from that time. So, I suddenly got that I had lost what I once knew, and that I needed to return to what had once been true for me.

So, began a period of my life I call “monk mode.” In it, I am recollecting all of the little practices I developed for myself, that contributed to my feeling of oneness with Life (my sense of the ultimate). During the dark years of my illness, when I was losing so much, I recalled that I had been reduced down, so that I no longer felt my life was mine. I was Life’s life. Later, when I lived, I realized it was that shift, that saved my life, and calmed me down. From thinking and believing I owned my own life, that I was losing, to realizing I was in fact living Life’s life. That shift enabled me to live fully as a radically disabled man.

Remembering, that I knew connection, brought a renewed confidence. I was returning to what I had already experienced. So, on election eve, many weeks later, when I could read the writing on the wall, I went to bed disappointed, but calm. I awakened in the middle of the night to a fear storm, but was able to go back to sleep, by shifting my attention to being Life’s life. I was beyond disruption. The assurance of what was within me, knowing that my being depended on identifying with Life, was so much greater, than any choices that the new electee would make. I am beyond his ministrations, and beyond the madness of our times.

I identify with Life. Not everybody does. I take my re-assurance from the knowledge that I am safely tucked under the wings of Life. But re-assurance is available in many forms; non-dual awareness, super-frequency life, manifestations of love, traditional spirituality, and other forms. The quality of inner life is what provides the immunity to what is happening outside. What is crucial is what is within each of us. The madness will go on, many will be hurt, change probably disruption will happen, but each of us is prepared, by the counter-weight of our inner lives.

Joseph Campbell used to say, “There are as many ways into paradise as there are people.” I say, “There are as many ways to identify with a larger reality as there are the willing.” Re-assurance, and immunity, follows.                                                                                                                                              

I hope you can find your version of being Life’s life. Then, this election, will be truly significant.

 

 

  

Incubator

My father shared a story with me before he died.  He prefaced the story by saying that he experienced his only miracle that day. It happened when he was kid, a boy of 9 or 10. I guess this was on the farm about 1935. He grew up in rural Iowa, before electrification. His mother raised chickens. One day, while he was in the house, he saw her incubating a bunch of eggs in the kitchen. He was amazed to see the chicks begin to hatch out.  He watched with wonder, as each egg shook with life, and the chicks broke their shells, and found their way into this world. This event touched something in him, that resulted in his remembering it 70 years later.

He told me this story, which he had never shared before, a few months before his death. I knew the moment was important to him, and was awed by a similar experience I had had in my last days of high school. As I was finishing twelfth grade, and confronting a new life, I attempted to write my first poem. It was about being in an egg, about to hatch out. The poem centered on the experience of being compelled to seek, a larger, less confining world to occupy. At the time I was very aware I didn’t know what was beyond my shell. I was caught in complex situation, between a world I knew, and one I didn’t.

I remembered these two events, my father’s story, and my own experience, while I was contemplating this life. This memory set me on a reverie, that is filling me with a kind of full-bodied awe. Taken by the coincidence of my father’s experience, and the vividness of my own recollection, I started imagining this life as an experience of being incubated. I have long thought of my life as a learning and growing experience. What if, I am here being prepared, for another, perhaps more complex existence? This question occurred in my thoughts — but it has a lot of explanatory value.

When I look back at my life, which aging is increasingly compelling me to do, I see that there are patterns of growth that I cannot take credit for. It is like I just got more mature. There was little, or no effort on my part. Seemingly, Life just grew me into something more.

During my reverie, I began to think of Life, as a kind of incubator. Things started coming together in a new way. I think of myself as “Lucky,” the product of some universal happenstance, but what if, I was really intended? Afterall, I am being raised here. Then perhaps, this life, which I call mine, has a kind of coherence, I’ve never considered before! Maybe all those relationships, jobs, failures, gentle moments, realizations, and griefs, have prepared me for a newer, broader life? The shell feels a lot like death now. I am confronted by a compelling feeling that I know: I am confined by a world too small for me, and caught before, a world beyond my knowing.

I grasp this pattern. I have been somewhere like this before. Despite the many indignities – the loss of vitality, health, social status, prestige, and a basic de-humanization — I am hatching out, becoming the next iteration of Life. I’m not old, I’m quasi-new.

The incubator seems to be working a kind of alchemical magic. Changing the grossly inexperienced, into something fit for the Universe’s needs. I like this reverie. It beckons me toward a new and unforeseen entrance.

 

 

 

  

Noble Suffering

Life is suffering. This is the first of the Four Noble truths of Buddhism. I never really got beyond it. What I have learned from Buddhism is enormous. But when I heard that suffering was optional, I started paying less attention. I didn’t believe that. I was too much under the thrall of Carl Jung, who believed that suffering accompanied growth. I knew I suffered a lot, didn’t believe it was optional (if one only did enough spiritual practice), and thought it an element of growth.  This notion of suffering, seemed intuitively obvious to me

So, Buddhism became just one of the world’s wisdom traditions I valued. It wasn’t until a recent discussion with a friend, where he described the First Noble Truth to me again, that I came to the realization that suffering is noble.  I have probably misunderstood Buddhism for a long time. I still do, most likely. But for that moment, a light went on. Suffering, something I am almost always doing, is noble — worth considering as a contribution to the world.

It was this thought that meant so much to me. I am suffering, the need to grow, to become myself, to be bearable, to learn, to love properly, almost all the time. I have thought that it reflected poorly on me, revealing my immaturity. Instead, I realize I am just part of Life suffering. In fact, I’m beginning to grasp that suffering is part of what is moving me along, ripening me, so I can be more of what I am meant to be. Instead of being a deficiency in my being, it is a way I participate in the dance of Life. Wow, wow!

This changes a lot of things for me. It dignifies my suffering. I’m not just a weak parody of a human being, I am doing the hard work of learning to cope with the complexities of living. This living, means bearing up under the weight of so much pain. The world is beautiful, in fact, becomes more precious and beautiful, as a result of the suffering. It is, in fact, noble, to suffer so.

Over the last few months I have been suffering from the recognition that I had adopted a lifetime strategy of doing, to earn sufficient self-respect, and justification for my life. I am still doing it. To my horror, I see that I am caught-up in a bankrupt attempt to earn my way toward some kind of salvation. This pattern has pretty much defined my life, and continues, despite my now recognizing it. Watching myself being so robot-like is disconcerting and painful. My self-image is now trash, and rather desperately needs an update.

It is a period of good news and bad news for me. Good news, because I can see it. Bad news, also, because I can see it. The true dismay, is because I cannot change this pattern, at this moment. I am trying, and failing.

Now failing, though still humiliating, has a freshened sense of meaning.

While I get to a more intrinsic sense of self-worth, were my existence is enough. I am suffering a more noble suffering than I did before. It is painful for me reaching for a capacity I don’t have yet. I experience how much this pattern impacts me (and my loved ones), while I am reaching.

This is, for me, a more grown-up form of suffering. Now, I am linked with the expanding forces of the suffering Universe. 

 

 

 

Self-Care

I had a chance to visit, via Zoom, with a friend. His partner is experiencing profound Dementia, perhaps Alzheimer’s. He was doing relatively well, and had a good, in-the-moment attitude. I admired him, and what he is going through. As I interacted with him, I found myself thinking about self-care. I was particularly aware of how many people are drowning, while caring for others. We just don’t live in a culture, that prepares any of us for the rigors associated with caring for anyone suffering from a chronic condition.

Our hearts quite naturally go out to the one suffering directly, with a tragic condition, but little thought seems to go to the ones taking care of the afflicted one. A bad situation can grow, and become cataclysmic, when it takes down the family and primary caregiver. Very often, the primary caregiver has been sensitized and made more compassionate because of their caring. So, from my perspective, someone courageous via caring is at risk. That made me think about how risky caring is, and how much self-care it requires.

I have been involved with caregivers for over 20 years now. I’ve experienced a lot of caregivers come and go. The main thing they all seem to have in common, and when you think about it, it’s no surprise, they didn’t have much awareness of the value and importance of caring for themselves. They mostly thought the one they cared for was the one who deserved attention. Burnout is more than fatigue, but it is treated like a solely, physical phenomena. Even those that know better, are too often subject to the limitations of an insensitive culture.

People need to be mindful of the risks associated with caring. They need to be warned.  Not to dissuade them from caring, but to improve the chances that their caring hits the spot without peripheral damage. The caretaking realm, which is currently relegated to underpaid and marginalized women, is amongst the most blatant examples of the inhumanity of our market. If we truly cared, this would be a community endeavor, seen as an opportunity, rather than as an unfortunate obligation.

Caring is a big deal. It seems to come naturally to some, but requires a level of emotional sophistication that is earned. People learn the ability through experience.

Unfortunately, today, people are ill-prepared, mostly think their hearts are naturally ready, and learn the wrong lessons. We have a shortage of caregivers because we don’t prepare each other to care. We have as many broken-down caregivers, as we do ailing people. Caregiving is beautiful, dangerous, and hard to find. Self-care is a reason why.

Self-care isn’t just for caregivers, it is essential to anyone on a developmental path. It is a sure sign of self-regard, self-love — and is the most enabling attitude which allows one to actualize the gifts within. Some would say, as I do, that self-care, or self-love, is not narcissistic, but the root of all loving. Self-care is the most important ignored aspect of our obligation to ourselves, and each other, there is.

Self-care is a practice. A lifelong learning modality. It has depth, span, and changeability. It requires attention. You can’t grow yourself very much if you don’t take care of yourself. And, if you are looking for someone else to take care of you, then you are readying yourself to be taken care of how someone else chooses. Of course, all of us have to rely on others eventually. My experience, as a disabled person who constantly has needed to rely on others, is that the quality of care I have given to myself, has translated into the quality of care I draw from others.

Think about it — why should anyone care more about you, than you care about yourself? Because they are a caregiver. To grow themselves, they need to care.  Caring is the rarest coin of the realm. Self-care is even rarer.

I can only hope you know what I mean.

 

 

  

Aged Perfectly

Recently, a friend of mine, was telling me about a recent trip he took. He went back to where he had lived as a child. Deep in the Vermont countryside he visited his old home, and some of the little towns he knew when he was younger. As part of visiting the past, he ended up visiting the gravesite of his parents. He rediscovered that he also had plot there, and it already had an engraved headstone.  His grave stone read “aged to perfection.” This story set in motion the thought process that has resulted in this set of ruminations.

This revelation, the epitath already in place, was a source of great mirth and delight. It seemed such a good way to summarize a life. Everyone present, including him, laughed and smiled. A wondrous sense of justice and existential balance filled the air. The thought that Universe made his life just right, in the end, was just so soul-satisfying.

Later, I found myself thinking about it, and realized that I sensed that there was even more to it. In my mind, perfection didn’t wait until the end. I thought that he could die at any time, and at that moment he would be perfect. My thought kept going. It extended to — he was always perfect, even if he didn’t realize it, in any given moment. I found myself thinking that at same moment — he and all of us, are perfect. What if we lived in a state of constant perfection?

That thought ruptured some belief I had carried around for a long time. All the years of striving, the doubts about myself, the certainties about not belonging, began to melt away. I didn’t have to try to be better, I had already been perfected. All of my questionable attributes were part and parcel to what made me perfect. In fact, perfection wasn’t my doing, it was just part of Universal reality, part of the isness that prevails. I liked that mind-blowing thought, and I had a sense that there was something real about it.

After that, all I could do was just quiver. Currently, I am trying to integrate this perception. All of these years I have been playing out a rather macabre version of reality and my part in it.  I’ve been slinking through it, trying not to screw it up too much. I’ve had my false moments, when I thought I figured it all out. I’ve been up and down, always believing I should be something else, perhaps more holy, only to discover that where I am, just now, is another form of perfection. I am that I am. How could that be? Isn’t it reserved for subtler beings? Oh…..I’m getting the quivers again.

I don’t really know what I feel about all of this. I think I may be a mess of sorts. I don’t quite believe myself, yet on the other hand, I have this experience of perfection floating around in me. I am, and I am not, what I used to be. For sure, I’m more confused than I already was, but this time, I’m more confused in a positive way than I usually am.

In the back of my mind, there now lingers, a feeling of joy, a peace so still and profound, that no matter how rattled I am, I am not rattled at all. So, I write these words, knowing how preposterous they seem, but also knowing they contain some inexplicable perfection.

This moment is what it is, because it’s all here, perfectly mirroring the whole.