Common Heart Interfaith Fellowship

Dandelions

2008-06-05T10:27:00.001-04:00

Hello again! It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted a blog entry. I’ve been out enjoying the unfolding of spring, getting drunk on lilac fragrance and celebrating the rhododendrons bursting into bloom.

Most of the smiling yellow dandelions that peppered my back yard have transformed into “wish flowers.” That’s what I’ve always called them since I was a young child, when I was taught to make a wish and blow, scattering the white fluffy seeds in all directions. Just like birthday candles, you had to blow them all away in one breath, or else your wish would not come true.

And I, too, am blown away when I think of all the wishes in my life that have come true, some wishes I didn’t even know I had until they manifested in my life as blessings.

Today, when I blow on those ghostly dandelions, I think of them as gratitude flowers, bringing to mind what I'm thankful for as I send those white puffs flying everywhere. Rather than focusing on what is lacking, I’ve chosen to acknowledge all that it full, rich, and beautiful in my life.

So, as I send my gratitude into the wind, I am scattering seeds of gratefulness all around me, creating possibility for more gratitude to bloom in my life.

Gratitude is a practice, just like anything else, and the more we consciously attend to it, the more it is strengthened in our psyche, hearts, and the whole of our being. It’s like a muscle that needs to be exercised—it gets stronger with practice. It’s an awareness that, when alive in the foreground of the mind, has a profound effect on our life-experience.

So, if you can find any remnants of dandelions in your yard today, I invite you to take a moment to reflect on your blessings, and send your prayers of thanks in all directions. And it’s okay if it takes more than one breath!

“If the only prayer you ever said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.”

~ Meister Eckhart

Sabbath for Ourselves and the Planet

2008-04-21T09:53:00.009-04:00

I just finished reading an article by Michael Pollan called "Why Bother?", recently published in the New York Times Magazine. Pollan is the author of the bestsellers "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto," and has become a contemporary environmental and food guru of sorts. In this article, he talks about how growing our own food, even a small percentage of it, is one powerful step we can take toward reducing our carbon footprint. And Pollan, along with many environmentalists, have been raising our awareness about the importance of buying local foods.

In the article, Pollan suggests a few things that we can do to respond to climate change. In addition to growing our own food, he stresses the importance of observing the Sabbath. "For one day a week, abstain completely from economic activity: no shopping, no driving, no electronics," he writes.

Now, I have always thought that taking a weekly Sabbath is a good thing for the soul. It's a time to replenish ourselves, to reconnect with Spirit without being pulled in all different directions by worldly distractions. I have been trying to work regular Sabbath/retreat time into my life (and admittedly have found frequent excuses to blow it off). But, I never viewed Sabbath as a response to climate change. I suppose it's been an afterthought, a side benefit--"oh yeah, I didn't drive or use the computer today, so I guess I saved some fossil fuel"--but I've never really seen it as a committment toward living more sustainably. Certainly it fosters spiritual sustainability, as the relentless speed of our lives is clearly unsustainable on a personal, emotional, and spiritual level. Slowing down and turning off the technology also helps build community. Instead of staring at the screen and shooting off emails, we enjoy face-to-face time with our neighbors and family.

Leonard Felder, in his book The Ten Challenges, offers us an alternative and refreshing way of viewing Sabbath. He says:

Imagine for a moment that someone who cares about you has sent you a gift certificate for a day that is to be devoted entirely to the needs of your soul. On that day you don't have to work. You can take a walk and have a relaxing conversation with friends or loved ones about the things that really matter. You can meditate, pray, and read the books that speak to your soul. You can nap and let your mind take a rest, or dance and sing to let your spirit soar. For one day, you can stop trying to prove yourself out in the world. You can look at your life as a blessing and feel at peace with where you are right now. Instead of feeling fragmented and pressured, you can spend the day in a generous, positive, and contemplative mood.

Well, Felder tells us that this gift certificate has been given to all of us, with the Fourth Commandment, which says: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

Now, instead of viewing this as a commandment, as a "Thou Shalt" or a "Thou Shalt Not," we can reclaim the notion of Sabbath to be an invitation to heal, replenish, and renew ourselves. Instead of the word "commandment," Felder suggests using the word "challenge." Thus, he reframes the Fourth Commandment as a challenge to "unhook from our everyday pressures and connect with something profoundly joyful.”

I recommend reading Wayne Muller's book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest as a great inspiration for making room in our lives for Sabbath. Muller says that taking Sabbath time is like thinning our garden. When the sprouts come up all crowded together, we need to thin them out in order to give them room to grow and flourish. This is obvious in our gardens, but why are we so resistent to thinning out our lives and making some space for growth, space for life, space for Spirit?

I envision a healthier culture in which we can collectively take time for Sabbath, a time of replenishment not stifled by religious legalism and dogma, but rather one of spaciousness and joy. We can allow for individual creativity and interpretation in its observance. It doesn't even need to be on the same day, or even on a weekend (I often take my Sabbath on Mondays, as many ministers do). Taking Sabbath time is something we can do to heal and restore ourselves, and, as I now realize, benefits the planet as well.

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands... Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.

~Henry David Thoreau

Amazing Grace

2008-04-17T11:42:00.005-04:00

Last night I led devotional chanting at a spiritual community in a nearby city. There were about twenty or so people there, really grooving on singing love songs to Spirit in many languages and from many faiths. I felt like I was splashing in a fountain of joy as the sound of the voices and an array of instruments filled the space.

What the group may not have realized, as we were enjoying a couple of hours of bliss together, was that during the hour-long drive in the car on the way there, I had been complaining to my husband non-stop about all the things that I thought were wrong with my life--what wasn't going well, who and what were the sources of my disappointment (as if disappointment is caused by something external), and so on. I will spare you the gory details. Let it suffice to say that I had a real self-pity fest for about sixty miles. Doug was great at giving me empathy, and suggesting new ways to look at areas where I felt stuck. But I was resistant-- I really wanted to wallow in it and milk it for all it was worth, while I had him captive in the car.

And then, we had a job to do, so out of necessity I had to dip into the reservoir of love that was inside me and become that. It's amazing how we can do that when we are called to do so.

During the singing I noticed one woman who seemed to have a glow about her. I'll call her "K." She had a radiant smile, infectious enthusiasm, and a sense of deep peace that emanated from her. I was drawn to her energy and went up to speak with her afterward. One thing that is very interesting about K is that she is blind and deaf. She explained to me that she had gone blind at an early age (in one eye due to a doctor's mistake as a result of a botched laser surgery procedure, and a few years later in the other eye due to a degenerative condition). Then, one day she woke up and suddenly found herself deaf. It had happened overnight. She now has limited hearing only in one ear with the help of a cochlear implant. In order for her to hear, others need to speak into a transmitter that relays the signal to her ear.

K also told me that, after she lost her sight and her hearing, she was seriously injured in an automobile accident and almost died. It took her years to recover from the physical injuries she sustained.

Despite her challenges, K works as a massage therapist. Her sense of touch is not impaired in the least, and I got the sense that she is a skilled and sensitive bodyworker. She also is an athlete.

What is amazing to me is that despite her physical challenges, she is completely upbeat and positive. She talks about her condition with absolutely no hint of resentment or self-pity in her voice. Now, if anyone were to have a chronically negative outlook on life, I would think that someone with such "heavy karma" would have a lot to complain about. There is much to potentially wallow in there. But K was more positive, alive, and energetically clear than most "normal" people I know.

This was one of those slap-in-the-face experiences that totally burst my "poor me" bubble. Poof! Gone! I saw all the things that I had been kvetching about in the car just dissolve in the light of this woman's spiritual presence.

I am in a completely different space today. Often we never know how we touch others, how simply our presence and loving hearts can be deeply inspiring and healing to another person. Perhaps K will never know the impact she had on me last night. My experience with her is not one I am likely to forget. and perhaps next time I get sunk in a snarly emotional place, her image will come back to me as a reminder of what the human heart/spirit is capable of, no matter what happens in our lives. Truly Amazing Grace.

I would love to hear from others about people who have inspired you in the same way, and about unexpected meetings with people who have shifted your perspective.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therin to be content. ~Helen Keller

Under the Cherry Tree

2008-04-16T10:08:00.001-04:00

Well, I started this blog and then left for the Southwest for two weeks, so I'm just getting back to writing. My husband, Doug, and I were traveling throughout Arizona and New Mexico. We took in some of the “greatest hits” of the natural world, hiking in the Grand Canyon and on the beautiful trails of Sedona, and we also enjoyed the richness of the art and culture of Santa Fe. It was also an interfaith pilgrimage of sorts, as we visited some spiritual centers of various faiths. We stayed overnight at the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram in Taos, where they have a Hanuman Temple (honoring the Hindu monkey god), and we visited the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. We toured a Native American Pueblo near Taos, and visited the Santuario de Chimayo, where 300,000 Catholics make pilgrimages each year, often on foot, to experience what is believed to be the miraculous healing powers contained within the soil there. We collected some of the dry, red dirt, which we will use for a healing ritual at Common Heart.

When we were at the Upaya Zen Center, we were fortunate to attend a dharma talk by Roshi Joan Halifax, the founder of the Center. She spoke of how she had just come back from a trip to China and Japan. In Japan the cherry trees were just blooming, and there were groups of people everywhere celebrating the blossoming by sitting under the trees getting completely drunk. And she noted how that was a really “interesting” way to respond to the awakening of spring. Why celebrate with numbing out, with doing something that makes us unconscious?

Roshi Joan went on to suggest that we can choose to respond in a different way. We can choose to pay exquisite close attention to what is going on around us. We can be completely present while enjoying the blossoming. “Our lives are so short,” she said. “Why not be fully awake? Why not live like a Buddha?” And for some of us the Buddha may be Christ, or Mohammed, or some other being who inspires us, who call us to be awake, to be courageous, to embody Love.

And this being awake includes all of life—we can be awake to the beauty and the miraculous cycles of nature, and also to the pain and suffering that humans experience. The Dalai Lama, in response to the current crisis in Tibet, has said “My heart is breaking, and I still sleep at night.”

Can we let our hearts break, and still sleep at night? The words of the Dalai Lama remind us that there is a way to open to the suffering and heartbreak of the world, and still rest in the deep peace of God (or, our true nature, as another way of framing it).

So, friends, may you take in the beauty of the blossoming with full awareness, AND be willing to let your heart break for what is going on in Tibet, in Iraq, in Darfur, or perhaps in your own life. May you be present to all of it, and may you sleep in peace each night.

Reflections on Easter

2008-03-23T00:11:00.005-04:00

This is a powerful Time, with the Spring Equinox (Ostara), the full moon, and Easter Sunday all happening within a few days of one another.

I didn’t grow up as a Christian, so I didn’t have a true sense of the holiness of Easter Sunday. Rather, I grew up as totally secular Jew, assimilated into mainstream American Christian culture. So, we were Jews that “celebrated” Easter, not in a religious sense, but as cultural observance. The Easter Bunny came and brought me a basket of goodies every year. We colored eggs and I wore my frilly dress and Easter bonnet. My grandparents would take me to the Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue, to walk with everyone in their finery and flowery hats. And, we went to the Plaza Hotel to see the giant, 6-foot tall chocolate egg.

Today I experience Easter in a very different way. So, I thought I’d share some thoughts about the significance of this day, as seen through my adult, interfaith eyes.

The roots of Easter are very ancient, predating the story of Christ. Easter gets its name from the Teutonic Goddess of spring and the dawn, Eostara (or Ostara). She is responsible for Nature regenerating in the spring. Her main symbols were the bunny (which represented fertility, due to the way they proliferate) and the egg--also a symbol of fertility and birth, and represented the cosmic egg of creation. Decorating eggs is an ancient pagan custom.

In the Celtic Faerie tradition, it was customary to leave offerings out for the faery folk. It was believed that the fairies, if not honored with gifts, would make trouble for people in their lives. So, at the time of the Eostara festival, it was the tradition to leave something sweet out for those little faires (which is probably where we got the tradition of the baskets of candy, eggs, and such brought by the Easter Bunny).

The Festival of Eostara is actually the spring equinox. The day was eventually Christianized and associated with the resurrection rather than as an earth festival. But, because the Equinox and Easter often fall close together, many Catholics and other Christians who celebrate Easter see this holiday as being synonymous with rebirth and rejuvenation; the symbolic resurrection of Christ is reflected in the awakening of the plant and animal life around us.

The way I see it, the Christ is an energy that is alive here and now.

Christ is alive in every bud that opens. Christ is alive in every tender new blade of grass. Christ calls to us in the song of every bird. Christ is reborn with every baby lamb, with every crocus that springs up out of the ground. The spring rains bring Christ’s gift of healing and renewal. Everywhere we look we can see Christ.

And, Christ is alive in us. Christ lives in every human being, as the potential for awakening, for love & compassion to arise within our hearts, for healing, for expanded awareness, for reconnecting with the Source.

Christ Consciousness, or what’s also referred to as Living Christ, is the aspect of the divine that exists in each of us as potential, as the seed of our awakening, and becomes manifest by our loving and mindful actions. This is the same as what the Buddhists call Buddha Nature, or that potential for each one of us to awaken into buddhahood.

So Eastertime is an invitation to open to and experience our own personal resurrection, which is our awakening to the Christ Consciousness within, allowing the Living Christ to work through us, to move beyond our false sense of separateness.

Christ said “I and the Father are one.” He clearly recognized the truth of non-separation from God, of non-duality.

We can go over the story of the historical Christ year after year, but I believe it is much more meaningful and transformative to touch the Living Christ within ourselves, to die into what is limiting us and experience our own personal resurrection, our own transcendence and spiritual rebirth.

The Living Christ is alive in each one of us, as potential for realizing and manifesting the magnificence of who we are. Each one of us is a unique expression of the living Christ, the living Buddha, the Divine Presence.

I’ll leave you with a poem by Edward Hayes. May you enjoy the blessings of this time, whatever and however you celebrate.

A Seed Psalm

Awaken, you buried seeds
Asleep in your earthen tombs!
Rise up with joy to break forth
The hard coffins of your shells!

Your Eastertime has come;
The song of the dove
Is heard over the softening land.
Winter has hidden,
And Spring now dances on your graves
To waken the dead.

Awaken, seeds of holiness
Buried deep within me.
Rise up to fulfill your destiny
Whose time has come.

For sanctity is scribbled
Bold within my blood and brain.
Onward and beyond
Have I been called
Even before I felt the sun
Or knew the earth around me.

May spring enchant the saint,
Shy and hesitant within me,
And set the rhythm for my sluggish feet
In a dance of holy yearning.

Time is on My Side

2008-03-21T18:10:00.002-04:00

Time is on My Side.

I have really no idea what that expression means. All I hear is Mick Jagger’s whiny voice from decades past, as I try to “practice what I preach” about living in the present moment. Lately, I’ve been going into overwhelm mode very easily, with a continual complaint that seems to loop around in my brain with the following thoughts:

“I have too much to do.”.

“I don’t have time to_______ (fill in the blank).”

“I’m overwhelmed.”

“There’s not enough time to get everything done.”

And it goes on ad nauseum. Does this sound familiar? I have a sneaking suspicion that I am not alone in feeling this way.

I have two mental images that describe what my struggles with time feel like. The first is the image of an egg carton that holds a dozen eggs. I have 18 eggs, and I’m trying to fit them into the carton. So I keep taking some out and putting others in, but, oh, no, now THESE don’t fit in, where do I make room for them? No matter how many strategies I use to move the eggs around, they will not all fit it. And I can’t squeeze them in because you know what will happen.

The other image is a little more dramatic: When I feel like I’m racing against time to keep up with my to-do list, I get this feeling that I’m in one of those dungeons with moving walls. All four walls are closing in on me (is that even mechanically possible??), and oh my gosh, I’ve got to get all this stuff done before …SPLAT!

So this mind loop, with all these thoughts and images, has pretty much been the prevailing attitude in my head over the past several months.

Sometimes, in order for something to shift, one has to “hit bottom”, as they say in 12 step programs. And the other day, I crashed.

After a good session with my life coach and a good cry with my husband, I realized that all this feeling of overwhelm is simply a habit I’ve learned. It’s where I channel all my nervous energy, and it becomes an excuse not to live fully, not to step powerfully into life.

And, I began to open to the possibility that perhaps this idea that there is not enough time is NOT REAL. It’s a thought that I’ve believed and perpetuated, a groove that’s worn deep in my being.

My friend Jill, a minister from Philadephia, is one of those people who just does everything and seems to get it all done. She works full time and does her ministry work after hours, publishes a newsletter, and leads spiritual study groups. I asked her once how she finds time for it all without being frazzled, and she said, “It’s a spiritual practice. I just tell myself that there is enough time to get all the things done that really need to get done. I just don’t allow the idea that there’s not enough time to enter my mind.”

So yesterday morning, with the Spring Equinox, I prayed and asked Spirit for help around finding a healthier, more positive relationship with time. I asked God to give me the willingness to try something different, to step courageously into a new mindset. And from that clear mind, perhaps some action steps may come clear around how I move through time and the commitments I make.

What came through is that I can try this as a fun experiment. Yes, the “F word.” Fun.

And, just the day before, I was getting a massage, one of the things I’ve found to be an essential part my self-care. I was telling Kellie, my massage therapist, that I was all tense because I’d been feeling overwhelmed, and that I was having a difficult relationship with time. At the end of the session, she touched my feet gently and said, “Okay Jody, time is on your side.”

Somehow, the way she said it, and perhaps the relaxed, receptive place I was in to receive it, made it feel like a mantra given to me by a great sage.

Time is on my side.

So today, I hold it in my consciousness as a practice, as play, as my new experiment. I’m keeping my mantra steadily in my awareness. Even though it still sounds like Mick Jagger.

The moment you enter the Now with your attention, you realize that life is sacred. There is a sacredness to everything you perceive when you are present. The more you live in the Now, the more you sense the simple and profound joy of Being and the sacredness of all life.

~Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

The “I” of the Storm

2008-03-18T15:20:00.003-04:00

This morning in meditation, I sit with the age-old question, “Who am I?”

Not that I am trying to get a definitive answer—spiritual teacher Adyashanti tells us that the question “who am I?” is not designed to get an answer, but rather to dissolve the questioner.

As I sit in stillness with “who am I?” circling gently like an eagle in the sky of my awareness, an image comes to me. It is the image of changing weather patterns. Snow, changing to sleet, changing to rain, then clouds giving way to a shining sun.

If I were to ask, “What is Ithaca, New York?” I couldn’t answer snowy, or sunny, or rainy, or cold, or muggy. It is all of those things, and none of those things alone. There isn’t any one weather report that encapsulates the whole picture of Ithaca.

My aliveness is also a changing weather report of sorts—sometimes stormy, rainy, balmy, sweltering, mild. As I sit in meditation, I see an image of myself as a storm system, perhaps a hurricane or tornado. Just a movement of swirling energy, emotions, thoughts, feelings, life force (Prana, in the Yogic tradition), ideas, creativity—all just passing through.

My job is to bring my awareness to the place in the Center, the eye, where there is calm and spaciousness, rather than being whipped around in the whirlwind of emotion, thought, etc. My practice is to stay in the Center, where I can calmly view all these changing winds from a vantage point of stillness and peace. Sitting in the eye of the storm—that is what it means to be “centered.”

Now, the question remains: Who is it that sits in the Center? Who is it that is watching the whirling energy? This is the next layer of inquiry…

Later, I share these thoughts with a neighbor of mine, and he refers to me as “Hurricane Jody.” It’s a funny image, and often a true one, as I blow through my world with thoughts and emotions frenetically spinning, sometimes leaving messes that I later have to go back and clean up.

I’d like to think that my spiritual practice is mitigating some of the damage I do as I pass through, that I’m not just a destructive wind, but also an eye, a center, an oasis of peace. And, as I move through time and space, I invite others to dwell in that peace, to join me in living from the Center.

Sometimes we may get sucked in by centrifugal force into the dramas, fears, addictive behaviors, and confusion of human existence, but that calm Center is always inviting us back.

Divine Spirit, may I live in peace today, in the centered stillness that is my true nature, and may the stillness I cultivate be a living invitation to others to join me there.

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to practice.