Bird Song

Hermitage- Early Morning

The woods outside the hermitage are not silent. Two nights ago an owl hoo-hu-hoo hooo-hooo-ed immediately outside the sleeping loft window at 2am. For quite some time.
Somewhat more pretty and more haunting than a car alarm which I had been accustomed to in Calgary. But no less loud.
So what's the difference?
Today the sun gazes its long arm through the brush and trees. Gazes at me through the window.
And from this light I see hummingbirds (zzz-zzz) flittering from little pink flowers. The high pitched alarm (chip-chip-chip-chip-chip) of one bird calls loud two trees away. Shortly after other chip-chip's away. Noisy little woods.
But I realise that the reason why the birds make their calls- even next to and on top of each other is that dropped beneath it a field of stillness reverberates in all directions. The silence of the woods.
Because of this the birds can hear each other. Without that background quiet the birds would not call because they could not hear each other.
Unlike in the city with its constant strain of bodies and machines.
Perhaps that is why the birds leave or give up their singing.

Its been a week and a half since sesshin- that intense back breaking week of silent meditation which which we all scramble while remaining upright.
It takes time to recover from the work of no work.
Time to readjust the mental landscape.
Here among the trees I hear myself again because the background chatter is gone.
The city of fear, anger, delusion is miles away.
Instead there is just the softness of a mind abandoning its own terrorism.
Soft enough to hold a field of stillness. Where finally I can hear my own voice.

Waiting for Spring

I have been waiting for inspiration to arise so I could write about it. For the last month I have been sitting with a kind of dryness. Not anything terrible- just an ordinary silent dryness. One needs something liquid within for words and the spirit to flow. It feels as if this may have finally arisen.
My books came by way of my sangha friends in Vancouver who very kindly transported them to me on Saturday.
I have stacked them into a corner of the hermitage and picked out some of my favourites to look through- mostly poetry. It feels as if I have some friends sitting on the little wood bench waiting to speak with me when I come home.
This Saturday was a "day of mindfulness". Thich Nhat Hanh says the first days of mindfulness were started in the '60's for the youth social service society in Vietnam who needed a day of rest and meditation between working to help people during the war. We practice days of mindfulness in the midst of ordinary lives here- but I think no less important.
Every first Saturday of the month Mountain Lamp invites friends to visit us for a day retreat. We practice sitting meditation, chanting, formal lunch in the meditation hall, walking outdoors, total relaxation (a guided lying down meditation- also known as napping) and sometimes dharma discussion.
This Saturday it rained- as usual. Walking from the kitchen to the meditation hall with my lunch of carrot soup I watched the drops of water splash into the puddle. The ripples circling out in stillness- each drop particular and unmoving- just this drop and this one. I delight in these moments of perfection, of clarity.
I have also been practicing walking like a mountain- which has been a part of our practice period. I'm still not sure what it means to walk like a mountain but I have been enjoying the feeling. As I step I can see the vast rock, tree and snow of the mountain. It feels large and encompassing- as if I might harbour forests and giant rocks.
I enjoy our days of mindfulness because of the community of friends that show up just to practice their clarity. There is something truly precious about this. Meditation is better, the mind clearer and the heart more open. I think we are meant to practice together. Whatever is meant by individual wisdom, it seems to me to be nothing by comparison to even a handful of friends sitting together inviting the spirit of understanding.
Perhaps I am only clarified by others. I arise with others. And so it is with birds, bushes, trees and ferns. And so it is with the sky and dirt, chickens and horses. And so it is with daffodils and purple crocuses.
I'll post a picture of our spring flowers shortly.

Dear Friends may spring arise in your heart also.

Mythical Spokane

We had snow and power outages for the last couple weeks.
The snow brought bright skies and stark white peaks.
Also cold feet and stomping through the softness to the meditation hall.
We had a guest arrive late on Tuesday evening. She made it into the house in the dark without a flashlight.

I woke up in a chill the morning of our departure to Spokane. 2am in the Hermitage. I looked out the window to snow softly accumulating outside. I stepped down the ladder of the loft to turn up the heater. No warm breeze as I turned the knob. I flipped the light switch. No light.

I thought of my sleep options in an power outage. There are fireplaces in the house but I didn't want to disturb Eileen, Jack and our guest. The zendo has a gas heater but it takes two hours to get the heat to a reasonable temperature. I looked around and picked up my -17 degrees sleeping bag and padded back up the ladder with it. Snuggled deep inside with blankets on top I fell deep into a undisturbed slumber.

The rest of the morning was a dazed flurry of inexact randomness to get Jack and I to the airport on time. I got my car stuck in snow coming down the hill. Jack brought the tractor up and helped create a path far enough out the lane to get me to Mosquito Lake road. In total the travel took a two hour drive through snow and ice, a five block walk from the Seattle Practice Center, a half hour light transit ride to the airport and a half hour delay for the flight and an hour in the air. I could have driven to Spokane in the time it took me to get myself there by plane.

Half the struggle of this Zen training is the travel it takes to get there. My life of practice is always a life of journey.
This is not new to me or these times.
Zen students throughout space and time have been sent from monastery to monastery to inquire of one or another teacher. I have read about it frequently in the histories. Why should we be any different?

Our guest remarked on how surprising it was that I was leaving a retreat center to go on retreat. Indeed. It might be different in a retreat center that is running a full schedule but we are still cobbling things together from around the region resulting in the teachers (and thus the students) traveling from local sangha to local sangha for retreats.

Spokane is a mythical town for me. I've watched their television in Calgary since a child and always wondered what it was like. A huge metropolis it is not. Less than the size of Red Deer it has a little airport with only a few gates. I couldn't quite get my mind around the geography. It is rocky and hilly with long tall pine trees standing seeming independent of each other in the white snow fields. Almost like a mountain landscape but with no mountains. And certainly not the smooth plain and rolling hills of Calgary. I suppose they call it foothills but a different kind than I'm used to.

We were only three days on retreat but I found myself moving in a deep quiet place. I enjoyed the silent companionship of the lovely sanghas of Spokane and Idaho. Two elderly Catholic nuns run the retreat centre and much of the space has well kept atmosphere of the 1970's. There is great diligence in taking care of ones living space like this. I held and honored their unaltered spirit as I walked their paths in the snow and turned up the heat (Electric Living) in my very own bed.

The nuns put out a lot of bird seed in both the front and back of their house so there are many birds of all kinds of colour on view from the dining hall. Two little black birds with a forehead plumage bobbed their heads amidst the many chickadees. A large thrush with red touched wings played in the bird seed. Back and forth the birds shared space and food. On the morning of the last day the thrush was found dead- hit the invisible window. Always our relationship with birth and death hauling itself before us. And yet somehow we are always surprised.

The meditation hall is in a converted barn. Very dark with soft carpet. In early evening I stood in the snow under the starlit sky waiting for interview (dokusan) with the teacher. The air was cold- even by Calgary standards. In order to get to the interview room (Jack's hut) it was necessary to walk half way up a short hill. I waited for the bell to ring. When the person ahead would come out and I could go inside.

My face got chilled by the wind so I turned to face the ease of the hill behind me. I stared up at the large boulders hanging on the hill. It seemed a space out of time. I remembered the second ancestor in China standing outside Bodhidharma's hut in the snow. I am not that brave.
Still I stood in the chill and met my wandering mind. I heard the bell and the crunch of the snow as I hurried up the hill.

We are not living in a mythical time but sometimes myths arise before us and we just walk through them.
To misquote T.S. Eliot: History is now and Spokane.

First days at the Mountain

Dear Friends,

I have arrived at Mountain Lamp. I took a long slow drive to get here stopping to visit friends as I went. The drive from Kelowna to Vancouver was snowy and difficult to see. At one point I found myself driving behind a snowplow- which was helpful because the snow was cleared in front of me but also not very helpful as it was going only 40 Km/hr. I decided to pass him. By the time I hit Chilliwack the snow had turned to rain and the fields were beautifully wet and green. Its such a different climate on this side of the mountains!
As I drove into Mountain Lamp I found Eileen (my dharma teacher and chief resident of the community) pruning apple trees outside. She was delighted to see me!
Walking in the mud the next day I was delighted by the smell of the earth, the wood and the green grass. Everything is covered in moss in these parts and I have come understand why- it freezes very little and it rains very much.
The Mountain Lamp property consists of a large house that looks over a little valley of fields, a meditation hall which was converted from a two car garage, a cottage under construction, a garden which is mostly asleep at the moment, a hendo (chicken coop), a yurt, a hermitage and two outhouses. I live in the hermitage. When the cottage is completed in June I will move into the big house.
For now my living space is a small room with a little kitchen (sink without running water and a one burner hot plate) and a loft which is just big enough for a single mattress. It actually suits my needs quite well- although I’d locate the outhouse a little closer for convenience. At night on my way to the outhouse, I can hear the owls hooing in the trees so there are some advantages.
At first walking into the hermitage felt a little strange because it has mostly been used as an interview or dokusan room. This is the place where you meet the meditation teacher. It can be a bit intimidating to sit down and have a little one on one about ones practice. For days as I entered the hermitage I wanted to bow to the room. I suppose on some level there is still a teacher greeting me at the door. I love that the steps up to the hermitage are made of two beautiful stones.
We meet early in the morning for meditation. Not terribly early by zen standards- only 6 or 6:30am. Unfortunately we have yet to determine how to set the heater to turn on before we arrive so its usually around 10 degrees and doesn’t warm up much until we’re finished sitting. I wear my toque and two layers of blankets. Not very zen at all but I do enjoy practicing there. The smell of incense, candlelight and the slow rise of sun from the zendo window doors helps me to breathe and look deeply.
I have learned how to take care of the chickens. They are very easy creatures to get along with although I think they sometimes don’t get along with each other. They are laying three or four eggs a day. An indication, apparently, that spring is coming. Its pretty much spring here most of the year I think.
I have also begun to learn apple tree pruning but it seems a bit of mysterious art. Hard to tell exactly what to cut and what not to cut so the tree grows strong and with much fruit. We have fire going outside when its not raining to burn the wood. Now all we need is some cheese to make apple wood smoked cheese!
Its evening and I will settle in now to read and breathe on my own. I’m looking forward to going to Seattle on the weekend for a meditation intensive they call Zenkai. I expect it will be strange to be in a big city after nearly two weeks out here away from the noise and lights.
Wishing you all love and wellness.
Tracey

Listen, Listen

Besides all of the distractions sometimes life seems a moment to moment bliss. I sit with my eyes open and I can not contain the energy that streams through my limbs. It feels like my blood is on fire.

Some days I sit and while I concentrate I hear the soft sounds of life- the cars on the road, the hum of the fridge or the rickety noise of the heater.

And it is like
a lover walking the room
naked.

Every sound is a kaleidoscope of colour. Rainbows streaming.
And what is it?
The cough of a neighbour, the paws of my cat on the hard wood, the taps of my fingers on the keyboard.

In this calm place I know something beyond myself.
Any word you say splits it in two.
Don’t say God, don’t say neurons, don’t say universe, don’t say transcendence.
Don’t Don’t say it.

What did you hear today?

Responding to Suffering

I stare at my telephone, look at the buttons and wait. I’ll give it to half past the hour and then I’ll call. Give someone else a chance. Other people will want to go, will want the experience. But how do I know if anyone else is going to call? Maybe they’re all busy at work, or too tired or didn’t get the message.
And here I am- aware, able and available.
I pause, stare out the window at the blue sky, at the wind breeze through the back alley, picking up dust and plastic bags. I can feel my feet on the floor, and the warmth of my skin. Things are easy and I am healthy.
As if I don’t know what I’m doing I pick up the phone and dial the disaster response number. I leave my name and phone number. I’m here for the next hour and I am available right now. Click.
Maybe they won’t call me back and it will be an ordinary evening. I would like to visit the Soto Zen sangha and catch up on some extra quiet zazen.
After another hour in the office I put my jacket on and start cleaning up. I have entirely forgotten the disaster response team request. As I walk out the door the phone rings.
“Are you available?”
“Yes, I am”
“Good, we’ll need you until 11pm.”
I get the address and prepare to leave. In the lunch room the news is on the television. Smoke is rising from the condo fire. Black gusts of wind. Water pouring into the building from the fire hoses. The flames have subsided by now but have not been fully extinguished. Traffic has been redirected around the nearby streets. I wonder how I will get to the nearby reception centre. I study the map and decide on a circuitous method to avoid traffic delays.
People are coming home from work, some of them will have seen the news and some of them won’t.
Despite being rush hour the traffic is not as bad as expected. The wind continues to flare through the streets. This has made putting out the fire difficult. Even the strength of the water in the fire hoses are blown away in the gusts, not reaching their target. It is a warm March day and the smell of the air is fresh and clear.
I drive into the large church parking lot and stop next to a police car. An ambulance is also here and so are the media. Their large antenna poking through the scene of cars and people hustling through the doors.
Everyone looks very ordinary. It could be a music concert or theatre event. Booths are set up around all the rooms inside. A registration and information desk, a snack table, a semi-circle of chairs in the auditorium. The large wooden cross sits on the side of the stage. People have picked up bibles to write forms on. I sit down at the table for my duty station and sign in.
Nothing is really happening in our department. We’ve offered blankets and small kits to help people through the night. People wander in and out of the room. Everyone is anticipating announcements from the firemen and police. A crowd gathers at the appointed time but no announcement. Children play and wander around the chairs. A group of friends or family have gathered around a circle of their own and are telling stories. Nearly everyone is on and off their cell phones. The firemen are late, unexpectedly still battling the fire, although its now been seven hours since it started. Its still not over.
The crowd turns as the big men in dirty yellow uniforms enter the room. The weight of their equipment is heavy on their backs as they take the stage with police officers.
Very little information is provided that hasn’t already been offered before. There are two buildings evacuated, one that has the fire in it and the other unaffected except that the power and gas has been shut off because it is attached to the other building. They make it clear, no one is going home tonight, period. Not to get your wallet, your cat or your car. They need to maintain complete evacuation until the fire is clear and it is safe to restart the power in the second building.
Surprisingly there are no murmurings of outrage or shock. No one gets outright angry - although the man who asks how it started seems pretty disgruntled. He does not get his question answered. There are pleas and requests of negotiation- I have nothing on me. It would take two seconds to get my purse. My cats are frightened. The man on the stage is clear and steady, not apologetic or disagreeable, just factual. No one can enter the buildings.
I am pulled into the lodging table to alleviate the immediate rush after the announcements are made. Now we will put everyone who has no where else to go in hotels. Its only for three nights, they don’t have to pay but after that they are on their own. We know this won’t be enough for everyone.
A very polite and straight line develops in front of our table. I ask each individual to sit down in the chair opposite me and ask them if they need somewhere to stay for the evening, how many people and if they have a vehicle to get them to the hotel. Mostly this act is simply filling in forms but it is not just filling in forms. I am surprised at how stable, solid and calm everyone is. So many of them have lost all of their possessions. Some of them are waiting to hear if their pets have been saved. The room is heavy with tears not expressed. In some ways I wish they would cry instead of being polite.
A woman sits down next to me and I ask how many. Her child translates for me. He seems used to this role. Its not clear that he knows what I’m saying, only how to change the words into a different language. She doesn’t look afraid at all. I wonder if she understands.
One woman sitting in a chair opposite another aide worker after asks, “is this a disaster?!”
“Yes, it is.” I say. We nod around the table because she doesn’t believe me. The disaster services signs are a clear indication. I’m not sure what this means to her or why she needs the question answered.
Some people are red-faced and tear streaked. Some are quiet or sincerely grateful. As I’m filling in one form, calculating the cost of the hotel a soft voice asks, do we have to pay for this? No, no. I say. We pay for this.
Oh, thank you very much. He turns and looks at his wife and child.
And on it goes like this. Very human. Not like a shopping mall or even a retreat centre. There is little expectation or entitlement. The flames burnt it away.

Pizza is ordered and many people wander over to eat. People eat while standing or holding on to children or talking on their cell phones. I have barely looked up from my station. I have forgotten everything but the task, the body in the chair, the moment.
Later that night the head of the operation will make clear that no one is going to live in the one building again. What isn’t fire damaged is sitting in water.
Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone, altogether gone.

A man in a nice suit walks up to me. Has just got off work. He missed the announcement. He hasn’t registered yet. I hand him a form he fills in at the table. He seems light and cheerful, makes a joke. I ask him which building he is in. He tells me. I’m surprised. It is the destroyed building. You know what happened right? I ask.
He says, yes. I know. I continue filling in the paperwork. I don’t think he understands. I send him to get some clothes. Does he realise these will be his only clothes?

Someone from my team has been offering to relieve me but I had been so absorbed it didn’t register until it late into the evening. I pick up my things. A few of my many things and walk out the door. The dark sky lit by the lights of vehicles. The media seem to have left.
I drive past the scene of the fire. Police and firemen are still there- the road closed. This happens every day. Somewhere. I am certain. A house is burning down.
The night is over. I am happy to go home to my cat. I missed zazen but I still enjoyed the company of Bodhisattvas.

Sailing the Sea of Cortez

Cabo San Lucas to Mazatlan

Back in December Cam was talking about sailing across the sea to explore the mainland coast of Mexico. A 36 hour sail in open water, alone. He mentioned, casually. Possibly longer depending on the sea. No where to stop and not a human in sight.
Cam not only makes these things seem possible, he makes them seem like he has done it a million times before. No big deal. I’m sure if you ask him now he will say the same thing. Da nada.
Not until you inquire more deeply do you learn from his stories a continuous and remarkable ability to pass as close as possible to death as you can and still survive. He had already done so at least once during this current trip.
I, of course, I have no such ability. And therefore do little sailing. Nonetheless I was heading down for a visit at that time and hoped to help make his first crossing a little more safe by providing night watch. My sailing skill would only have made things worse so I stayed away from the tiller.
This is how I found myself late into the night staring at the blackness wondering if the light dead ahead was a large star or a boat we were about to sail into.
“Should I wake him?” I wondered. He had just got to sleep and was snoring in the cabin. I went back to reading my book. Either it would get closer and I’d know for sure or it wouldn’t and there was nothing to worry about.

Cam is especially fond of his boat- Dream Chaser. Its a 32 foot Trimaran, F something or other. A pretty boat in my opinion- white, slick and streamlined. People always walk up to us in the marina and ask about it. Ooo, I bet its fast, they all say. To which the reply is- yes, yes it is. In fact, under the right conditions, the boat can sail faster than wind speed. Which, because I’m not a sailor or physicist boggles my mind. How is that possible?
The wind pushes the boat, not the other way around, I keep thinking to myself. Its made of fiberglass and is very light in comparison to other boats. The relationship between the weight of the boat and the size of the sails is what makes the speed possible, under the right conditions.
Unfortunately for us we had been under motor for nearly twenty hours because we had chosen a night of dead calm to cross the sea. This was not intentional. The “forecast” had been for light winds in the right direction (from the north). Sadly, we had no wind to speak of. I kept thinking of my friends at home all wishing us safety had gone a little overboard.
Someone later had joked to us at the marina that all you needed to sail the boat was to blow on the sails. I have to report that is not true. You don’t need a lot of wind but you still need some.
Earlier in the day when the wind went dead, the stillness of the water was both exquisite and eerie. The sea is a dark green blue by day and in the stillness reflects absolute calm. There is nothing else to reflect. No birds, no trees, no tall buildings or hillside- just itself and the sky. I enjoyed breathing in the fresh smell of the water. The air clean and clear.
I knew that the sea was full of life. In the distance we could see large whales spouting water into the air. We had an accompaniment of dolphins following us for a short while who returned to fishing in another direction.
Beneath us must have been sea life of great and strange variety but where the water meets the sky little seemed to be happening.
Cam started the engine after getting the sails where he wanted them. Never a man to waste time. We had a place to be and we weren’t getting there at this rate. He set the motor for five knots which would get us to Mazatlan 36 hours after our departure from Cabo.
We were both very happy to leave Cabo. I’m sure its a delight for some people but not to me. The place is a desert but it has fully manicured golf courses among the gigantic resorts, the flashy tourist malls. It disturbs me. We spent the night anchored out listening to the Mexican tourist music as we drifted to sleep. In the morning we said goodbye to the banana boats, the tequila soaked tourists. Folks, of course, admired and watched as the boat sailed right out of the harbour.

We had made about 5 or 6 knots sailing for 6 hours before subcoming to to the calm and starting the engine.

Shortly after the sunset Cam went to sleep in the cabin- with all his gear still on- pfd, jacket, pants, no shoes, of course, and I settled in to watch the water.
I had my own head lamp on so I could read and see around the boat but all I wanted to do was watch the darkness as the boat swiftly parted the water. Motoring the boat like this was both exhilarating and terrifying. The heavy darkness is worrisome because there is no foresight. The immediacy of the boat, the places where my headlamp reached and my own body drew my mind inwards, became my only world. I could hear the engine running and the water splashing over the hulls and nets. And very little else.
By eleven thirty I realised I was starting to drift and if I stayed awake much longer the boat would not be in safekeeping. I looked down at Cam and he opened his eyes. He came up out of the cabin and I swiftly curled up in the warm bed, closed my eyes and let the rhythmn of the boat pull me into sleep.
Before I knew it Cam was looking down at me with the same hopeful look. I looked up and him and he said, “Oh, good.” He looked like he was about to fall asleep. It was 4:30am. He’d let me sleep a long time. The fresh cool air gave me a lift to wake up and I crawled back up out of the cabin. The same blackness, the same immediacy of awareness overcame me. But this time the stars were enormous, bright and too numerous to count. I could barely distinguish the constellations with so many stars blurring the spaces between them. There really is little darkness in our galaxy when it is possible to see into space.

And so it was only half an hour later that I found myself pondering the bright light ahead which could so easily have been just another star. After finishing the chapter of my book, I stood up and peered in the darkness. I was quite certain it was a boat, or at the very least a lighted buoy. Something, at any rate, to be avoided.
During our journey of 190 nautical miles we encountered only one boat. We had literally no other human contact the entire time. And this one boat in the whole sea we were headed straight for. Miraculous and odd.
I reached down to Cam lying in bed and touched him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes. “We’re headed for a boat straight ahead”
“How close?” he asked. A good question but I couldn’t honestly say. How close is a light in the blackness? Can you honestly know? Even if you aren’t at sea- can you answer this question? I stepped back so he could take a look.
He didn’t say much. I apologized for waking him. He noted that this was the point of a watch. I had, happily, done my job and proven my usefulness. I sat and watched as Cam changed our heading. It was very difficult to tell if we were passing the boat or going nowhere. The light did not seem to change in size or direction. This is the problem with watching the darkness, there is so little to compare relative size and distance.
Eventually Cam seemed satisfied with the course correction and went back to sleep.
I stared out into the darkness with my binoculars and waited. Eventually we passed the light and I could see. It was a shrimp boat with its nets out. Without the course correction we would have gone straight into them.
I crawled out to the bow of the boat and waited feeling the sea spit spray my face. We had accidentally caught some shrimp on the nets as we passed through the water. No doubt this was a part of the sea streaming with life.
As I sat on the bow suddenly, as if it had always been there, light drifted on to the nets. A gentle calm moved my heart. The sky was opening to blue. I sang my morning sutras and practiced my sitting meditation. The water brightened and the sun rose.
We had made it through the night.

As the morning opened up the wind also picked up. I looked down at Cam again. We could be sailing I thought. And once he was awake and I was making breakfast we picked up a great wind and sailed 10 knots for eight hours to find ourselves earlier than expected in Mazatlan.
What a gift to know the water and the wind in this way. I am grateful that Cam continues to carry me on his journeys and happy to know that he is still living the adventure.