One Foot Planted

I’ve always thought of writing as my true calling.  There is so much to say about the world and so much to share about my own ideas.  But more to the point, so much to share about the Divine.

But I have difficulty doing it.  I have a million and one reasons why I don’t have the time to write or don’t have a good idea to write about.  What stands in my way of writing on a daily basis?  Or of asking the Divine, as I am so often led to do, what should I do?  Just purely my own ego.

An ego that says, “I’m not good enough to write.”  “Others have said it all.”  “There is nothing new I really have to say.” “It’s embarrassing to share my thoughts, to be exposed.”  “I’m not a good enough writer.”

Often I think of my ego as the power that keeps me safe.  It guards me from others by helping me protect my space.  But in the world of the Divine, ego is just the way I separate myself from feeling the energy of oneness that connects us all.  My ego, which has its own legitimate needs, will block me from sharing the reality of who I am.

I know with certainty that my ego will definitely show itself when it’s needed but then it just keeps going.  I become overrun with my own thoughts growing wild like the weedy vine that takes over my backyard fence, choking the best of my fragile and beautiful flowers.

I’ve been working for years to remove that barrier. Slowly and painstakingly, I identify what my ego is saying and meticulously shave and melt the ice block that covers my true and loving self.  Believe me, it’s a lot of work.  Everyday.

But I’m so clear that my ego is an obstacle to my best self.  My ego prevents me from really being there for another, from seeing another’s viewpoint, from being able to be there fully without fear of losing myself. My ego prevents me from learning because I am afraid to show what I don’t know. My ego stops me from being fully held by the Divine because I am “not worthy” of unconditional love.

In one of my most favorite quotes, Marianne Williamson writes about how we are blocked by our ego.   “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles)

For me the truth is, I can’t afford to be stopped and blocked by myself any longer.  I am living with cancer.  And I don’t have any time to waste.  I have to risk being my best self, everyday. For my life to be its most meaningful, I don’t have a choice.  And so for today, I’m writing.

I really never thought my mother would die.  She was a mystic who always seemed to have one foot planted in another realm.  And for that reason, never really seemed earthbound enough to need to transcend this realm.  But she did. And it’s still kind of shocking to my system to think that she is no longer reachable by the traditional medium of a simple telephone call.

Her passing was amazing.  She took to it like a duck to water.  She was clear she was passing into a higher realm, a place that was closer to Divine Light and she took every opportunity to demonstrate that.

She laughed on her deathbed in the way that Sarah laughed when God told her she would have a child so late in life. With an unbelievable joy about the blessings she already had and would be receiving.  She was surrounded by her children, granchildren and greatgrandchild and told each one of us to “all be good” knowing that our ability to continue to transcend our personal needs to spread goodness was really what mattered most in life. And she asked us to celebrate her life by continuing to live ours with joy and laughter.  It is one reason that I and my daughters have donned bright red nailpolish for her funeral — her signature color —  in honor of her love of life.

She continued to live til her last breath.  Day after day she removed the protective masks that had shadowed her during her lifetime.  Her fears.  Her need to protect her heart from love so she could not be hurt by loss.  She stripped herself down so that at the end of her days she was pure love and light. A lesson for all of us in how to live at our best.  To live fully may require us to continually remind ourselves of the beauty we are granted each day while looking at our own mortality face to face.

My mother’s passing will continue to add meaning to my life and those who surround me as we honor the many lessons she has shared.

I have found the pleasure button and it’s name is the Other.  There really is nothing which gives me as much joy, as much deep pleasure, as doing something for someone else.  Someone I know.  And sometimes, someone I don’t know.

And I’m not alone. In the U.S., we give about 2.5.% of our income to charitable causes.  And about a quarter of us volunteer either formally or informally.  In fact, about 61,800,000 American give about 8,100,000,000 hours of service to American communities.   (Visit VolunteeringInAmerica.gov for the rest of the stats.)

I get why people volunteer to help out.  It’s the thought that your life should be about more than yourself.  In the last couple of months I’ve kept wondering what my legacy is supposed to be.  And then, I realized that wasn’t exactly the right question.  ”My” legacy is not what’s important.  What’s important is “what does the earth, my community, the people that I love need?” “What can I provide?” It’s a much easier question to answer because it’s right in front of me everyday.

The point of my life is to help another.   If I help another, I really feel like I am squeezing the GodJuice down into life on a day-to-day basis.  Not just living with a sense of the Divine, but living with a sense of the Divine here on earth.

We need to give and we need to open ourselves to receive. None of us can live life on our own.  We all have needs that can only be met by someone outside of ourselves.  If we accept that, we can more easily reach out a hand to help.  And we can more easily reach out to ask for help.  The beauty of our humanity lives in the vulnerability we share; not in the distance we put between ourselves.  We are are inextricably linked one to the other and that inextricably links us to the Divine.  And, the Divine to us.

Sickness, trauma, death, destruction, devastation. They happen.  And that sucks.  I just don’t think the right question to ask is “why me?”  In some ways, these most personal tragedies aren’t really personal.  They are part of the cycle of life.   Devastating things can happen to anyone.  Earthquakes can happen anywhere.

We are vulnerable. If we think we have control over our lives, we are really living in illusion.  A friend recently stepped off a train and somehow ended up in the emergency room requiring brain surgery for the trauma he encountered when he fell.   Just a fluke.  Accidents happen.  Life is fragile.  All things we can easily say, but the truth is there are so many things we can not control.  And if we can’t control our birth or our death, the rest is really kind of a joke anyway.

The only thing we do have some control over is the container we hold our lives in.  What we weave around our experiences.  I have control over my attitude, the way I choose to experience what is happening to me.  I can perceive small problems as large; and large problems as spiritual teachings.

What I have learned recently is that if I approach my encounters with love in my heart, relationships with all people are smoother.  Sometimes this is simple.  I’m watching a driver budge into my lane, after I’ve been patiently and slowly moving toward the exit ramp.  I can be pissed.  Raise my blood pressure.  Raise my animosity toward humanity.  Or I can assume no malicious intent, and say to myself, that sometimes in life I get into the wrong lane and need someone to help me out too.

Sometimes it’s a lot harder. I want to see the opportunity that exists for me to learn even in the middle of sickness, trauma, death and loss.  Even in the midst of difficulty, we often see the gifts of the compassion of others.  We can see how we are all at the core connected in our human spirit. One.

Every closed door presents an opportunity to see life differently, expand the vista, try a new path. Of course sometimes, we’d still rather have had the option to vote “no” to the difficulty and “no” to the growth and instead we go kicking, screaming, or not at all, into a new perspective.

I happen to think that we are really living everyday to learn the bigger lessons in life. I think reality happens on different levels — what we’re doing in our lives and what that living means for the bigger journey we’re travelling on. And the only way it goes easily, is if we see ourselves as explorers, always moving forward.  It’s when we try to maintain the status quo, try to maintain control and hold on too tightly that we close ourselves off to the real gifts of living.

Is life really supposed to be fair?  Why do we have that expectation? Somewhere along the way I’m afraid that we get stuck in that childhood thought — “life is supposed to be fair” and it’s so disappointing to find out that what may be our rule, is not actually life’s rule.

If we accept that we are individuals, each on an individual journey, much of which we don’t even understand, the rules of fairness are just plainly not applicable.  You and I are not the same.  We do not need to learn the same lessons in life. So what might be a more difficult lesson for you, might be an easier lesson for me.  On its surface, prima facie, we don’t even really know what fairness is. Are we expecting that life will give us an equal amount of trouble and joy? Equal amounts to the others we know?

This struggle we put ourselves through to maintain an idealized version of fairness is not really even worth the effort or the thought or the energy.  Life being fair is wasted grief.  It’s living comparatively — my life is only more fair or less fair compared to someone else’s life.  And really, I just get to live my own life, even if someone’s does look better.

When I’m struggling with a problem, an emotional nadir, and I’m bogged down with how unfair it all is I’m really just diverting the power of my energy of acceptance.  By being a victim of the Life-is-Just-Not-Fair -To-Me-Fan club, I give up some of the power I do have to take up the charge of my own life.  I can certainly choose to ride that wave into the sandy beaches of despair, but quite honestly, it seems pointless.

I have changed my expectations.  I don’t even worry about whether it’s fair.  I repeat the mantra “We get to accept life on life’s terms.”  And that’s it.  That’s my starting point.  I don’t even think about turning lemons into lemonade.  I’m looking squarely at what I’m seeing and looking for the light, looking for the lessons, making meaning out of the place I find myself in my journey and moving forward. And thankfully, it is working.  I feel light, energized and willing to do the most with what I’ve been given.  This has been a big lesson for me.  And the best part of it, the easiest part of it, was making the switch.  All I had to do was give up that expectation.  Life isn’t fair.  Try it on.

I officiated at my uncle’s funeral this week.  He was not a particularly popular guy.  In fact, he really seemed to enjoy making it hard for people to get to know and to love him.  He had a real need to reject others before they had the opportunity to reject him.

From where I sit, it was all about his fear. And for the rest of us, it is all a part of our struggle in opening our own hearts to understand those around us.  To try to understand what they may not even understand themselves.  To try to see the goodness at the core, the soul, the heart of those who are protecting themselves from pain, isolation, separation, anxiety.

My Uncle Phil’s death represents a rip in the fiber of the universe.  I believe that all life is sacred and his life, like every life, has been put here for a purpose.  He has a Torah, his learnings, his story. He is part of the ancestral lineup that does impact generations upon generations to come. Because no matter how isolated we are, our life affects others, especially those closest to us including our children and grandchildren.

It is hard to hear many parts of Phil’s story.  He did not share many of his inner feelings.  He was a truly a man of his time.  He would do it “his way.”  And he was stubborn to the end.  We didn’t hear from him about his own childhood with a very difficult father. Or how he was raised as the only boy and the stress of being responsible for all the women in the family. We didn’t hear from him about the real emotional impact of his losses – losing his first wife, divorcing his second, and struggling in his last years to maintain his independence and his relationship.

We also didn’t hear from him how he grew up valuing the security that things could buy over people.  The tangible over the intangible. But we did see those insecurities – stockpiling items, using coupons, buying ten of something just because it had a good price, even if it was something he couldn’t even use.

Phil was a man who valued, more than anything, bringing that financial security, to his family.  Making sure they had enough he tried to give them the financial opportunity he fought so hard for. We see this even in the simple act that he made his own funeral plans so those who loved him didn’t have to.

So what is his Torah, his life story, for us?  We certainly learned much about how difficult my uncle made his own life and from that he has taught us many lessons about how to avoid being trapped by our own obstacles.  Learning to say “I love you” when we mean it.  Learning how to be gracious rather than righteous.  Learning how important it is that we can share our love and share our laughter.

But I know that my uncle’s Torah is way more than that.  Because I know his children.  And I know his grandchildren. And the legacy that Phil has been able to impart is really the legacy of their lives now. How they love. How they take responsibility.  And how they realize the importance of people over things.  Phil’s legacy, the best part of who he is, will forever be entwined with theirs in the choices they make in how to each live their own lives. And that will say everything we need to know about my Uncle.

A reading by Dana Shuster.

My grandfather was a farmer. The day before he died,
he planted a garden. A garden that nourished his family through the sunless season of mourning far into the golden season of harvest.

My grandfather was a farmer. Before he died he planted a lifetime of seeds. Diligently he planted honesty and reverence; inadvertently he planted gentleness and humor. Bounty enough to nourish me all the seasons of my life far into the planting season of my own child.

My heart goes to his family.  May they find comfort in their memories as they mourn his loss.

My 18-year-old son dressed himself up in his finest suit and took himself to a free swing dance lesson.  It was an act of courage.  Especially for the somewhat shy guy he is.

And it reminded me about how much we really need to step out to step into our lives.

To do that requires a sure sense that we trust ourselves enough to deal with the consequences of our action.  And how do we gain that self-trust, that sense of resiliency?  Only by doing, only by testing our steps and seeing our success along the way.  Or, even dealing with our failures.

It certainly helps when we have fans.  Those people who believe in us sometimes more than we believe in ourselves.  I have definitely had fans in my lifetime.  People who when I have wavered looked at me as though I had two heads, saying, “of course you can do that.”

One of those was Jason.  The very first guy who ever asked me to officiate at a wedding, his wedding.  We were coworkers, and he told me he wanted to have the person who officiated at his wedding be someone he considered really spiritual…and that was me.  Having never officiated at a wedding before, but so completely honored by his request, I could only accept the invitation. I have never had an experience like that.  I felt as though I was lifted by angel’s wings when I married this extraordinary couple.  So very much in love.  And so conscious these two were, Jason and Jess, that their relationship was more meaningful than anything else they would encounter in their lives.

I officiate at weddings very often now.  Each one is unique.  Each couple is a gift to me in my life.  Each one honors me by allowing me to be present at this particular juncture of joining.  Actually now I can’t imagine my life without the joy of performing weddings, or celebrating the lives of people who have transitioned at their funerals, or helping to bring a joyous life in through a baby naming.

In some ways, it’s about trusting that the universe has brought you the next step.  Swing dancing.  Stepping out.  Gently, walking softly on the path.  Hear it.  Feel it.  Trust it.  Try it.

If you’re reading this you may be one of the close to 1,000 people who prayed for me at the very exact time my surgery started, 1 p.m. on November 4th.

I’ve heard about the praying.  I overheard people asking each other, “Where were you when you prayed for Miki?” And the stories have been told. People pulled their cars off the side of roads, went into offices with coworkers, had moments of silence. I heard that people were moved by that moment of prayer.  They felt something deep inside shift, tickle, align. They knew they were praying in a moment of community with others who were deeply connected to a belief that somewhere, maybe somehow, prayer could help.

I need to say, from where I sit, it’s been amazing.

I felt those prayers.  When I entered the surgical suite, I told everyone that those prayers would be flooding in for me and for my surgeon.  And I chanted, a particular chant asking for Divine Help from the moment I walked into surgery to the time I went into the deep sleep.  I chanted knowing that my chanting was being supported by each of you.  You were there with me.  And it gave me a sense of calmness.  I could feel the prayers floating around me, encircling me like a cloud of angel’s dust.  I was not afraid.  I was not afraid at all.

And when I woke, I had three very close friends each at the foot of my bed there to bring those prayers even closer, into my room of healing.  They sang for me, staying there late into the evening to make sure they could deliver on my wishes to do that. And I sang with them.  The healing energy that you poured into me filled that room.  And I was not afraid.  I was not afraid at all.

The outcome of the surgery was great news. Amazingly with this kind of cancer, the surgeon removed close to 99% of what was there.  Amazing.  I had an unbelievable recovery.  I never experienced pain.  I was up walking around rapidly and I am feeling fit as a fiddle in all aspects of my surgical recovery.

With the next several months of chemo, we are all positive about the prognosis of 100% remission.  Who knows what that all really means. In some ways, in doesn’t matter.  I am eternally grateful for each day.  For the joy of the cold wind on my face.  For the sunlight that shines through my kitchen window.  The nanoseconds of my happiness are greater, bigger, expanded more than ever.

Did your prayer work? I can not even express how much your prayer mattered to me.  I could see the faces of those I knew who prayed for me, in flashes across my mind’s screen, and I could imagine the faces of those I did not know who were literally located throughout the world, and I could feel that loving offering. Not only then, but I can recreate it again and again. Every time I chant, each one of you is with me.

And I am not afraid.  Not afraid at all.

I’ve been here before.  I remember it well.  I had my business for 20 years and within three months it was gone.  Wretched from my hands.  I needed to breakdown the bookshelves myself, pack up every paper, and figure out how to keep going.  I remember waking up one morning, thinking, “This was just a nightmare.”  But it wasn’t.  It was my life broken into pieces.  Wondering how to move forward, how to support my young children, my 15-year-old son, Alx, spoke the words of wisdom that pulled me through, “You have failed,” he declared one day. “But you are no failure.”

I can use that now.  ”I have cancer. But I am not cancer.  And I am no victim.”

What Alx saw in me, what he knew about me was absolutely accurate. I have been given, blessed by, a resiliency that surpasses my own expectations.  And part of that is that I do believe in a context for suffering.

Kinda weird really.  We suffer.  Life is suffering.  As a Buddhist, I can try to have a detached sense of moving beyond the suffering, watching it from a distance.  As a Hindu, I can see that suffering makes me more insightful for who I will be in the next life. And, as a Jew, I need to dig down deeply into the suffering and find the lessons of life which can be taught only by my particular brand of suffering.

For the ripping, gnarling, tearing of my business, it became obvious fast.  I was losing something to make way for something out.  I would never have left my business.  It was something I had created, born, grown.  But it was time.  I was not meant to do that for the rest of my life.  And losing it, going to work for someone else, gave me the time to pursue a spiritual path, get a Masters in Judaism, do things I would never have found possible if I had continued at that time to be a full-time owner.

The funny thing is that even while I was suffering through that personal and professional debilitation, I always knew there was something “bigger” operating.

Now, I’m searching for that context, looking for the lessons, the openings, to present themselves. I am suffering. I am shocked by my diagnosis of cancer.  I am trying to get my sealegs, get some footing around the thought of it and really just the plain living with the consequences day-to-day, rising and falling energy level, waves of nausea.

There’s a big difference this time around to.  Last time, I was literally alone. A single mother, with very few friends, and three children. I didn’t have the lifeline and support of loving friends who are so willing to reach out even when I can’t seem to grab that lifeline. Gratitude is such a tiny word to express for that safety net of spotters who are holding onto my life with me.

And I’m still trying to allow the seeds of my personal context to bear fruit on their own.  When the forest is razed, the growing grass can immediately be seen creating a hairlike nubble upon the ground. I’m looking for those nubs and I’m trying to not just plow a load of compost on that I’ve decided would be helpful. That’s the easy way.  To determine what I need from my mind, rather than hear what my heart and spirit are actually saying to me.  What is next?  What is my life being spared for at this moment? What good can I do walking lightly on the world?

And I am walking lighter.  My walk has actually changed.  It’s not a shuffle. It’s a bit more lyrical. A little more swipe to its ankle movement as though I don’t want the earth to feel the full burden, the full impact of each foot. As though I’m not yet ready to make my next mark.

But I will be.  I am listening deeply.  Deeper than I ever have.  One breath at a time.

I don’t believe we can “be” happy. It is not a state of being. I just don’t believe it’s a standard for us to set, rely on, believe in. Even in our own American legacy, it is not happiness we are guaranteed, but the pursuit of it.

You can keep charging after happiness as long as you want. In some cases, that challenge alone, is enough. But if you think you will achieve more than a momentary instant of bliss, olam haba (a miniscule lightflash of the messianic world to come in the Jewish tradition), I’m thinking that’s a fantasy.

Some people get that about happiness. And they are mostly the happier ones.  But many of us continue to search for the secret bullet that is somehow just missing. Because we are told that we should be happy. “I only want you to be happy,” I hear from parents again and again. Not realistic, I think. And when we are stuck in the middle of what we believe and what we are told, we are left asking, “What’s wrong with me?”

I’ve discovered happiness. It’s in the nanoseconds of life.

I’m standing at my sink. The sun is pouring in. I am washing a very ancient dish that has travelled through generations to be in my hands. And I am struck by the pure presence and paradoxically, the legacy of that moment. I am feeling the warm water surging over my hands, the soaps sudsing, and I am having a nanosecond, of happiness. And then as suddenly as the water gushed out of the spigot, the happiness fountain is gone. Next.

I am sitting at a movie with my daughter.  I lick the salty, buttery popcorn remnants from my fingers.  I can clearly see the movie screen beyond the heads of the two people in front of me.  I watch the previews with delight.  My joy in being in that space, momentarily freed from aches, pains and the shakes of chemo, is overwhelming.  My soul feels like it is up, dancing in the aisles.  No one can see my happy feet, but I feel the joy of angel’s wings surrounding me in white light inside the dark theatre.

Happiness for me is triggered from the inside out. It is a burning ember that starts somewhere between the heart and the navel, wells up my eyes with joyous wetness and surges outward.

A nanosecond of happiness, the moment of pure bliss, fills my soul and invites me to have another.