day ten: this is anomie

Anomie
This is what anomie feels like.
For years I’ve stumbled upon that word, especially in French anomie. People who are fascinated by decadent moments in history—and their painters and poets–people who relish accounts of wars and moments of political revolution are bound to know what I mean. Yet if you, like me never really understood that word , well now we can. This day is a perfect moment to seize the meaning of anomie. It is how we feel.
Anomie, noun.*
[French from Greek anomia, from anomos lawless: cf: ANOMY [disregard of (esp. divine) law]).
Lack of the usual social standards in a group or person.

The French definition provides a crucial precision: “Absence d’organisation ou de loi, disparition des valeurs communes à un groupe.”**  [Absence of organization or law, disappearance of values common to a group.]  The word disappearance captures why we all feel so weird; we’re still in thrall to values that no longer hold true and we’re not sure what the new ones are, or if they will endure.

Lack of the usual social standards is putting it mildly!
Even among standard-makers, the standards range wildly. From “Shelter-in-Place,” “Stay home, stay healthy,” or “Self-Quarantine,” to building “Herd Immunity” and using state sovereignty to stay open, as in Mississippi (“We ain’t China!”), our political leaders are evidently confused.
The new genre of empty isn’t helping. See the New York Times special section, “The Great Empty,” showing extraordinarily evocative images of empty streets in the world’s major cities: haunting, poetic, tragic.

But c’mon, NYT, couldn’t you have done better with Seattle???! (seen above, with regret)

For the literal-minded, anomie is a recipe for disaster. For the imaginative too. The one doesn’t know whose orders to follow, while the other creates all kinds of disastrous scenarios to fill the void.
Since I exhibit both traits, I’ve decided to try a little experiment. Since the Seattle government edict says only, “Stay home, stay healthy,” and I don’t know what that second word means anymore because I’m going stir-crazy after staying indoors for the past three days, I will follow the directions of the Paris government instead. They say, “From now on, anyone leaving their house for physical exercise is required to write down the time they left. … physical exercise must be limited to an area of one or two kilometres from home. ‘1km or 2km max.. You’re not supposed to distance yourself from your house,’ the ministry tweeted.”

OK! We have rules! Anomie can be beaten.
The Rules:
1. Before going on a walk, write down the time.
2. Walk two kilometers and then turn around and walk home.
Armed with the rules, I am now going out for a 2k (1.2 mi) walk from my house. I’ll check in again when I get back, to see if it changed my sour, bored, semi-depressed feelings into something better…

 

* The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5^th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), vol. 1, 85.

** Le Nouveau Petit Robert. Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française, ed. Josette Rey-Debove et Alain Rey (Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1993), p. 88.

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Day Five: when a wall is enough

Hello,

It is now just 35 days til D-day, and anxiety is flitting around the edges of my psyche.

There are so many details that it boggles the mind. (There is so much stuff to move or discard!  There are so many decisions to make! There are deadlines to meet, lodgings to arrange, roads to ponder, strangers to encounter! There are so many unknowns…. argh!!!) It is exhausting even to think of them, on top of all the scary and startling news coming at us from the world which I duly read in today’s papers.

What to do?

Fight back. Discern between urgent, important, and essential, and make time for essential things to be urgent. In other words, instead of launching into anxious detail mode first (real estate agents!  furniture movers! cleaning services! money money money to pay!), I’m sticking with the morning routine.

Why? Because the rigorous morning routine reminds me of my essence. It makes me feel good. And today, my essence feels a little out-of-whack. It is jangling with nerves. So, while doing today’s standing meditation, I deliberately gazed upon a wall instead of looking at the living kaleidoscope going on outside the windows.

(I took a photo of the blue corner to post here, but now the wi-fi connection to my phone is not working! Argh!!!)

I gazed at a corner, where two walls meet. Looking closely at it, and its cool blue hues reflected in the morning light, I realized it is actually a slightly rounded space, not a sharp angle. This reminded me of Bob Klein’s lesson about in-between places in T’ai chi. I’ll copy it for you here. Then I will go and do my silent exercise routine, knowing that the move will happen, one way or another, and that it will be fine (or good enough, anyway).

“Another important lesson of the Form consists of the in-between places–the transitions from one movement to the next in which momentum gives out in one direction and begins in a new direction. Logically, there should be a point at which the body comes to a complete halt. Yet this point is so imperceptible that you could say it does not exist. As the momentum gives out in an arm moving toward its own body, for example, the arm gradually slows down at the very end. As it begins its new direction, it gradually speeds up. Yet this alteration is so subtle that the arm appears to be moving at a constant speed.”

Klein ends this foray into the technical minutiae of T’ai chi with a reminder that our main goal is simply to do the Form!  Despite all aspirations toward perfection, the only rule is “Don’t stop now.” He concludes: “When you are no longer tense and rigid, all you have left is laughter” (Movements of Magic, 8).

Bottom line: Get a grip on your nerves. Exercise and meditate as usual. Do those things which are necessary today, but continue strengthening yourself within. What we do today will make tomorrow easier, but only if we do not exhaust ourselves in doing it.

Good luck! ^_^

 

small business, big business

–Thanks to Dirk Ercken for sharing the Zen sand stone garden above.

Business is on my mind these days. It is a very new and odd sensation for a French teacher. In fact, it appears that I am moving through a fascinating phase of life: doing three things simultaneously that would seem impossible to coexist.

1. finishing up my academic career with a full-time load of teaching (bright and highly motivated) students and all that ensues (grading papers, office hours, helping people revise their writing, etc.)
2. launching a small business—the Honey Girl Books and Gifts “Valentine’s Special” starts Jan. 31.  Enter code 03 for 50% off a special pillow today!

and most importantly,

3. studying Zen philosophy and practicing T’ai chi daily to deepen my health, serenity, and well-being.

The soft and comforting gifts I sew are, for me, a source of marvel and joy.

 

“Marvel and joy?” you might wonder. “It’s just a home décor item.”

“Maybe to you,” I’d say.

[And I would think: the process is fraught with wonder, when you work with a 90-year-old sewing machine inherited from your grandma.

There’s that spiritual thing, first, as if you’re surrounded by a small but ever-present group of benevolent ghosts, helping you on. And second there’s a physical reason for the sense of joy (and relief!) I get from finishing projects, because my machine is broken in back. So I have to hold the motor pulley against the hand wheel with my right hand and steer the fabric through the machine with my left hand. I know it’s insane. But I love the new creativity I’ve been feeling for the past year and wonder if it’s not due in part to activating some other sector of the brain, as I’ve become more ambidextrous. One day I’ll get it fixed. But for now, sewing on that White Rotary is sometimes like a contact sport, navigating the fat pillows under the cast iron machine to sew the hems is my battle.

Until it’s won!  And it is won, night after night, despite all the mistakes and revising and redoing. And they are beautiful little creatures that almost seem alive to me; thus naming them makes sense. Last night I made “Happy” in Spring Yellow Plaid and “Love is sweet” in Hearts and snowflakes.   (images coming soon on the HGBG website)]

“OK, ok,” you might reply, if I dared to say all that out loud, “I get that. Sort of. But isn’t it just a set formula for those pillows? Don’t you get sick of making them?”

I would answer “no.”  And probably look away, because that’s personal too, you see.

So I would think to myself:  [Absolutely not! It’s a refreshing change for a long-time workaholic academic. After so many years reading other people’s words and regurgitating them into new patterns, sitting on a chair, it feels so good to move around!  And my mind feels very alive working with the inventory of fabrics I’ve built up. I made the Tranquility Pillow ordered by Catherine into an asymmetrical, Chinese-looking design that emphasizes the emptiness and mystery of the forest. This winter model has a tiny creek (“le petit ruisseau”) running quietly along the sides of the wood, instead of a broad river or waterfall, such as I’ve put on other Tranquility Pillows.”

But that makes me sound kind of crazy. Just saw Phantom Thread!  Perfectionists unite! (as if that were possible).]

So that is why sewing pillows feels like a marvel and a joy.

Sewing is difficult and highly detailed. I frequently hurt my hands with pins and needles and sometime the sewing machine needle goes right through a finger, as it did last night. I am a passionate artisan more than an expert and love the sense of being a beginner and constantly refining my art.

Beginning. Maybe that’s why the things I make sometimes have the quality of an accident. As Alan Watts describes in The Way of Zen:

“this is not a masterful mimicry of the accidental, an assumed spontaneity in which the careful planning does not show. It lies at a much deeper and more genuine level, for what the culture of Taoism and Zen proposes is that one might become the kind of person, who, without intending it, is the source of marvelous accidents.” (28)

***

Back to small business and big business coming together.

The fact of starting a small business pushes all kinds of very practical and time-sensitive issues to the forefront of one’s consciousness. Mind is bombarded with urgent demands and can easily become overwhelmed, with thoughts such as, “There are so many details to manage!”  “This business costs lots of money. Will it be worth it?” “Will I get paid ok, or will my clients rip me off?” Such thoughts cause the shoulders to tighten, the jaw to clench, and a panicky feeling to rise from the belly.

On the other hand, the fact of studying Zen and practicing T’ai chi and meditation on a daily basis pushes the Body-Mind—located in the Tan tien two inches below the navel–into a more powerful focus. By keeping our thoughts there while meditating or doing the Form, the body naturally starts to hold the back straighter and makes the torso feel tight and strong like a spring. Yet shoulders are loose and comfortable. Vision shifts as well, so that interesting things appear everywhere, every single day, all the time.

Will my new-found and hard-wrought serenity withstand the ravages of greed and competition?

I think so.

A business is sometimes small. It simply is.

The big business is life!

And the art of living well.

Good day to you, reader!

new life or new attitude? just be care-ful

Hello and Happy New Year, readers!

Let 2018 be a year of discovery, not routine. Even if nothing else changes, you yourself can change how you perceive things and–most importantly–how you perceive yourself. If each of us did a caring act toward our world and our fellow humans, each day, think of all the good that might result.

News update on the December outreach campaign of HGBG to the caring professions!  As of today, four free “Tranquility Pillows” (value $150 each) have been delivered to the following people: 1) to Jaime, an elementary school teacher in Texas; 2) to Sarah, a middle school teacher in North Carolina; 3) to Maddie, a nurse in Washington state; and 4) to Leo, a high school teacher in Wisconsin.  It will be interesting to hear back from them later, on how the pillow soothes the spirits of their students, patients, or themselves, after a hard day’s work in those demanding fields.

Our hat’s off to all those people who devote their lives to a caring profession in 2018. Thank you.

El Dorado in the night sky

Look carefully at this picture.

Do you see the words EL DORADO perched on a translucent building across the street?

It is a phantom of the glaring glow behind it, the real building.

That seems like a metaphor for something.

It seems like a metaphor for the meaning of life–a floating symbol of perfection, situated somewhere far away and inaccessible–somewhere that we’ll never get.

If that seems bleak, focus inward instead and consider the things you can alter for the better. As Bob Klein writes, “Whatever you pay a great deal of attention to will become a pivotal point around which your life will revolve.”

He goes on to explain how things affect us from without, such as living with other people, whose lives “begin to revolve around each other” and existing within particular belief systems, where “your behavior begins to revolve around those beliefs.” [As a non-Catholic working at a Catholic school, I can certainly attest to that.]

Bob Klein recommends the pivot-like practice of T’ai Chi. T’ai Chi creates swirls of momentum around your central core, or Tan-tien, like a “biological gyroscope.” It is amazing and you finish by feeling very peppy and centered.  See video of Master Peng, in case you missed it.

Whether or not you begin practicing T’ai Chi in 2018, it is good to think about what we spend our attention on, that “pivotal point around which your life will revolve.” I’ll be doing T’ai Chi, for sure, because it is a living metaphor for my goal of peace. I aim for peace and harmony in the family (and in my own head), this year more than ever. If you knew us, you’d realize that is quite a lot! and it’s going pretty well for the first time in a long time, right now. 2018 will see my brothers and I–and our spouses–living in the same region for the first time in 34 years. With one son nearby and the other undecided where he’ll be.

2018 will see a move for our household and a new job, too, for me:  from full-time to retired professor and from business nobody to founder and CEO of HGBG!

That’s a lot!

What are you seeing off in the distance in 2018? What do you hope for? Will it be money, like in Reno, Nevada where I took that picture of the El Dorado Hotel?  Or do you deserve fame, at last? Or perhaps you’re thinking of living off the grid, and cultivating cyber-invisibility.  Whatever it is, hope of some kind would be good. Pass it on, if you’ve got something good!

 

 

stopped or broken yet not broken: lessons from a waterfall

During this morning’s standing meditation, I thought about the excitement, feverish activity, and anticipation of the past weeks, and sighed a huge sigh. It emerged from a feeling of relief, tinged with contentment and sadness. Events have come and gone, dreams have flickered, grown, and subsided, yet here we are, still the same old people we always were. Have we remembered to live in peace with ourselves, in the midst of the holiday hubbub? Not always…   So today, let’s resolve to still the heart and rekindle creativity.

“Stilling the heart,” as Mai-Mai Sze writes in the Tao of Painting, “expresses beautifully the quietness necessary for creative results, an inner quietness related to the silence of the Tao and its processes.  … stillness is equated with the clarity of the heart-mind rid of egotism” (205).

Paintings of waterfalls, such as the one featured here by Wang Wei, are a good reminder of how stillness and activity can coexist. The flow of water passing through a waterfall–like the spirit flowing through our lives–is sometimes blocked by a branch or interrupted by a boulder. But that does not mean the water stops. In painting, the brush stops but the spirit continues. The appearance of the flow of water has a break, but the idea of it is uninterrupted.

Stopped or broken yet not broken: this is a paradox worthy of reflection. Let’s remember to retreat occasionally from the busy-ness of this season, to still the mind, and keep our creative spirit flowing!

a mysterious yet trusting postcard

Last summer, I received the postcard seen here: a sinuous black-and-white icon symbolizing the lesson, “Don’t be Selfish.” After marveling over its beauty, I puzzled for days over the message, asking myself things like, “What French-speaker do I know who is also learning Thai? Why would someone go to all the trouble to send this card to me, knowing I cannot read it?” and most importantly, “Who would trust me to figure out the answers?!”

When I finally got the card into the hands of a Thai-speaker, who translated the signature as “Jasmine flower,” I thought immediately of a lovely young art student (named Jaz) I met this year. When I wrote to her, she replied, “Finally!!!”

What a gift!  What Jaz gave me is the gift of trust. She trusted me to figure out the mysterious message. She trusted me to do so in my own time. She trusted me and waited patiently, until I did what she had hoped I would do.

Why is trust so hard for us?

As Bob Klein writes in Movements of Magic, “Don’t you trust yourself? Don’t you trust that you are a good human being who, if allowed to do whatever you wished, would do positive and loving things? What lies have you fallen for? Have they frightened you into believing there is a monster within you? It’s not a monster. It’s Body-Mind, your own true self….  the artist within you, the true creator and apprentice of Nature herself.”*

The next time you are dealt a mystery or encounter a challenging situation, try thinking in terms of trust. You are most likely capable of handling it. That is why you received it!

***

Bob Klein, Movements of Magic, p. 18.

A confession, an inspiration, and a way to feel better

1. A confession: I ate one-fourth of this pecan pie yesterday, all by myself! And that was after eating a very large and wonderful dinner!  Pecan pie, made from the family’s secret recipe, is one of my all-time favorite foods. So I enjoyed it and had three lovely big pieces.  And do you know what?  It was good, very very good. 

Since I went right back to my normal morning routine today, I feel great. I have no regrets. How do you feel? Perhaps a little groggy or overwhelmed by all the food, the drink, the sales, the crowds, and the looming craziness of the “holiday season”?  Although we cannot change the noisy chaos and emotional manipulation coming at us from all angles at this time of year, we can liberate ourselves from its grip.

2. An inspiring thought:

When the mind is quiet

With chattering thoughts at rest,

When the heart is gentle

With selfish thoughts given up,

The spirit will rise and soar.

–from Venerable Shi Wuling, Path to Peace, “November 24”

3. A pact to feel better. One of the most powerful facets of practicing T’ai chi and studying Zen philosophy is that they lead to greater appreciation of the self and the present moment. Try this exercise and make a pact with yourself today.*

Don’t put yourself down and don’t be angry with yourself, for a full month. See what changes that puts you through. Anger is an emanation of the mind. It is not a direct emanation from creativity (the Body-Mind) but one coming from the fashioned creature (the Mind). When you make a mistake, don’t clench your teeth, frown your face, and tell yourself how stupid you are.

Just laugh a little!  We’re all beginners at this game. And we humans really are quite funny to behold.

***

*I’ve been making and renewing this pact monthly since August 13, 2017. Although I admit to kicking myself on one or two Tuesdays evenings after teaching a particularly challenging graduate seminar this semester, I have caught myself and made myself stop. When it happens, I stop, breathe quietly with eyes shut for a few moments, and shake my head at the sneaky way the Mind works, trying to keep me in its miserable power.

And do you know what? The pact works. Those bad old feelings of struggle, self-hatred, and doubt are gradually ebbing away. Life simply is, and it is good.

For more on this exercise and the philosophy behind it, see Bob Klein, Movements of Power, p. 48.

morning routine

Dear readers,

Today is the six-month anniversary of a morning routine I began in a tiny apartment in Paris last May. I have done it every day without fail: in people’s guest rooms, in a log cabin on the Olympic Peninsula, in a Reno hotel room looking out over neon lights, and in my home in South Bend.*  You can do it anywhere.

I have lived for more than five decades and have tried all kinds of exercise routines in my life—jogging, aerobics, gym machines—yet I have never been able to stick to a routine this long. Nor have I ever felt so good, consistently, over such a long period of time. So I think there’s something special about it.

Here it is, with warm wishes for good health—in mind and body—to all.

Morning routine

1. Get up two and a half hours before departure time. (For a 7:30 departure, get up at 5:00).
2. Enjoy your favorite warm beverage and a light breakfast (I have cappuccino with two shots of espresso and 2% milk, and a sliced banana in plain yogurt)
3. Choose a pretty window and pull back the curtain. If you’re rushed, you can enjoy your breakfast while doing this. Stand in front of the window, with your heels touching, knees flexible, and feet set at a 90 degree angle. Hold that position for 30 minutes, with head up, eyes roaming around, ears listening, and shoulders relaxed. The hands and arms can cup each other, hang loose, or stretch. It is important to hold the pelvic basin tucked underneath your torso, so that the spine is straight (as if you were suspended from the ceiling with a silver chain).
4. Walk around a little to stretch out your legs. Put on cooler clothes.
5. Begin one-hour exercise session:   a. Do five deep knee squats, as slowly as possible, and hold the deep squat for a count of five seconds, each time.  Hands are pressed against each other in a prayerful position, back is straight, pelvis pulled in.   b. Do twenty push-ups with legs tightly balanced on toes (man-style).  c. Walk around a little, breathe, have a sip of water.  d.  Repeat a. and b.
6. Do a full session of Yang long style T’ai chi! Follow the video of Master Peng’s T’ai chi class, all sessions 1 – 9.
7. Take a shower and get dressed, including flat shoes or boots (no high heels).
8. Get your work in order and step out to meet the world, knowing you have the power to feel strong, balanced and calm, all day long!

*According to Master Peng, you can take a day off from T’ai chi once a week. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.

a little boy in Maine awaits, while we go about our days

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