¡Ultreya!

¡Ultreya! villagers living along El Camino (Sp. the way, the road, the journey) shout to pilgrims walking the route across northwestern Spain on their way to the shrine of the apostle St. James. The 1,000-year-old pilgrimage is made by over 100,000 people each year from points all over Europe and other parts of the world to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried. It is an ancient, and allegedly enchanted, pilgrimage. People from St. Francis of Assisi, Charlemagne, Ferdinand and Isabella to Dante and Chaucer have taken the journey, which comprises a nearly 500-mile trek across highways, mountains and valleys, cities and towns, and fields. Books and movies chronicle the journey. Shirley MacLaine described her transformational experience in the book, The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit.

Home now in New Mexico after seven months in California taking care of my son Grant, being with him when he died, dealing with his estate and taking care of myself, I tell myself inwardly, ¡Ultreya!  “Keep going.” I’m not sure where the path will lead or how to find my way. A gift from a friend in my patio garden, a large, grey river rock etched with the word ultreya, reminds me I don’t have to know the way to keep going.

Grant and I lived an experience of ultreya three years ago when we couldn’t find the path. Keep going. We were on our way to the studio of a well-known photographer, Will Bertz,* who donated portrait sittings to a nonprofit fundraiser. I purchased one. “The last professional photo I have of you is your senior picture. And that was taken seventeen years ago!” I lamented to Grant. “That’s what I want for Christmas – a photo of the two of us. Will you go?” Reluctant agreement followed.

Will lives on an avocado ranch in the rural farmlands of Carpinteria, south of Santa Barbara, CA. Directions were something like, “Turn off on the dirt road past the polo fields toward the mountains. Drive over the bump, turn left at the tree, go past the three cows, turn in at the first stone pillar and follow the driveway past the four garages and around the barn. The studio is on the ocean side of the house.”

Grant was driving. My navigation consisted of “Keep going. Keep going…” But we couldn’t find a path past the four garages and around the barn. We tried the house next door. That wasn’t it. We returned to try again. So many vehicles were parked on the concrete apron, we couldn’t see the dirt path past the garages and barn. Only when we kept going while there seemed to be no way, was the dirt path revealed. We found the studio. Grant and I relaxed outside while Will set up the lights and equipment. Playing with the family border collie and enjoying the calming ocean views, avocado grove and trickling creek on a fresh, clear day prepared us for the sitting. Will, a commercial filmmaker for many years with a long list of Fortune 500 clients, sold his company to Industrial Light & Magic. Warm, personable and attractive, he was really good with people, working his magic in a relaxed and playful way to capture the unique essence of each subject and the relationship between them. Our Christmas portrait was wonderful, the experience memorable.

Driving past the stone pillars as we left, Grant said, “You know, Mom, this was really a good lesson for me. ‘Keep going – the path will be revealed.’ ” “It’s a good lesson for me too,” I replied. Grant’s melanoma was in remission after his first round of treatments. Once we merged onto the northbound freeway, I said, “You know, Grant, Will is recovering from a malignant brain tumor. He had lung cancer several years ago.” I was so glad Grant had the opportunity, which he actually seemed to enjoy, to see a great role model at work – a happy, successful man earning a good living doing what he loved through creative self-expression. Perhaps it would inspire the artist in Grant.

On New Year’s Day my cell phone rang. It was Will. He said he had to call after reading our family Christmas letter several times and learning Grant’s cancer returned. His call was a call of encouragement. ¡Ultreya! I shared the story of how we found his studio. He urged me to continue writing, telling me how much the Christmas letter touched him. He supported Grant’s healing. His kind, thoughtful gift of love, the phone call, was not his only gift. The call revealed the book title for Grant’s and my journey together: Keep Going – the Path Will Be Revealed: A Caregiver’s Journey Supporting An Adult Child with Cancer.

At Serenity House, the beautiful hospice building overlooking the entire city of Santa Barbara where Grant spent his last four days, the subtle presence of ultreya infused the experience of facing the unknown. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do,” Grant said to me, aware he had little time left. “You just do what you do,” I answered. Grant’s friend Chris, who gifted him with an L. A. Kings’ hockey jersey signed by the team, shared their interaction at Grant’s Celebration of Life service. Chris said to Grant, “I don’t know what to say.” Grant replied, “I don’t either. This is the first time I’ve been told I have a week to live.” “I guess we just do what we always do,” Chris said. “Yeah,” Grant answered, and they continued their conversation. When the time came, and Grant was breathing his last few breaths, I could tell his spirit was leaving his body. “Yes. Yes. Yes,” I said. Keep going. The path will be revealed.

*changed for privacy                                                                                                                                    

Behold. . . .with Rapt Attention!

“Miracles are commonly defined as rare and extraordinary events that defy the laws of nature. . . sometimes described as acts of God or. . . divine intervention that only a few of us will ever experience,” says Dr. Deepak Chopra on Day One of his “Miraculous Relationships” CD set. Chopra believes miracles happen every day, not just in far-off villages or holy sites across the world, but here in our own lives. He thinks miracles only seem extraordinary because we are not paying attention to their presence in our lives.

The word miracle comes from the Latin root mirari, “to behold with rapt attention.” In Spanish, the verb mirar means to look. Look! Pay rapt attention. When we are really present, paying attention, “We begin to notice the miracles in our lives, the everyday acts of grace that guide us on the most evolutionary path.” Grace is unearned love. The universe is loving us through people we meet and experiences we have. We need do nothing to earn it. It just is. It just is the nature of the universe to love.

Renewing her California real estate broker’s license this week, the Spiritual Adventuress was immersed in grace, bathed in love, marinated in miracles. Driving south from Ventura to Los Angeles can be a seamless experience. Who knew? Internet directions guided the car from the Ventura Freeway to the Hollywood Freeway to the Harbor Freeway right into the heart of Los Angeles, one block from Pershing Square, to the State of California’s Junipero Serra Building, formerly a Broadway department store. Parking, at $2 per 10 minutes with a $13 maximum, is available on the corner where live attendants shoehorn your car into the lot (and out, if you’re lucky. I was!) In the lobby, a “homeland security” airport experience is recreated by uniformed guards with grey plastic trays and a walkthrough scanner. “We don’t make you take off your shoes,” one says. I’m only going to the third floor.

Behind a glass service window, Apollo Uban, whose blonde, shoulder-length dreads remind me of light rays emanating from his sun-god namesake, asks how he can help. “I need help renewing my license. I received some forms I don’t understand. They seem to indicate you cannot have a California real estate license if you live in another state. Is that true? I’ve had a license for 35 years. I have a license in New Mexico, where I live now, but my son is being treated for cancer here. I may need to move back, to make a living. I want to keep my California license.” “I bet you came in today because you think you have three days left to renew it.” “I did.” “You have two years, not just one.” “Oh, thank God, but I’d like to take care of it now.” Apollo says, “Before I can let this conversation go any further, I need to know your son’s name.” 

One page needs to be notarized. “Do you have a notary here?” “No,” Apollo says as his work computer blocks his search for the nearest one. “I’ll just use my personal i-pad,” he says. “I see why you received the Caring Service Award,” I tell him, acknowledging his certificate of Commitment to Service too. After speaking with his co-worker, Angel, he tells me, “A notary is on the way. She’ll be here shortly. You can wait in the lobby.” “Angel,” I emphatically repeat her name, acknowledging her assistance. I have the distinct impression the notary is another department employee whose job does not include notarizing documents.

The notary efficiently completes her job. Her fee is $10. Expressing my appreciation, I hand her a $20 bill, saying, “I don’t need change.” Protesting her protests I say, “You could just say yes. You have made my life immeasurably easier today, and I really appreciate it. I want you to have it. Travel,” I say, referring to her journey from the back office to the lobby. “Well, if you insist.” “I do insist,” I say. “Would you like a receipt?” “I would. You can just make it for $10.” While writing it out, she says, “I’ll be honest,” noting the $10 notary fee and $10 travel expense. Placing her mobile notary service business card in the case with my reading glasses, I tell her, “I’m going to keep that!” And I am. Her last name is Easter, the name of a dear, long-term friend in Ventura. Every time I open the case I will remember the resurrection of my expiring real estate license with the assistance of Apollo, Angel and Ms. Easter. I will know the universe is a place of grace, of unearned, unconditional love where I experience its miracles.

“In the infinite, unbounded realm within us, sometimes referred to as Spirit, Source, God, the Higher Self or the Divine, anything and everything is possible, including miraculous relationships,” says Deepak Chopra. “As you tune in to Spirit and pay attention to the presence of miracles, your life will be transformed into a dazzling experience more wondrous and exciting than you can even imagine.”

“Love and spirit are forever conspiring to create miracles in our lives.”

“Today I am open to the presence of miracles.”

                       - Deepak Chopra, “Miraculous Relationships” CD

Ageless and Timeless

Hummingbirds are gone. The feeders are down, washed, dried, stored, hanging in the pantry. The metal birdbath dish is removed from its pedestal, scrubbed clean, winterized, leaning against the enclosed adobe patio wall, no longer welcoming yellow-breasted gatherings on its rim to drink fresh, sweet garden water. A whimsical image of birds on ice skates gliding over its frozen surface makes me laugh. New Mexico nights in the thirties are here. For the first time this season, the Spiritual Adventuress donned her microfiber bathrobe and sheepskin slippers to meditate in the dark. Fall arrived yesterday. Wednesday, she flies to California for her son Grant’s antibody therapy. A milestone birthday arrives Saturday, but gifts are already here. Today’s Perfect Health meditation was on being ageless and timeless as things change.

Hiking the ditches, drains and acequias for ninety minutes with the “Walking Albuquerque” class yesterday made seasonal changes even more apparent. Muddy floodwaters from the 100-year rains coursed through the channels on their way to farm fields and the Rio Grande. Giant cottonwood trees along the Paseo del Bosque (Forest Walk) leaned out over the ditch banks, their downed branches, no match for 90-mile-an-hour monsoon winds, part of a natural obstacle course on narrow paths. Duck families took flight, horses whinnied from their corrals when we passed. I spotted my first “V” of honking Canada geese, but no Sandhill Cranes yet. As Henry David Thoreau said, “An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”

In addition to the natural beauty, another gift presented itself – the awareness of how much easier it was for me this year to keep the pace set by the two Joyces, our quick-walking leaders. Last year I had the pink rose cane from my hip surgery with me just in case I needed it on the uneven terrain. This year, I walked in the first third of the group behind our trim leaders, who, to my everlasting enjoyment, were sweating. Being twenty pounds lighter from a year’s worth of aquacise didn’t hurt me either.

A few residual aches and pains from yesterday’s walk remind me I will soon be present with my son’s pain. I will have an opportunity to practice surrender – surrender to what is, surrender to my own pain, the pain of a mother being with her child’s pain, the pain of being with another’s pain. It’s human nature to want to avoid or distract ourselves from pain. We are in good company. The American Academy of Pain Medicine website reports that pain costs our society at least $560-$635 billion annually, an amount equal to about $2,000.00 for everyone living in the country. Grant’s stomach pain has progressed to the point where he has surrendered to prescription medication assistance to manage it, just as I did prior to my hip surgery when I personally experienced the debilitating effects of chronic pain for the first time in my life. But it's different “helplessly” watching your child suffer. I can cut myself and dispassionately see myself bleed, but when I see my son bleed, a visceral, squeamish feeling takes up residence in my stomach and migrates throughout my body.

“Embrace the pain,” one of my spiritual teachers said. How counterintuitive is that? Everything inside is screaming, “Run from it. Stop it. Avoid it. Deny it.” We medicate it with sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll (alcohol, food, shopping, gambling, relationships, television, video games, recreational drugs. . .) So, that is the spiritual practice. As in “do-it-over-and-over-until-you-master-it” practice. Don’t run. Stand still. Look pain in the eye. Be present without attachment. Easier said than done, as the saying goes. Grant pain being. Hmmm….what an interesting expression. Let it be. Be with it. I actually listened to the spiritual teacher and put what he said to the test.

One holiday season, I invited 35 people to my home for an exquisite, candlelight dinner of white wine scallop lasagna in appreciation for their volunteer work in an organization to which we belonged. I had bronchitis at the time. My ribs felt separated from my chest wall after coughing for six weeks, yet I did everything myself – from cleaning and decorating the house, putting up a tree inside and lights outside, covering the round, rented tables with white, linen tablecloths, setting the tables, purchasing and cooking the food. There was a complicated, multi-step recipe to follow on each of several main-dish casseroles. When time ran out, I had to hire my son and his friend at $20 apiece to finish the salad while I dressed. When the final guest left, my body started convulsing. I lay down on the sofa racked with pain. My thoughts led me to principles of truth and the teacher’s statement of “Embrace the pain.” At that point, I felt I had nothing to lose, so I did. Gradually, the pain began to ease. Then it stopped. I was amazed. It had transformed. I later realized I had stopped resisting, stopped believing in duality, stopped thinking there was something outside myself - something other than the one universe that could cause me pain.

On Thursday, the stakes go up when I spend time with my son in the hospital as he receives intravenous treatment. I’m entering the Ph.D. pain management program. Am I up to it? I don’t know. But I do know that the universe is preparing me for the practice with this writing and in meditation. Although I am not Catholic, I follow the New Mexico tradition of reverence for the Virgin of Guadalupe by burning a columnar glass candle with her image on it in my home, sometimes all day. I have bought them at Walmart, Dollar General, a pharmacy and Smith’s grocery store where there are cases of them on the shelves. They vary in design, quality, color and price. The blue window trim and blue front doors on brown New Mexico adobes are a tribute to Guadalupe, who protects homes and those within. Blue is the color of her robes. This morning, during meditation time, I thought about her experience of being present with her son’s pain. I thought about her name, the Holy Mother. Metaphysically, your name is your nature. Her name reflects her Whole-y-ness, her ability to be present embracing it all. I will carry this awareness with me when I go. 

Tat Tvam Asi

TEXT:  I’m in for blood again at the hospital. Record low 6.2 

 

Since the average hemoglobin score for an adult male is 15, my son Grant's score is dangerously low. When we talk, he lets me know, “I’m angry. I’m angry the cancer is back. I’ve been staying home and not doing anything. I just figure, why bother?” “There are a lot of people who want you to bother,” I tell him. “I know,” he responds.

Our continuing discussion reveals Grant feels the extremely difficult treatment he underwent three years ago with interleukin-2, which has a long list of horrendous side effects and is so toxic it is rarely used, was pointlessly endured. Discussing the situation with his girlfriend, Natalia, brought clarity. The anger led to feeling “what’s the point,” which led to not taking care of himself, which led to low hemoglobin from blood loss due to his bleeding ulcer. Aren’t we complicated?

“I’d really like you and Natalia to get to know each other better,” Grant tells me. Change, change and more change. I met her in June and know she’s really important to him. He’s never said that about anyone before. Since there seems to be so much at stake in so many ways, I feel really vulnerable. I really want her to like and accept me and am fearful she might not.

“I need to be proactive and set up a schedule for receiving blood,” Grant says. I look in the mirror of my son and ask, “How will I be proactive in taking care of myself?” (See “Mirror, Mirror. . .” post on 8/19/13). I call a friend for support and coaching. Ask and receive.

The universe provides coaching and support throughout the day, first at my Sunday spiritual center. As I walk in the door, I hear the affirmation for the day: “I use my energy for constructive purposes.” Then we sing the meditation song:

I send my love over the mountains,

I send my love over the sea,

I send my love into the heavens, and it returns to me.

I send my love to Grant and Natalia. I know I must give what I want to receive. If all things are connected, I am giving to myself. The morning talk is about steps for improving mental well-being. The first step is connection, or relationships. “Relationships help us stay awake,” the speaker says. “We are all scared. We all want to be loved, liked, supported.” Suggestions follow for moving from scared to sacred. During hospitality time, I extend love and support to two friends facing health challenges. I leave feeling renewed. At a support group meeting later in the day, I share my concerns about my son’s health and his new relationship ending with “I don’t know what to do.” The reading for the week tells me exactly what to do: meditate, pray, intuition, trust, ask and receive. I leave feeling centered with a practical plan of action. Now, all I need to do is follow it. And, I do.

This morning, in meditation, it all comes together when I listen to the Oprah/Chopra “Perfect Health” CD. The centering thought for the day is “I cherish my every connection.” Ahhh. There it is. Ask and receive. Here is the guideline for creating the relationship I desire with Grant’s girlfriend. The mantra for the day is Tat Tvam Asi, “I see the other in myself and myself in others.” By practicing these principles until they are part of my consciousness, an integral part of my being, I can relax and trust I am creating the relationship I want. On the CD, Oprah says, “As social beings, which we all are, we need to feel deeply connected with others to thrive. Connection, in its many forms, is essential for our overall well-being.” She goes on to say that in all the years of the Oprah show, one of the things she learned was “the number one common denominator in the human experience” is “we all want to know that we are seen and heard.” Deepak Chopra adds when we socialize and connect with one another “. . .we are doing wonderful things for our brains and cardiovascular systems.”

A good-sized toad, hunkering down in the corner, between my front doormat and the wall, brings the lesson home. Its amphibious nature, or ability to live in two worlds, is symbolized by its position right at the threshold between the interior/exterior of my house (consciousness) and represents my physical/spiritual, human/divine aspects. In Animal Speak, author Ted Andrews says toads “. . . reflect a need to learn to use the emotional energies (water) constructively (land).” Laughing, I think that sounds vaguely familiar. Since Spirit is everywhere present, it can speak through a rock, a garden toad or hot air balloons overhead. The question is “Do I listen?” And, more than that, “Do I apply what I’ve heard?” “Do I continue to practice what I’ve learned until I integrate it and it becomes part of my being?” If not, I might as well have not heard it. Then I’m saying to the universe, to myself, “Why bother?” 

A Prayer for Protection

Plump, swimsuit-clad gummy ladies ride sugar seahorses across the blue icing pool on Andrew's goodbye cake this morning. Standing guard in camouflage at the corner of the cake is the soldier he will become. This is his final week as our aquacise instructor before he flies to Ft. Benning, GA, to become an Army Ranger. Two years of his four-year contract will be on active duty, two in reserve. Then his education will be paid for – if he lives, whispers the concerned mother’s voice within. The “seahorse” exercise involves half the class straddling a “noodle” and riding it to the end of the pool and back, first forward, then backward, while the rest of the class works out with Andrew then switches. It’s his signature exercise. I’m choosing to know he too will go there and back. Twenty of us surprise him with a potluck lunch including the cake, ice cream and a balloon-fiesta-gift-wrapped money box with a slot on top. He's so young to go in harm's way.

If I were Andrew’s mother, what would I want for him? What do I want for my own son, for every mother’s son? I want to know he is under the umbrella of the Prayer for Protection, so I write it on my small gift envelope:

The Light of God surrounds you.

The Love of God enfolds you.

The Power of God protects you.

The Presence of God watches over you.

Wherever you are, God is, and all is well.

The blessing goes with him as I let go, let God.

Being present and paying attention to common, everyday experiences reveal a universe at work beneath the surface of appearances, surrounding, loving, enfolding, protecting and watching over us. Deepening our faith and trust, these experiences become a reservoir of comfort, confirmation and peace, a resource we can later draw on in difficult times. At a recent Southwest Writers meeting, I was present, paid attention and had just such an opportunity to watch the universe at work.

Each month, a door-prize ticket is given to those in attendance. The drawing is for. . .what else. . .books. Some new, some used, some by writers who are members. I knew my ticket would win. It is the third one called, three for the trinity – Father, son, Holy Ghost, symbolic of Grant’s dad, Grant and Spirit. The digits of the ticket, #0032, add up to 5, the number that represents change. From more than twenty available selections, I choose Elizabeth Berg’s book, Home Safe. I heard her keynote address at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, resonated with what she said and wanted to read her work. Here it is. Handed to me. For free. Not only was I listening to the universe, it was listening to me and saying, “Your wish is my command.”

The story is about a woman writer whose husband dies, father dies, daughter grows up and moves away. “. . .it seems her life is beginning to change in ways  she is only beginning to understand.” Synchronistically, the protagonist and I have at least ten things in common. Both of us have been through deaths, losses and periods of not writing, both are facing unknowns, both have adult children entering relationships and starting new lives, both of us know it is time to grow and take on new responsibilities, do more letting go.

She “thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead.” The experience of winning and reading the book, of watching the universe work, deepens my trust, my faith. It provides comfort, confirmation and peace to sustain me through difficult times. Through it all, we arrive, Home Safe, at home with spirit, our lives, ourselves. The universe is surrounding, loving, enfolding and watching over me. It speaks to me through a book this time.

Charlotte

Yellow, plastic “crime-scene” tape is anchored from a terracotta flower pot on the ground to a clothesline with a wooden pin on the other side of the morning glory fence I share with my neighbor, Betsy. She knows about it. She put it there.

 

While watering my garden one morning this week, I heard a keening cry. It was Betsy. I stopped what I was doing to see what was wrong. “I accidentally walked into the web. I forgot it was there. I’ve ruined it. Charlotte. . .” “What would Wilbur say?” I asked, referring to the children’s book, Charlotte’s Web, the story of a spider with a humble pig for a friend. At first, Wilbur thinks humble means "close to the ground." After talking with Charlotte, he knows it means "teachable." Everything in my experience is an expression of spirit, the one universe, and is speaking to me. Do I listen? Am I teachable?

Lamenting the damage she inadvertently caused, Betsy genuinely felt bad. As the daughter of a biologist and a geologist who writes and illustrates children’s books, many about animals and insects, Betsy has an innate affinity for the natural world. She keeps a terracotta pot saucer filled with water beneath a bush to attract toads to her yard. She makes sure the bird bath is full so they have a place to bathe. Every monsoon season on her morning walk, she rescues as many as 150 baby frogs washed into the gutter by the first rain, picking them up one at a time and returning them to the adjacent field in a nature preserve.

 

“I put up the tape to remind myself the web is there,” she says. I know she needs consolation. “It’s okay, Betsy. She’ll just repair the web. Spiders know how. They do it all the time – every time an insect ventures into the web for dinner. They have everything they need within themselves to do it, just like you with your painting and writing.” “I wish I could capture my dinner,” she muses, “but I don’t have silk in me. This would be a good topic for your blog.”

 

“What kind of spider is it?” I ask. “I think it’s a New Mexico Orb Weaver,” Betsy replies, “I looked it up.” The spider has beautiful red and white markings and makes a large, spiral, wheel-shaped web. I’m hoping it will catch some of the pesky flies plaguing us. Today, around noon, I stopped by for an up-close-and-personal look at the spider, the web and the crime-scene tape, but the spider wasn’t home. Later, I saw her on the web again. Wikipedia explains most orb weavers tend to be active during the evening hours. They hide during the day. Toward evening, the spider will consume the old web, rest for approximately an hour, then spin a new web in the same general location. I was gratified to learn some are semi-social and live in communal webs which have been cut out of trees or bushes in Mexico and used for living fly paper.

 

Symbolically, to Native Americans, spider is grandmother, the link to past and future. Unlike insects, spiders have two body sections instead of three, giving them a figure-eight appearance, when horizontal, the sign of infinity, representing the wheel of life flowing from one circle to the next. In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews provides an extraordinarily rich symbolic description of what it means if a spider has come into your life or is your totem. It is powerfully appropriate for Betsy and me and perhaps for you too.

 

“Spider teaches you to maintain a balance – between past and future, physical and spiritual, male and female. Spider teaches you that everything you now do is weaving what you will encounter in the future.” Andrews mentions that the spiral shape of the web is the traditional form of creativity and development. “We are the keepers and the writers of our own destiny, weaving it like a web by our thoughts, feelings, and actions."

 

The spider is considered the teacher of language and the magic of writing because a primordial alphabet was formed by the geometric patterns and angles found within spider’s web, according to Andrews. Most of their movement occurs  in the dark, often in inaccessible areas. “Weave your creative threads in the dark (It’s 1:00 a.m. as I write this) and then when the sun hits them, they will glisten with intricate beauty.” Andrews presents a series of important questions to contemplate if spider has come into your life:

• Are you not weaving your dreams and imaginings into reality?
• Are you not using your creative opportunities?
• Are you feeling closed in or stuck as if in a web?
• Do you need to pay attention to your balance and where you are walking in life?
• Are others out of balance around you?
• Do you need to write?
• Are you inspired to write or draw and not following through?

"Spider can teach how to use the written language with power and creativity so your words weave a web around those who would read them,” Andrews says. I saw a toad in my garden this evening for the first time in a long time and a hummingbird earlier today. Dare I look them up? I have enough to think about now. I’m trusting you do too.

 

 

 

 

 

BBaddict’s Evening with Gus Fring

Fifty-seven channels and nothing on. . . yeah, that’s what turned the Spiritual Adventuress into a BBaddict. Scrolling past “Breaking Bad,” she thought why watch a show about a meth lab. . . even if it is filmed in Albuquerque. But there’s nothing else on, maybe I’ll just check it out. Two days and twenty-one episodes later, she was as addicted to the story as drug lords are to power, as addicts are to meth – so addicted, that she hooked a friend in California. “Well,” she consoled her now bleary-eyed co-addict, “At least we’re not as bad as they are! Unbelievable!!” Then she shared breaking news about Connecticut viewers so outraged by an ill-timed cable outage during Sunday night’s episode that they called 911, unable to connect with the fix for their habit (fact).*

“We are receiving numerous 911 calls regarding the [Cablevision] outage,” a representative wrote on the [Fairfield Police] Department’s Facebook page. “This is neither an emergency, nor a police-related concern. Please direct your inquiries to Cablevision.” The rep also warned that “misuse of the 911 system may result in arrest.” “Clearly Fairfield PD doesn’t watch Breaking Bad,” one Facebook user replied to the department’s post. Ahhh. Vindication.

Where your attention goes, your energy flows and the result shows. Divine Flow took over in an amazing, synchronistic way with delightful results. You knew this would connect to spiritual practice and principles, didn’t you? But isn’t it an adventure each week to see how? It’s like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Reading Albuquerque’s weekly independent Alibi on Saturday afternoon, the Spiritual Adventuress noticed a special event that evening at the Kimo Theatre. The very same magical location where, last fall, Zia Pueblo Indians sang “Happy Birthday” to her in their tribal language on the sidewalk in front of the theatre. Presentation of the Robert and Sibylle Redford Creative Achievement Award to Giancarlo Esposito would follow a showing of “The Usual Suspects,” a film in which Esposito portrays a policeman. Giancarlo’s current role is Gus Fring, ruthless drug lord in “Breaking Bad.” The final season, the last eight episodes of a five-year run, would begin the following evening. I went.

A long line of people clutching $21 computer-printout tickets snaked around the corner and down the street. As I approached an event staff person to ask questions, a man on the street asked me, “Do you have a ticket?” “No,” I replied. “Here,” he said, handing me a computer printout. “A friend couldn’t make it.” As I reached for my purse to pay him, he said, “No, he told me to just give it away.” It was second row, center, at a sold-out event. I was literally ten feet away from Robert Redford and his wife and Giancarlo Esposito. But that wasn’t the miracle. The miracle was Giancarlo Esposito, who he is as a person.

In the Q & A following the film, Giancarlo described his thirty-year career and the thinking which informed it. He began on stage, singing and dancing, taught by his African-American, opera-singer mother how to use his voice. He knew he did not want to be limited to being a theater entertainer, so he left to explore other art forms with the clear intention of expressing all creative aspects of himself. Film clips from about twenty of his fifty-eight films disclose very diverse roles. Esposito, whose father was Italian, grew up European. He had “to learn how to be black” for parts in six Spike Lee films. He hung out on the streets of Philadelphia to learn both language and body language. Pursuit of excellence in his craft extended not only to learning to speak Spanish to play Gus, but also to hiring a coach to teach him Spanish with a Chilean accent since the character was from Chile.

Giancarlo shared not only his outer expression, but also his inner expression, woven naturally into the conversation, revealing his beliefs about energy, intention, meditation. Referring to his daily meditation practice, he said, “I listen to the mountains.” It is in meditation he receives guidance. His commitment to doing what he loves with passion and at least one thing each day to move his life vision forward has served him well. He urged audience members to do the same. The description of his first meeting with Robert Redford at Sundance sixteen years ago reveals a great deal about both of them. They were drawn together by, and resonated with, each other’s energy. Seeing beneath the surface of outer appearance into deeply connected spiritual lives was both uplifting and inspirational. Comfortable with themselves, they allowed the essential truth within us all to be revealed.

With great joy and delight, I couldn’t wait to get home to call my California co-addict to say, “Guess where I was? I spent the evening with Gus Fring.” Only another BBaddict can appreciate what that means.

*As reported by Ethan Sacks, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Monday, August 19, 2013.