A Visit with Annapurna

This shaggy dog story all started with a “stolen” tomato, which led to a squash, which led to soup, which led to Annapurna, which led to a woman of purpose dedicated to passion, integrity and service. I feel like a bloodhound sniffing the trail of life through a forest hoping to find an interesting, enlightening story. Let me begin at the beginning.

Until recently, I had never grown a tomato of my own. When Costco had tomato plants for sale, I bought one. Since New Mexican spring nights can include below-freezing weather, or even snow, I put the plant out in daytime sunshine and brought it in on frosty nights. A gardener-neighbor said the plant was unhappy in the pot and wanted to be in the ground. She offered to plant it. I accepted. I watered it twice daily for months. It rewarded me with such a perfectly beautiful, round, red tomato, I took its picture. The next day it was gone. I posted a note. The following morning I heard a knock at my door. It was a consolation visit from Betty, my 93-year-old neighbor and her home health aide, Deena. Deena said, “I brought you some tomatoes from my garden,” handing me a plastic bag of three. As they sympathized with my loss, I felt very fortunate to have such neighbors. A Realtor friend suggested a raccoon might have taken my tomato. I prefer to think that. A few days later Deena gave me a huge spaghetti squash and a large butternut squash, also from her garden.

I’ve always had good intentions about trying the recipes in my vegetarian cookbooks, but they led to . . . nowhere. I found a recipe for butternut squash soup in the Chopra Center Cookbook: Nourishing Body and Soul. A friend gave me the cookbook so long ago I don’t remember which friend it was or on what occasion. The recipe called for exotic ingredients I didn’t have. Hot on the trail, the bloodhound sniffed out garam masala, tamari, and Bragg’s Amino Acids at a local health and produce store. The curried soup was flavorful and delicious. I had some for dinner and froze some for fall.

On a road trip a month ago, a friend and I stopped for lunch at Annapurna, an organic, vegetarian restaurant in Santa Fe. They offered cooking classes. We knew they also had two locations in Albuquerque. Sniffing through Albuquerque’s independent weekly Alibi last week, I saw classes would soon begin. “Annapurna," the Sanscrit name for “Goddess of the Harvest,” originally meant “full of food.” Although the restaurant founder’s name is Yashoda, she is Annapurna to me. Shoulder-length black ringlets, striking Indian features and smooth café skin emanate a timeless presence. Yashoda personally teaches the ayurvedic cooking classes in a patio classroom adjacent to her restaurant. The introductory class of the series was Saturday. I went. Yashoda presented an overview of the three doshas, or body types, four seasons, five elements, six tastes, seven chakras, eight houses, nine planets and how important it is to be in harmony with them for health. She discussed food in relation to times of the day and the body’s natural rhythms. Everything in her restaurant is made fresh, from scratch, every day including chai, made from black tea and spices, not a just-add-water powdered mix.

During the interactive class with six students, Yashoda’s life story and philosophy were revealed. Trained as a C.P.A., not knowing how to cook, she decided she wanted to open a restaurant with food prepared as it was for her while she grew up. Her husband didn’t support the idea. Divorced, with no money, she found banks would not finance a vegetarian restaurant in a town without one. She now has three locations and just purchased a building of her own. Yashoda spoke passionately about “healings” people have reported from learning to eat the kind of healthy food she serves. She no longer does business with one supplier who carries a product containing undisclosed wheat. She is adamant about not taking the “customer’s dollar” then feeding them “poison.” Her passions and prejudices carry emotional energy. Her integrity is apparent. I was touched and moved by her commitment to be of service to others by providing healing food without compromise. She told us if we were serious about the ayurvedic path of food for health, we would go home, empty out our refrigerator, pantry and cabinets and start from scratch. It could be a full-time job. Meeting Yashoda, hearing of her journey, let me see how many different ways there are to offer love and service to the world. I suspect there are just as many ways as there are people.   

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."  - Hippocrates

Jetty Jacks

In the middle of the bosque, the forest parallel to the Rio Grande, seventeen-mile bike path and large irrigation ditch, there are rows of large jacks. Like toys for giant children, they are made of eleven-or-twelve-foot-long steel beams and laced together with cables. Marked on the trail map by XXXXXXXs, they look just like that. Relics of the past, no longer needed since the river has been “channelized” to prevent flooding, they were installed in the floodplain to capture debris rushing downstream. These “jetty jacks” reminded me of a humorous lesson from a spiritual teacher about thoughts moving through the mind, and they helped clarify my resistance to finish reading a book.

The spiritual teacher, Val Jon Faris, was a high-school graduate with five PhDs in the school of life. He produced events with Werner Erhard, was a protégé of Buckminster Fuller, studied with Swami Muktananda and worked with both a Zen master in Japan and a Hawaiian kupua, or shaman. Incredibly present, awake, aware and skilled, Val Jon was not only extremely intelligent, but also had a great sense of humor. He used a box of Kleenex as a visual aid to illustrate a point about the working of the mind. Pulling one tissue from the box, holding it from the center, he moved it up and down, like someone waving a hankie at the queen, while it traveled from left to right. It was a thought, happily traveling through the emptiness of mind – until – his other hand reached out, captured it, and made it his own. He inserted the end of the captured tissue into his right ear. Another tissue, pulled from the box, followed the path of the first – until – it too was captured, the end stuck in his left nostril. Left ear and right nostril soon followed, a captured tissue hanging from each as Val Jon grinned. Thoughts just travel through mind, the universal mind, of which our mind is a part, since we share the same energy field. Like clouds moving across the sky, the thoughts pass through, unless we stop them, capture them and make them our own, like jetty jacks stopping debris as it moves downstream. When we capture thoughts and make them our own, we are stuck with them, and they influence our lives. We sit there, oblivious, with a big grin on our face, Kleenex sticking out of our ears and nose. 

I had a close call with wearing Kleenex in my nose and ears this week when I found myself resisting reading Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Chris Hedges’ book, Death of the Liberal Class. “It’s depressing,” I told myself. A thought. Would I capture it and claim it as my own? Certainly, the 2010 book is about the rise of the corporate state at the expense of the working middle class, the poisoning and pollution of the ecosystem, dismantling of the democratic state, decimation of the manufacturing sector, looting of the U. S. Treasury, waging of imperial wars and the gutting of laws that protect the interests of ordinary citizens. Why would I read it in the first place? 

I respect Hedges’ perspective as a New York Times journalist for fifteen years, many as a war correspondent, his knowledge of history, literature and philosophy and his ability as a writer. He documents what he writes about and details our current social, economic and political ills. I’ve never been a student of history but am happy to benefit from the insights of someone who is. As a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Hedges believes in the power of love. In fact, he ends his book, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by saying, “… love, in its mystery has its own power. It alone gives us meaning that endures. It alone allows us to embrace and cherish life. Love has power both to resist in our nature what we know we must resist, and to affirm what we know we must affirm. And love, as the poets remind us, is eternal.” 

I decided to finish reading Death of the Liberal Class once I had a larger perspective. I saw it as part of the unity or oneness that is. There is a lot of duality thinking in his books: corporation/population, haves/have nots, Republicans/Democrats, power elites/working class victims. Even his conclusion that we need to resist implies duality. Resist what? The darker aspects of ourselves? There is nothing to resist if there is only one, just clouds moving across the sky of universal mind. “I will resist resisting!” I proclaimed in my morning pages. Then I grinned. Morning meditation offered a different perspective: “Do not resist (and thereby enter the world of duality).” Love and accept everything. Practice nonattachment and non-reaction to the world of duality, the world of appearances. “…if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light (Matthew 6:22)." Don’t grab that Kleenex and wear it in your ear.

The First “V”

This morning the first “V” of Canada Geese honked overhead on its way south. I’ve known change is coming. Even though change is always in process, there are times when enough of it accumulates that an energetic shift occurs, and I feel it. The morning glory fence is on the wane with fewer blooms and more scraggly yellow leaves. Sometime in August, I usually feel a nip in the air announcing fall. As a fall person, a student and former teacher born in September, I associate fall not only with harvest, but also with the excitement of new beginnings. New crayons, pencils, books, lessons.

In the garden, sunflower buds atop rough, hairy stalks grow larger daily. Clearance from the orthopedic surgeon this week to return to aquacise will alter my daily schedule. Real estate practice is calling my name - three potential clients showed up, and I attended a computer class at the association office.

I’ve read several books in the last two weeks unlike anything I usually read: American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle and War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, all by Chris Hedges. I was prompted to check them out of the library after seeing Bill Moyers interview Hedges. It intrigued me that Hedges was not only a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times, but also a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. He and Bill Moyers were discussing the difficulty of taking a moral stand in a corporate environment. After fifteen years of working for the New York Times, Hedges was fired for denouncing the war in Iraq. I was shocked by some statements in his books. “AT&T and GM rake in approximately 80 percent of all porn dollars spent by consumers.” (“Annual sales in the United States are estimated at $10 billion or higher.” – Empire of Illusion, p. 58).

“Why am I reading this book?” I questioned. I reminded myself I’d just had a parallel experience while reading Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, a story about the first Catholic bishop appointed to New Mexico. Then too I asked myself, “Why am I reading this book?” The answer came in the final ten pages when Cather described the importance of Shiprock, a large, red rock formation in the middle of the desert, and explained why it is sacred to the Navajo people. I’ve been drawn to go see it in person for some time now. More than two years ago, a Spiritualist medium told me I would be photographing and writing about sacred places all around the world before they disappear. Could this be the first one? I don’t know. Sure enough, the final ten pages of Hedges’ book knocked my socks off, and the last line stabbed a knife in my heart: “Tolerance is a virtue, but tolerance coupled with passivity is a vice.” Earlier in the week two political canvassers knocked on my door to discuss civil rights and environmental issues. I did what I’ve always done. I got rid of them as quickly as possible as politely as possible. And I believe in both their causes. I was devastated by the truth Hedges’ quote reflected about me. How will it impact my life? I don’t know. A Santa Barbara friend and I connected deeply and unexpectedly over Chris Hedges’ work. Why? I don’t know.

The ministerial team at my church is speaking on The 5 Love Languages: The Secret of Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman. I deeply respect and appreciate the ministers’ transparency and authenticity when they share in their talks how the lesson applies specifically to them. I’ve always needed teachers who share the good, the bad and the ugly, warts and all. It helps me relate to them. I purchased the book and cried when I read the following: “The emotional need for love must be met if we are to have emotional health.” (p.33) And “…life’s deepest meaning is not found in accomplishments but in relationships.” (p.40) Three years ago at a seminar on Understanding Men, in front of two hundred women, I declared a heart’s desire: “Before I die, I would like to love a man exactly as he is and be loved exactly as I am.” I believe that’s a daunting statement for anyone, let alone someone my age. I’ve been divorced for twenty-nine years. I’ve always enjoyed my own company and time alone, which I’ve never experienced as being lonely. But once my son and friend returned home after post-surgery caregiving, it was hard for me to adjust to being alone again. I miss my friends and family and have been feeling lonely. Will my relationship status change? I don’t know.

This week a dear friend who is a minister submitted a letter of resignation after serving her church for nine years. She told her congregation, “Spirit is leading me toward something that wants to be born. I don’t know what it is. Spirit will take me where I belong. Spirit will be with me wherever I am. With Spirit’s strength, I can do anything. It can only be good and greater good.” Embracing change, moving forward into the unknown, is a journey of faith. 

Branches of the Siberian Elm on my back patio toss in the wind, thrashing the green, saw-toothed leaves. Windchimes clang. The sky darkens. Monsoon rain streaks my windows. Change is in the air though I don’t know what it is. Morning glories fade. Sunflowers prepare blooms. Hummingbirds will leave. Sandhill Cranes and Canada Geese will come, stay, go. And it will snow.     

“Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

“I find it fascinating and refreshing you have such a good spirit about this, especially so close to this incident happening earlier today. You’re not accusatory. You’re not angry. You are inviting people to come in, and I think that’s amazing. I just can’t thank you enough for doing that. And again, I applaud you for it.”

          - Don Lemon, CNN newscaster to Rajwant Singh, Chairman of Sikh Council on Religion and Education

Lemon interviewed Singh after a mass shooting took seven lives during the Sunday service yesterday at a Sikh temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The interview revealed Sikh beliefs and practices as well as their spirit. Lemon commented on the fact that the Sikhs had prayed for the shooter as well as the victims. Singh explained that every prayer ends with “Oh, God, please take care of everyone. Every human being is your child.” Singh expressed the desire that “we all come together as a nation and a community and take a lesson from it and support each other.” He invited all Americans to join Sikhs at a temple next Sunday for a meal. “This is our tradition. We want to share our love and feelings with each one of you.” Singh went on to explain every Sikh male has the same last name. “Singh,” means “lion,” and represents being fearless in any situation. All females share the last name “Kaur,” or “princess.” The shared-name practice is to bring people together in equality. “That is a concept we honor deeply in our faith.” The equality of all people, devotion to one God and service to community are the main tenets of their faith.

“Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you're saying,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Who Rajwant Singh is speaks loudly. Once again, just two weeks after Aurora, the light has an opportunity to shine in the darkness. It shines through Don Lemon’s interview and appreciation of Singh. It shines through Americans outpouring love and support for the Sikhs. It shines through the Sikh women serving in the temple kitchen by preparing the community meal. It shines through the policeman shot nine times who directs his colleagues to help those inside the temple. It shines through many others, including Valarie Kaur, a documentary filmmaker.

In the first hate crime after 9/11, a Sikh man, mistaken for a Muslim, was gunned down in front of his gas station in Mesa, AZ. Valarie Kaur, whose family knew him, dropped out of college at the age of twenty, spent the next ten years filming the stories of Sikh Americans and produced “Divided We Fall,” a documentary film which examines hate crimes against them. One hundred years ago, her grandfather emigrated from India to California’s Central Valley where he farmed but was not allowed to own land or become a citizen. Valarie studied religion and law at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School and Yale Law School where she now directs the Yale Visual Law Project. Interviewed on CNN after the temple shooting, Kaur said, “Americans are not ignoring violence against the Sikhs and are rallying in support. This time something new happened. The whole nation paid attention. Thousands of people posted messages of love and support in the face of unspeakable tragedy.* Today and in the days to come, I believe Americans are hungry for the next step. We are ready to come together in a groundswell of healing, hope and renewed commitment to a world without violence. We are ready to come together in true national unity." Who Valarie Kaur is speaks volumes. 

This time something new happened. Attention was paid. Love and support were offered. Are we approaching critical mass and a paradigm shift as light is added to light, love after love expressed? "Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." What is who you are saying to the world? What is your next step?

*You can add your message at www.groundswell-movement.org at the bottom right of the page.

And the Light Shines Brighter . . .

Walking up to the box office of Albuquerque’s Century Rio 24 theaters yesterday afternoon to see The Dark Knight Rises, I noticed something new. Taped to the inside of the glass window next to the cashier was a sign: No firearms allowed. Random thoughts flowed through my mind. How effective can that be? Who would heed its call? Later I thought it was like closing the barn door after the horse is gone. Then I realized someone wanted to do something, to make a difference, to keep people safe. They cared. And they were not alone.

I treated myself to popcorn and a drink. Juggling my purse, my cane, a bag of popcorn and the drink, I scuttled sideways down the row, past seated people, to my chosen seat. A woman one vacant seat away on my left pulled down the cup-holder armrest for me. She then placed my drink in it, helping me get settled. Next, she asked if I’d like a napkin for my popcorn. Then she gave me one. Laughingly, I said, “I sure picked the right place to sit!” At the end of the movie, she asked, “What did you think? Did you like it?” Then she checked to see if I needed any help with getting up or leaving. After sitting for almost three hours, I was stiff and dropped my cane. A young woman in the row behind me retrieved it and handed it to me on her way out. It was remarkable. I had never been treated that way at a movie before. I was so aware of the stark contrast between my experience and that of those attending the premiere in Aurora. Was my experience a result of Aurora? I think so. People around me loved me, cared for me, nurtured me, supported me, reached out to me. We were not strangers. We were caring human beings expressing our best to each other. How many others have made the same choice? If Aurora contributed to this change in the way people treat one another, then tremendous good has come from it.

Jordan Ghawi, whose sister died in Aurora, urged people to choose consciously where they put their attention. People in the theater with me clearly chose to place theirs on being kind, being loving, helping others, connecting, making a contribution. This opportunity, this choice, is available to each one of us every day in all we do. In each encounter with another person, we decide what the  nature of that encounter will be. Grocery store checkers. Post office employees. Gas station attendants. There are endless opportunities each day to practice what Sathya Sai Baba said:

There is only one religion, the religion of Love.

There is only one language, the language of the Heart.

We don’t have to do big things to make a difference. One little thing makes the light shine brighter. Each choice we make from love, multiplied by all of us, moves us closer to the critical mass which will shift our world into a new way of being, a way of being centered on light and love. That is the power of community. It’s unstoppable. It’s our own “Arab Spring.”

In his interview with Piers Morgan this week, Michael Moore said, “It’s time to rise up.” Rise UP. It’s time to lift our consciousness, not to treat each other violently, without caring, any more. With every person we meet, rise up. Be part of the tsunami of change we want to see in the world. With each loving decision, each loving action, no matter how small, we add to the light. And it shines brighter. 

Dawn Begins at Midnight

“Dawn begins at midnight.”* Aurora was the ancient Roman goddess of dawn. In Aurora, Colorado, site of the largest massacre in American history, shortly after midnight in a darkened theater, the light of dawn began to arrive. It shined through those who shielded others with their bodies, saving their lives through love. It shined through the wounded in hospital beds who, incredibly, had already reached a state of forgiveness or said with time they would. It shined through those who empathized with the suspect’s family, recognizing their pain too. The root of “aurora ” is “to shine.”

Jordan Ghawi, brother of Jessica, the 24-year-old aspiring sportscaster who died in the theater shooting, urged the public to focus on the victims rather than the suspect. He told Don Lemon on CNN his family chose not to go to court today. They have consciously chosen to put their attention on Jessica and the others who died and to withhold their attention from the accused. Jordan and his family are now focused on creating a celebration of life ceremony for Jessica. This is the dawn. The coming of the light. Conscious choosing. “Where your attention goes, your energy flows, and the result shows.”* Where will we place our attention? What will we feed with our energy? Aurora shines light on the possibility of choosing where we place our attention. Jordan Ghawi is modeling that possibility for us.

What is going on? Deaths from record-breaking heat. Floods. Power outages. Euro crisis. Syrian genocide. Financial debacles (pick one). Sandusky. Aurora massacre. “Things fall apart before they fall together,” said Tery Cole-Whittaker, author and metaphysical minister. We certainly are witnessing that, not only macrocosmically, but also microcosmically in our own personal lives. Friends and family in emergency rooms, financial challenges, grieving lost loved ones. And more. Almost unbearably more at times. This can leave us feeling helpless and powerless. Or, like Theodore Roethke, we can know, “In dark times the eye begins to see.” We can see our attention does make a difference. We can see it’s our choice how we respond to what happens. We can see our energy creates what we want in the world. We can be the change. We can choose love over fear. In doing so, we are contributing to the critical mass that will shift our planet into a new paradigm of love, light and oneness. But it takes faith. Faith that our energized intentions, as yet unseen, will take physical form.   

Today my second morning glory bloomed. The first one arrived a few days ago. There were over thirty blooms this morning on the “morning glory fence” my neighbor Betsy and I share. The seeds she gave me for my garden were planted later than hers. Two months ago they were small black specks. I soaked them in water overnight to encourage germination. Placed in planters filled with potting soil next to trellises, they were watered both morning and night on blistering hot New Mexico days. For sixty days. One hundred and twenty times, though there was nothing there, I showed up with my energy, intention and faith to water them. Vines grew and twined. Now six-feet tall, covering the garden fences, they have finally produced two deep-purple morning glory blooms. I believed in the blooms when none were there. I continued believing, even when something, maybe grasshoppers, ate holes in their leaves. No matter what I am creating in my life, a beautiful garden, a book, world peace, the process is the same. I must believe in the unseen and continue to flow my energy, attention and love into it until it becomes the seen. Charles Fillmore, founder of Unity, wrote, “Faith in the reality, power and willingness of the mental and spiritual forces is absolutely necessary to one who expects to succeed in demonstrating the higher law.” For me, faith is an action. It opens the way to realizing our highest good, both individually and collectively. Charles A. Beard said, “When it’s dark enough, you can see the stars.” My deepest appreciation to all those stars in Aurora for shining their light in the darkness in service to us all, for showing us how to shine, for showing us “dawn begins at midnight.”

*Please note: I’ve been unable to identify definitively the source of these quotations. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.  

Meet Your Destiny

This morning in the absolute quiet of the garden, I heard the hot breath of the propane burner overhead exhale into the rainbow-colored, hot air balloon. People in the suspended basket looked down as I looked up. A tongue of flame licked at the inside of the envelope as the balloon glided over the bosque. I saw the pilot’s raised arm control the burner. Without his active participation, the flight would not occur.

This week, Spirit speaks to me of the importance of my participation regardless of appearance, regardless of preference, regardless of emotional state. Keep walking. Keep watering. Dress up and show up. Treat (pray affirmatively) and move your feet (do your part) no matter how things look, how you feel or what you think.

Space in last week’s blog posting limited the discussion of hummingbird symbolism to only a few of its meanings. Another insight came once the post was written. The hummingbird at my bedroom window staring me in the eye had “come to get me” since I had not shown up regularly in my meditation chair where Spirit usually communicates with me. Creative communication through toads, morning glories, robins (“new growth”) and hummingbirds ensued instead. But, the loop was not closed, the circuit connected, the communication complete until I did my part. I had to take action by going for the Rio Grande walk during which two more hummingbirds directed my thoughts to how I dreamed myself into being nine months earlier. No walk, no insight. No insight, no article. The story would have been incomplete without my active participation. I had to do my part.

“Service Through Commitment,” black letters announced from the white door of the Bernalillo County sheriff’s vehicle stopped next to me in traffic this week. I knew it was time to adopt their slogan for my writing. A book is written one page at a time. The medical bill is adjusted when you make the call. Your hip gets stronger when you walk it each day. 900 songs show up when you do.

Julia Cameron writes of Richard Rogers’ (Rogers and Hammerstein) creative process in her book The Sound of Paper. Although he struggled with alcohol and depression, he worked. “Every day, rise and shine, regardless of his emotional weather, he went to the piano and listened for the work that would move through him.” As the composer of over 900 songs, he not only left a legacy of work, he left a legacy of how to work. “He met his destiny daily at the piano,” Cameron says. When she read his story to us at her recent seminar, tears came to my eyes. I had been thinking about destiny for quite some time, and as she read, I realized I would meet mine daily at the page.

The word “destiny” comes from the French root word meaning “to make firm; to establish.” Although its connotation implies an external fate imposed on us by some outside force, the actual meaning, or denotation, “to make firm; to establish” indicates our destiny is up to us. Shakespeare said, “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.” I know it is up to me to show up at the page each day, to keep my hand on the propane burner control so the balloon stays aloft. Am I willing to be as devoted to the work as Richard Rogers? Willing to participate actively, daily, in establishing my destiny, making it firm? Will I meet it at the page? Each day I will choose. How about you?