Adult Education

She's spunky, and youthful, though if she hadn't told me her age I would've placed her in her mid-sixties anyhow merely because of comments she's made this year and because I know she's a widow. She doesn't remember it but I do: when I first got home from Oregon and worked for Mediation she was one of our mediators. She never mentioned it back then but the boss told me that her husband was ill, and falling more ill, while she caregave at home.

It's some years later tho; and according to her New England lilted words Well if you all will have me I plan on staying here as long as I am able. I consider this a calling, it's not teaching to me or even a job. I had just finished telling her about the new mother I assessed and counseled for placement in her GED class. The new student is 31. Mom of 7 kids. Last husband a military man who abused the hell out of her and the kids. Her own mother would leave literally weeks at a time; she was seven when she first remembers being removed by DSS for neglect--she had for several days been caring for a disabled sister because mom was missing. She has the most level head on her shoulders, and an 8th grade education. Her initial assessments with me show that she will likely have her high school diploma by the end of the year.

People are so infinitely able of survival. It is a primal drive, and again and again this year I have been levelled by the young women and men, and the aged out of work or laid-off women and men, by this huuuge un-named population of working poor that have put their lives on the table before me and again and again demonstrated unwavering spirit in the face of life stories that I can not imagine nor comprehend.

In the middle of telling the teacher about her new student, I started to get choked up and had to take a small pause. I stopped what I was doing, put the student file on the desk and just looked at her. We are so lucky, Carolee, we are so blessed to be among these students. To get to do the work we do.

Adult Education, at the risk of reiterating some trite expression, has educated me beyond what I ever expected or knew could happen. It has shaped the adult woman I have both slowly and startlingly learned to become. My first year teaching, the winter of 2002 in to 2003, I lived five doors down from the mentor Instructor I'd been recommended to spend time with. She is a jolly, warm-hearted Catholic with three kids and as many dogs and she used to make me iced coffee and laugh this enormous river of acceptance and forgiveness around me when we would get in the car and I'd have to blow in my hummer-breathalyzer in order to get my damn car to go. She told me Whenever you have more resources then somebody, more money, more wisdom, more education, it is never your job to look down or judge or even sympathize. Look them eye to eye, then remember it is your job to share, and your work is to lift them up. It makes me choke on the heaviness in my chest to say it aloud now...Then she'd say Never forget that all of us, all of us were lifted up. All of us are standing on a long, unseeable chain of the giants that went before us. Whoever they were...

I shared this with Carolee yesterday before I left the Family Center for my thirty minute drive through the rural farm country back to the little Eastern Shore metro of Easton and my office. Accessible education. Meeting people on leveled ground, then giving them tools to be lifted up. I had no idea what it would feel like to get to be someone standing down here, on the shoulders of people like the teacher yesterday, or my mentor back then, and students in a line towering above me.

Lunar Beltane

...tonight! She peaks at full at 5:18am on the EC. First full moon in Taurus is Lunar Beltane. Taurus is a fixed energy in the earth element. I love the energy of right now its so healing, it's like if we could hear the spheres of heaven and the mountains and trees all singing that is what we are soaking up right now. Under Aries last month we had all that heat and fire to initiate new ideas. Think of the sun that was busy heating and busting open all those new buds and seeds. That's Aries, pure new life force. Now Taurus is all about the earth--look around! Everything's in full bloom it is just absolutely alluring outside, breathtaking. Taurus full moon is the apex or peak of fixed energy, of lifeforce-into-matter fertility everywhere. Beltane also is traditionally a time that celebrates the union of man and woman--or in Jungian application, animus and anima energies. We all have each within and they strive to compliment our inner and outter lives.

That wonderful earth energy is energizing us from within right now--magnifying what we are growing or manifesting in our own lives, whether spiritually and emotionally, creatively, in relationships, finances, homes, business, etc

It is a time internally and externally that our year's intentions are beginning to manifest. The moon is in Scorpio tonight tho, which is a water sign. The moon she rules our inner-lives, the inside us we are less likely to show the world. It is spiritual in scope and not ruled by personality. So we could be feeling overly sensitive today especially, and mercury is retro so all that watery emotional energy is peaking at the same time with the internal review of whatever issues we are evolving through since our last retro ended in mid-January. If suddenly you are finding yourself revisiting something you thought you'd resolved it's Merc, who rules our mental energy, showing where there is still restlessness surrounding that issue.

The other thing to pay attention to: the Holy Days on the Earth Path are when people, all people, benefit from added reflective time. Visions and insights are more likely. I like to actually sit under the moon and bathe my spirit in the light. I believe we need moonlight much as sun--in older days women ovulated under the full moon because it so directly affects the pineal gland. Interesting stuff, huh?

Be well, be whole. May you take time enough to appreciate the world, the earth and her flow and cycles, around you.

Reminiscing. Play it Again Sam's.

The door of the CoffeeCat is heavy wood and you have to push it in the center of the handle with a certain amount of compact umph for it to swing easily open. This morning and without any anticipation upon the push of the door I got struck in the gut with the most endured sense of wistful longing, an immediate and aching clutch on my heart the moment I stepped inside.

It was the tunneled noise of the milk-steamer that did it. And the warm bouancy, from all the rain outside, inside on the air.

I scanned the room for a recognizable face and there was Liz, the barista I got to know first when I started coming here last year. She is in her senior year of highschool and an athlete so I rarely see her anymore.

Just that little familiarity added a certain tweak to my heart.

Sometimes, with the least amount of expectation or warning, this happens to me. I am struck by sudden and complete awe for life. For its fleeting passing. For all the little moments that are all the time sliding us by.

This morning it descended upon me in a memory so physical I could've stepped back in time. I worked as a barista in a coffee shop in Chestertown my senior year of college. 2001 and most of 02. Mornings in the winter each step on the cold earth I'd pound closer to downtown my breath would grow more severe--I'd clutch whatever thin little sweater I was wearing harder across my chest and see my knuckles redden by the chill. It seems it was always gray that winter. The door, when it pushed open, rang little bells and my glasses immediately would cover in steam and my nose fill with the most alluring savory smell of the homemade muffins, Comfort Food, that Natalie Comfort was busy baking. One of the other baristas, almost always, was already at work steaming themselves a morning wake-me-up drink.

I dropped out of college twice from drugging and booze--the second time it was in order to get clean. The year I worked as a barista, my senior year, was the only year I was clean while in school, and it's really the only year that I remember with any sort of clarity. And they are sweet, specific sensory memories. The inborn joy that bubbles out of Katie that would jolt my heart every Thursday afternoon when we would meet and walk in to poetry class together; the tweak of enjoyment seeing the new outfit or wig that Libby would have on when I would turn the corner on High Street and see her in front of the coffee shop on her smoke break; the peace, inherent, of the way Jazmine moved across our apartment--the way one person's nature can wordlessly inspire you to want more from yourself. Dear God did I relive the collective experiences of that time in a mere instant this morning~and oh did it make my heart cry out in longing over what used to be.

It made me think quite instantly about other times in my life that are no more than memory~other times and whole other groups of fabulous, wild, hysterical, ridiculous people that are actively no more to me today than, if I am lucky, a facebook status update. Crofton, the pizza shop, 6th street, Ocean Pines Beach Club, the boys from the beach. I guess what ultimately this experience did was force me in to the reality of what I've quietly been witnessing and coming to terms with in the past few months: that too, Chestertown, the people there and memories, Play it Again, Andy's, Truslow Road, Anngar....all those too will pass away. Have already begun to, and how the aspects of this have hit me with a surrendering that is much like grief.

There is no other way to put it than that. I am looking forward, in great joy and enthusiasm, towards this next unwrit chapter of my life. It thrills me to no end the great, raw power in this~of choice and faith when mixed together. The pure alchemy of it. Yet the picture would be incomplete without the other...the saying goodbye. I have learned that all things pass, and yet somehow come again~that this is the thing about life. Most experiences merely change form, whether they are relationships, aspects of our selves or each other, the work we do, the family we spend time with, the ways in general we spend our time. There is at work always a greater thread that is weaving us and nudging us and it is part the tapestry--and part our choice of the stitches me choose to make, that make up all of life. I am lucky today to still have close, amazying friends that span all parts of my journey, and too grateful as hell for social sites like Facebook because even if we dont actually talk or see one another--knowing for example that Jess Singleton is happy and has a dog and a job she enjoys out someplace in Arizona, or that Ryan Muller is surfing and chilling in Florida gives me infinite peace.

I am in the Coffee Cat right now, preparing to work on my book. A warm-up as Erika would say. Sweet sweet Erika from all the way back chorus and basketball practice at Arthur Slade.
In less than a month Coffee Cat will no longer be my regular haunt. Once, my senior year of college, the poet Li Young Lee came to speak to our Contemporary Poetry Class. He was asked about faith, and his belief in God. He could not answer specific to a godhead, or even to faith, but what he did say was that LIFE is in this moment, and this moment is also always changing and passing on by. I make practice, he said, of centering myself much as I can throughout my day and then in that centered moment, reminding myself by saying Thank you, Goodbye.

Ahhhh, reminder to be present. Thank you, good bye.

List. Cant you see the breeze is just a change in pace?

Song playlist of serendipity for a Saturday morning with nothing to do but stretch and feel the beauty of muscles and soft sheets and blue sky out the window and anticipate coffee, ahhh delight delight three tunes on RNR sooo dance-able and yes of course some days you should just fall out of bed, celebrating....

1. Southside of Heaven, Ryan Bingham
2. Strange Overtones, David Byrne and Brian Eno
3. Cripple Creek, The Band

Instructions for reclaiming wild sensibilities if its been more than 24 hours since you've breathed the sun

1. Barefeet
2. Get near something green that has roots and eats sunshine and air
3. Find your back breath: Recognize your feet. Be solid, but open. Recognize your belly breath. Next! Center. Breathe into/from back of neck, into back of shoulders and then to back of back on down. This is where wild-sense lives, dormant. You are part wild animal. You have rhythms that remind you and ache for you to run in the breeze. Breath these parts awake again. Re-connect.
4. Listen. Feel. Open. Breathe.

Poetry

1. Is a way of living which includes or perhaps is reliant on following what turns you on
2. Spanish turns me on
3. Words and stories turn me on
4. People turn me on
5. La mama: Nature and Life turns me on
6. Library has lots of poem books
7. Study introductions, especially if written by other poets
8. Lay in the sun on second hand sheet eating food you made yourself and drinking cream soda
9. Read poem a word at a time. Read spanish translations a breath at a time. Harmonize
10. Harmonize. Harmonize

Pay attention. If not now, when? Why not?

1. Beautiful friend in middle of great heartbreak/heartmending life change over delicious dinner under trees and starlight says forget about living each day as if it were my last. I AM LIVING EACH DAY LIKE MY FIRST
2. These could be just words. They are. They are also more.
3. Are they?
4. If not, why not?

Fear and sadness resign oneself to unconscious greed and acts of selfishness. Jealousy clouds vision. Inverse relationship of not owning self projects outter whirls of powerlessness on to everyone else. Matter is atomic. Everyone changes.

1. Be honest with myself fear and sadness are natural and normal as is jealousy a common defense
2. Be honest with my friends and the people on my path entrusted to help you care for your heart
3. Be still. All things pass, and later come again
4. Life goes on and that's just it: LIFE. It is the most affirming guide there is.

Carl Jung wrote that 35 is middle-aged. Is when one steps in to the afternoon of one's life....

1. I turned 33 one month ago
2. I for the first time in my life can actually say that I know myself, know with confidence at least some certain parts of who I am, and feel confident going forward trusting in the room and grace and space within that I've taken the long years to own and love in to light
3. I see this not as the afternoon. I am barely just now first breathing!! I am just now taking first steps, this is the First Day!

In meditation gentleness ease and non-judgment are encouraged. As is comfort of posture. Prepare for yourself a soft sweet inner place of silence and refuge where I and only I can always go. Be the warrior traveller of your own domain.

1. I meditate under a soft blanky, laid out straight chillin like I'm watching tv
2. Often it helps to remind myself to ritualize. So I start with time to center, let what I'm doing sink in. I put a tender smile on my face
3. Time is mutable
4. When found to be scattering up the walls of the monkey mind, begin again
5. There go the thoughts and there I go with them, ahhhh well, begin again
6. Begin again
7. It's ok. Be gentle. Begin again
8. Witness all thoughts and feelings without becoming them, without judging them
9. Ooooops, became them again. Begin again...
10. Metta is the practice of loving kindness
11. End all ritual with practice of loving kindness. Start with self. Then intend outwards towards all of Life

Great Change and Pendulum Swing/ Spiral Upward Of Is/Not Is Spiral Downward of Timeless Great DNA Helix Combo of All Things, upon us now, ever upon us, have grace IS mercy...

1. My last day of work is May 14
2. I will spend the week after that packing up 127 Goldsborough
3. Ladies, I may have lots of clothes to give away
4. Peoples, there may be lots of books up for grabs!
5. Great mama plunge to come then
6. Move stuff in to Maggie's storage place at beach and otherwise in to Ocean Pines
7. May 26 fly to Pac NW for one month
8. Beth, Gretchen. Oregon, aaaahh. Hippie retreat yea. Hotsprings. Tall trees. Ocean. Coast. Trains. Seattle. Larry. Cousin Kate.
9. Waiting tables at Yacht Club in OP
10. Indefinite trust of what is yet to be..................

Thoughts on Love, Addiction & Be-ing the Change

I fall in love easy.

Sometimes all it takes is a certain look, or lilt of the voice, and then that's it I'm all rosy-chested and sparkling.

I'm addicted to it--but (I feel like I've been quoting Buddha a lot lately) addiction is the human condition so this is me non-demonizing. We're hooked on feeling good or feeling bad, in general we're hooked on feelings and it is that reliance, and the anxiety created by wishing those sensate states would remain, that is the root of suffering. We are attached, essentially, to our self. But this isn't about suffering or Eastern theology other than perhaps experimenting with personal and varying applications of such... Really for me today this is about love, and people and humanity. And doing, according to my own spirit, the right thing.

What I am getting at is that I am in love with almost everyone that I know.

Guy, girl, old, young. Doesn't matter. In general, I think people are amazing and really the only thing that I've found that can instantly, and I guess permanently, turn me off is ingenuity. Any really abrasive signs that you dont think for yourself. But even that quality or immediate projection I've learned to try to be gentle around though, I've begun to learn to practice love-ing anyway. If I am around you and you are at ease in yourself, then pow. Watch out. Now we're in love!

I also am baptized again and again in synchronicity and so look out for it, especially in the subtle ways. I heard this guy tell a story--he was making fun of himself because as he related it he went to the beach to be alone and find silence and maybe the grandness, too, and it turns out there was this crying ass kid going nuts just a couple hundred yards from him. So the guy starts totally bugging out because damnit that kid stole his peace, and then he thought maybe that kid needs help? And he turns and inspects the scene more closely and what he finds is this mom of three, struggling like with a capital s, and this little kid's ball in the waves. So the guy goes and gets this ball for the little one, and the little one's like thanks and stops crying and through his little snifflysniffles beams. And the guy he realizes, holy shit. There's always a million little ways to better the world. He thinks, it all comes down to paying attention.

He wonders, deeply. Am I paying attention?

Well isn't that just it, in any given moment, am I paying attention? Where can I give or practice love? Practice, as in the principle, open-heartedness? Am I paying attention?

So stay with me here. Am I paying attention in my own life? In the past few days again and again the same message has come to me in different forms, and it has to do with staying away from negative people. Now I am not too sure how I feel about this. At first, I was like o yea, yes yes that is it. But really, is it?

If we are trying, really trying to be the change we wish to see than do we purposefully stay away from negative people? In that I am someone who falls in love with everyone I know, it means that I have had to learn good inner boundaries. In other words, making sure I am not seeking from you something I need to fulfill in an inner way myself, and/or giving too much of myself in a way that depletes me and disempowers you from your own personal stance of filling your self up from within. So the question is, in the presence of someone negative isn't it our duty to really let loving actions and thoughts shine through? Isn't it than up to us to double down and really stand true to who we are and could be? True, at times there have been some people who are so stuck on there own downer trip and going further and ever down more and more that I have had to limit my time around them. There are others still that threaten my inner-security and how I feel about me, and too I've had to honor that. So I know the necessity of self-protection, but all the same. I'm wondering....

Ok so I'm gonna say it. What would Jesus do? Jesus, who hugged the lepers and broke bread with the whores. Now that of course begs recognition of a primary difference: those folks were socially stigmatized NOT negative; but truly, what is the inherent lesson, the principal taught in that?

For me I know the answer that resonates to my most current truth. When I am true to myself, to being who I can be when I am out in the world and to as much as possible caring for and loving the inside broken, or twisted or funny and also glorious and unique and beautiful parts of me, then I can better do the same with whomever I come in contact with. And more, my path seems to naturally connect me to those who most easily resonate in a true way with me when I am flowing according to my own truths and rhythms, too. In other words, when I am good to me and practicing love, all else sort of takes care of itself. Look, back to last week--it is a fucked up unfair world. BUT if I am alive and loving than inherently I say yes to all of it, right? And do the best I can to love anyway even if it hurts.

Hurt passes. I stay in love. Maybe the message isn't to stay away from negative folks. Maybe the way I'm going to practice it is to work to be around the positive ones.