Sheltering in Place

And just like that, everything stops.

I come out here to the window seat with my tea and the pug, and crack the window to let out a fly that’s buzzing around. Birdsong enters the little room from the mockingbird I was aware of during my meditation this morning, as well as from seagulls and crows, and small fits of what I guess are warblers and sparrows. The city is quiet now with the shutdown, and it feels so strange to be able to pinpoint the sound of the ferry motor in the distance, heading to Sausalito over the glassy Bay.

In a way, I feel as though I’ve been planning for this my whole life. I flash back to all those hours during all the various day jobs, wishing for time to just be, fantasizing about time spent doing those things I most love to do, with no where to go and no demands. All those fleeting ideas of creative projects put off, all those things I wanted to investigate and learn and create. Here I am now, and the weight of possibility is so heavy it takes me a few days to get used to it.

We deep clean the house. We retrieve things from storage to sell. Now that we are out of work for months we start thinking about things to off-load in order to keep the lights on. We make tense financial plans. I order dry goods for just in case. We check in with family and send condolences to friends whose long-term plans have been cancelled, check in with the elderly neighbor.

And then, I wake up into a day where time is all mine. I find waiting for me all of these projects, all of these dreams and goals and plans, as present as birdsong and the chimes of Peter and Paul. I spend time in the morning in metta meditation, with my mind on all those who don’t have the resources I have, those who are ill and worried and alone. Then exercise, on the bike that I’m always too busy to use. Then the window-seat, and a reverie of now.

An image of big trees along a highway rolls across my mind and I imagine the surprise of all the bugs and birds able to breathe a little easier. This feels like a re-set, I don’t think I’m the only one recognizing this. The natural world has been neglected for quite a while, and we can’t win pitted against the lessons of nature. It’s only in the easy acceptance of her power that we find our way, with humility and respect. So many lessons seem to be coming here, but it feels a little early to start anticipating them.

We have heard for a while that in order to stop climate disaster we need to stop living the way we do, and yet every time I heard that I thought, I would love to! Can’t. Can’t stop traveling, can’t stop driving around, can’t stop the spending and the going and the doing. I’ll bring my bags to the grocery and be aware of unnecessary plastic and recycle and yet in the back of my mind I know, it’s going to take a lot more than this to stop this path. Like we can’t stop until we HAVE to stop.

So I’m wondering what we’ll learn during these times. We sit back, and look at things from an enforced silence.

I think of the reason I love to travel, for the way that I see my life from a place of distance. It’s a similar experience to the way I see my mind as I sit in meditation and watch my thoughts drift through and dissolve. Patterns of thought, patterns of living. To watch and observe brings so much insight. Where do my attachments lie, and how is it to let go of what I’ve known ?

This morning, a scenario rose up like a daydream in my meditation. I traveled into a little movie of having to defend myself in some random interaction, and as soon as I started the story I caught myself and checked out what was happening. A tension developed from the back of my eyes all the way to my belly, as if I was caving in on myself. It was a clenching, heavy feeling. I felt anger and this center of myself became a hot metal rod, agonizing and overwhelming.

I asked, what am I defending here? And the whole thing started to fall apart.

First, I saw the mind’s need to conjure up injury. Why does it need to do this? I guess to remind me that I’m here, and that my ego is firmly in place.

What does it need to defend? I imagined taking responsibility for the attack and letting go of defensiveness, and further the whole thing dissolved.

How is it to live without holding on so tight to this unimpeachable Clem? With that, I fell into open awareness, sweet humility and non-attachment.

When I look at the situation we’re in now, I watch the responses of humanity to the situation and recognize them as my own. Denial, alive and kicking as usual. Then fear. Out of fear comes the blame and attacks, and the darkness of despair. The imaginings of worst case scenarios and the vision of the lowest impulses of humanity taking over.

What I have discovered in my investigations of mind is that these are fleeting emotions, fleeting states of low vibration. A low tone rings out and stays for a while. The low tones can seem all-encompassing, and like they go on forever, with their long wavelengths and their penetrating ways.

High vibrations are quicker, forming and building and moving ever out and upward. The low tone overwhelms, but all the while higher vibrational sounds are dancing up above. This is what I look around for as the story unfolds.

As I investigated this morning, my body felt heavy in the low vibration of defense, but in my awareness was a clear high ringing into which this experience appeared.

In the background always, is light.

I hear the calm voices among the chaos. I see the compassionate actions people take: the helpers. Stories come through of generosity and caring. Some are caught up in the tragedy of their situations and some are looking ever outward to make the best. Some are caught in epic struggles of survival and some are there to be of service.

Behind it all, is a field of high vibration, of healing, of presence.

Birdsong. It really is so much louder today. I heard that the only reason the human ear is attenuated to hear high tones is in order to hear birdsong. Birdsong notifies us of healthy environments, so we can find our way to abundance.

My friend sent me an article written in 2012 in which ecologists predicted our current situation. When we aren’t caring and thoughtful about our encroachment on natural environments, we’re in for some trouble. I guess this may be the first lesson we’re to learn here: the lessons of nature win every time.

When the Buddha sat under the tree, tired of all the searching and intent on awakening, he said, I’m going to sit and observe nature until I either perish or figure it out. The nature he observed? Sensations on his body. The things we feel are the realest things we know.

So he sat and watched all the workings of the ego and the mind, all the stories rising up, all the emotions and thoughts. The way the thoughts contort the body, fear contorts the thought, emotion rises and falls. Observing, letting go of reaction, until it was only that field of light beneath it all. Beneath delusion, attachment, desire.

Light. High vibration, or a vibrational field holding low and high together in a cradle of awareness. Or emptiness. However you see it. Language always falters when speaking of these things.

I’m certainly not the Buddha yet. I am still in this duality of heavy and light, dark and light, low and high. I struggle with selfishness and panic and anger and then feel good again as I remember peace and acceptance and humility. Back and forth I go.

I get glimpses, though, of what it would be like to just BE. To need to do nothing. To recognize I have everything in this moment.

One day I am running full-bore and one day I am stopped. I see how my mind still wants to be moving forward and learning and doing and accomplishing and for that I’m grateful. Yet, I want to learn these lessons that are being taught. Humility, surrender, stillness. Healing.

Maybe the pugs of the world have cooked this all up in order for more snuggle time. I wouldn’t put it past Henry, lolling here in the sunny windowseat. What better way to spend some time.

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