Green Tara, Ladybugs, and Girl Power

I belong to a group of women who meet weekly to meditate and solve all the world's problems. That isn't the greatest description of our doings, but the truth is harder to pin down. We started as a book group to read, discuss, and go through exercises for Brene Brown's book, The Gifts of Imperfection. From there we talked; watched videos and movies; did projects; contemplated life; drank wine and hot tea; burned journals; consoled, commiserated and advised one another; and have gone on field trip or two. (Stalking Elizabeth Gilbert may or may not have been involved.) This winter, we worked through Sarah Susanka's book, The Not So Big Life. But we aren't a book group. You can only move through so many self-help/motivational books before you start to question whether you are addicted to saving yourself from yourself or if you are going to take what you learned and live your life more fully.  We are choosing the latter. About a third of our group has a background in counseling, a third has a background in the arts, and over half have been Unitarian Universalists at one point on another. It makes for grand introspection, if introspection can be a sport played by nine women. And yeah, we are going to keep it at that number. It works for the Supreme Court, and it works for us--as counsel and witness to one another's lives. We named the group Green Tara. Green Tara, for our meditation practice and subsequent reaches toward enlightenment. Green is also a play on Green Lane--our usual meeting spot.

Green Tara at Two Buttons

Sometimes we need to get outside of ourselves and Green Lane. Last Thursday, we took a field trip to the city of Wilmington. (Arden is a northern suburb. We have a Wilmington address, but identifying with Wilmington is purely voluntary. Some people don't take advantage of the scene and culture to be had. For others, it plays a big role. I am somewhere in the middle.) Wilmington has been having block parties once a month in the temperate months. Thursday's block party was themed The Ladybug Festival as it was a showcase of female musical artists, many of them local. A spectacular evening. I was dragging, but so happy I went, because the energy was uplifting. The GT's and I were angling to see Angela Sheik, an international looping guru, who lives in Wilmington. I have been Angela's groupie since Mark and I saw her at one of Cynthia's barn shows four years ago. But Thursday evening, I was introduced to more artists, including Mary Arden Collins, a native of Arden who makes her home in California and whose latest album features a collaboration with Keb' Mo'. Her voice rang pure and clean like a bell. I was mesmerized. Jenny Leigh, another bright spot on the lineup, concluded the evening with gold boots flashing and some raucous good county music. Along with the music, the crowd added to the energy of the summer evening. People of all ages, colors, income levels, family situations, sexual orientation and fashion sense collided in the streets. It was a visual feast as well as a treat for the ears. Not to mention taste as I ate my Seoul Bowl and drank my Ladybug-tini which was very playful--a dark pink concoction with blueberries standing in for the dots on a Ladybug's wings. I stayed up past my bedtime on a school night and didn't yawn once. In fact, I am pretty certain I had a smile pasted on my face the whole time.  As Jenny Leigh sang, "Hands up!" And so we did.

I've heard the phrase Girl Power bandied about a lot over my lifetime. For me, the truth of that phrase is less of a karate kick or a high five and more of a group hug. We women are communal in nature and our strength comes in the currents that run between us.  A society like the one in America that focuses on the individual, doesn't always value the expressions of those who do things as a group, but I am increasingly aware of how radically powerful a cluster of women can be. Green Tara has done that for me. And an evening at Ladybug? It just might provide the soundtrack.

Slow the F*k Down, part 2

I wrote my previous post before I knew that the train crash in Philadelphia was caused by high speed. Perhaps it was something in the air that made me feel this issue at that time. The idea for the blog entry came when I was sitting at a new coffee shop working on my novel. I looked up and saw a sign for the Slow Bar where this coffee shop offers pour-overs. I came to the coffee shop specifically to try a pour-over which had been touted by Ron of Concert Gild fame. (If anyone should know about coffee, it's the guy who hits three or four concerts a week and still manages to work a 9-5 job.) But when I didn't immediately see the pour-overs on the menu, I ordered my standby Cafe Americano. Had I missed the sign for the slow bar because I was going too fast?

However the theme began, my post about slowing down has taken on a new significance. I am not feeling so bad about the use of bad language and the invocation of Samuel L. Jackson now. It is horrible that this happened on a passenger train. Senseless. And yet I am so happy it wasn't one of the trains carrying crude oil through residential sections of Philly. I can't imagine the horror of that situation.

The point is that speed is something that is seductive. It is human nature to see how fast we can take a process.  In sixth grade, I read an except from the book, Cheaper By The Dozen. The parents of the brood of twelve were efficiency experts. (Redundant, I know). It was their job to try to hone processes to get work done in the fewest number of steps and eliminate wasteful motion. They taught their children to be efficient as well. This story has stuck with me my whole life. I used to think about it when I was doing dishes. It echoed in the back of my head when I was multi-tasking by folding laundry and making phone calls or when I chopped all the vegetables needed for four meals instead of just the one I was making presently. I felt a strange pride when I ran errands and was able to consolidate trips--to the point that I go absolutely berserk if my husband tells me he is running to Home Depot to get a package of screws for a project. Going out on a five mile round trip, for one pack of screws? I feel as if he is mocking my whole religion.

I have an idea for a bumper sticker that says, "Get out of my way! I'm late for yoga." I am sure I could sell hundreds to those folks, we are speeding up to get to the place where we can slow down. It's bad when you need a time-out to figure out moments in my day where I can deliberately slow down. Where I can hone zen-like mindfulness by single-tasking. My brain has been begging for this for years. My poor brain has been going on all cylinders most days in a way that distracts me and causes me to make stupid mistakes. I know how it can happen. You speed along at twice the speed you should be going. Your mind is not engaged on your task but on the three other things you are thinking about. CRASH! This is where meditation becomes so important. My women's group  engaged in a guided meditation last night after we had taken several weeks off of the practice. It wasn't easy getting my mind to stop its chatter, but it was sorely needed, and I am glad we took the time to do it together. Tonight, is the weekly Arden Sangha. I used to go to this meditation group when we first moved here, but the group fizzled. I loved going, and I also hated giving up a night of the week to sit around doing nothing. Seemed so counterproductive. But was it? I was meditating with my community. How often do you sit in a roomful of your neighbors and just be? I am glad they resuscitated the group. It makes sense to me to make slowing down into a practice. Today I will find one thing to do mindfully and slowly. I will do it with intention. Perhaps the only speeding train that I can stop will be the one in my head, but it will be a blow to suffering, one way or another.

Good Morning, Arden.

photo by Heather Auman

A friend of mine told me a story about one of the former owners of her house. Legend has it that the woman used to rise each morning, throw open the windows to Arden's busiest road, and greet the day wearing nothing more than a smile. In my head, I imagine her waving at all the passersby.  I, too, am a morning person, but have not quite settled in on my morning routine. A regular pattern of action eludes me, which is strange because I so crave ritual in this part of my day.  It is like a puzzle I want to figure out.

I have mentioned before that I took a course at Omega in October of 2012 with Eric Maisel, renowned psychotherapist to us artist types. His wisdom came down to the fact that as artists, we must make meaning first thing in the day or risk spinning into depression. Have your morning pee, grab your cup of coffee, but that is it. The first hour of your day is spent in meaning making.  This isn't the Julia Cameron Morning Pages where you write stream of consciousness for thirty minutes without pausing to lift your hand from the page. I've tried making that my morning practice. It was a very whiney way to start my day. Dr. Maisel has you using your clear morning mind to tackle your art.  I could really get on board with this practice. I could! Certainly if I get in a writing groove, it might mean I skip breakfast or that I am still in my pajamas at noon when the mail carrier knocks on my door with a package. I could live that life.

Here is the problem. I want to do everything first thing in the morning. I want to get my exercise out of the way first thing because it makes me feel good about myself. And if I don't do it then, sometimes I let it slide. I want to walk with the Misty Morning Walkers who come by my house at approximately 8:12 AM on their loop around the three Ardens. I am so stiff when I get out of bed in the morning that I should stretch, probably do at least thirty minutes of yoga, before I sit myself in a chair behind my computer or worse, sit on my soft armchair with my feet on the ottoman. When I go get a massage, it is as if my therapist is untangling knots that would make a sailor cry. It is getting so bad, that my mobility has suffered, and not just a little. I want to meditate. This morning I did a guided meditation from Deepak Chopra in which the centering thought was "I use the organizing power of my awareness." Apparently the key is to become centered and to meditate myself to an organized morning. It didn't happen. Last but not least, I want to make the bed and empty the dishwasher first thing in the morning. My son used to put away the dishes for me when he was home. I love starting off the day with a made bed and an empty dishwasher.

And then there is the fact that I feel as though I am always waiting for my husband to vacate before I do anything meaningful. It is one thing when it is warm enough for me to be out on my screen porch where I am out of his way. But I don't want to be in the middle of a meditation and hear the ironing board screech. Plus I want to make sure I get my goodbye kiss before he leaves. Sometimes he dawdles.  Is it too much to ask for him to pick an exit time and stick to it? Now I have to help him with a morning routine.

I do not know what the answer is for me. I will continue type hack my morning into Google search engine, but my Goo-ru has not figured out all the answers for me yet. We do have a great balcony off our bedroom and probably live on the quietest rode in town. Even though the only person I would scare would be my neighbor, Debbi, I don't think I am ready to greet the day with full nudity. Maybe the same thing could be accomplished with a stylish kimono. Good Morning, Arden.