All posts by dhoward@cyg.net

Full Catastrophe Living

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At this time of year (aka, the Holiday Season — and we are still in it ’til Jan. 6, aside trees at the curb and ‘festive lights’ a-dimmed), there’s precious little acknowledgment of — I might even say, tolerance for — anything but ‘good cheer’. Why then is it that, for some, almost nothing could be farther from what is being experienced? The season’s professed zeitgeist is one of celebration, bon vivant, eager anticipation, hand-shaking, and smiling, merry this and happy that. The politically incorrect stance is, sadly (and I use the word advisedly) one of mounting stress, urgency, and, perhaps most tellingly, exclusion.

I had occasion to be chatting with my stepson recently as he was preparing his music for the upcoming advent / Christmas services. He made casual mention of the Blue Christmas mass and the challenge of finding music that he felt would reflect the intention of the gathering Although anyone can (and perhaps, should) attend, it’s held for those folk who, for a variety of very good reasons, feel less than engaged in the season (somewhat reminiscent, if I allow a jaundiced thought, of those colonies of pariahs, outcasts, if you will) and finding some comfort in an assemblage of like minds and moods. Ultimately, he was careful to choose music that he felt set a quiet, contemplative tone. As we talked, I couldn’t avoid recalling (probably because the lyrics are etched into my unconscious by sheer volume of exposure) the maudlin lyrics of ‘Blue Christmas’ that serve to underscore the very ‘us and them’ polarizing that happens around this time of year:

“You’ll be doin all right, with your Christmas of white…
But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue Christmas.”
(Thanks, Elvis!)

My personal grump seems to have been a little more contained this year than in the few decades immediately past — but still around (sufficient to invite the query from Nicola: ‘did they beat you or something on Christmas Eve?’). No specific triggers (well, the Boxing Week feeding frenzy doesn’t help, hard on the heels of mountains of now emptied boxes and bows cast aside, their sometime contents barely remembered these few days after) — but surfacing nonetheless. Reduced daylight coincident with the season — perhaps. The shortage of cash coupled with the ‘need’ to spend — possibly. The excess, be it food, drink, or loot — good candidates. The loss of the spiritual connection, the meaning of the celebration — we’ve all heard that one to death.

But I think not sufficient perpetrators. What appears to be hugely amplified and accentuated is the gap, the disconnect between the surface demands of, expectations for the season (conviviality, hale-fellow well-met demeanour) and the logical, near-unavoidable consequences of the stressors that inevitably attend it (urgency, deadlines, hyper-socializing) — a collision of what ‘needs to be’ and ‘what is’ — underscored with each ‘are you ready for Christmas yet?‘ before the date; the ‘did you have a good Christmas?‘ for the week or so following. Welcome to Hotel California (such a lovely place, where you can check out anytime you like — but you can never leave!) from which there is no apparent escape.

I’d encountered this Christmas card many years ago (back in the days when I still had a Rotty and just one West Highland Terrier) and it spoke to me. The rest of the card included a cat, sitting on the inside of the window, warm, content, and comfortable beside a fully-laden Christmas tree — probably significant that I’d cropped that part out! How better to allegorically capture the poignant sense of separation, alienation than one species gazing at another, with a glass wall between; one on the outside looking in, the other caught up in, embraced by the ‘prescribed surroundings’, oblivious to its fellow creatures.

So what to do? Withdraw into anger, sadness, further isolating. Hunker down and wait it out. Alternately, suit up with the majority and participate — authentically or not. The personal search has been for a less polarized place, less a ‘hold my nose and jump’ versus a pull back into sullen reticence. In the context of mindfulness practice, Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his introduction to his seminal book, offers a clue to what this spot might look like: Full Catastrophe Living. He describes seeking a concise title that would capture the unique approach that living mindfully represents, borrowing a line ultimately from the film Zorba the Greek. Asked if he’d ever been married, Zorba responds that of course he had, then adds: ‘wife, kids, house, everything. . .the full catastrophe’. The reference, as Kabat-Zinn explains, is not that life had been so awful — but that it embodies a full range of experience, the good with the ill, — and most particularly that we don’t get to cherry pick. The ‘dance’ is with the fullness of it all — not just leap-frogging from one ‘happy time’ to the next.

Where this season is concerned, the dance unquestionably involves the individual’s adoption of this more equanimous posture. Not necessarily ‘selling out’ to the pervasive (and just possibly contrived and forced) ‘good cheer’; but allowing oneself into it, as possible and authentic. More than this, however, the culture itself is in need of an attitude adjustment. Inclusiveness requires that we embrace the ‘other pole’ — not just the North, with all its presents, elves, and sugar plums; but the South, with its, just possibly sadness, sense of loss, alienation, and quiet reflection on what’s been. The full catastrophe.

Christmas Letter 2011

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As is often the case, for our household(s), polarities and paradox seem to be the ‘themes’ that best characterize the year that’s been and is now drawing to a close: mobility set against permanence, milestones passed engendering a return to familiar touchstones, simplicity facilitated by increasing sophistication and complexity.

Perhaps the appropriate starting point is the ‘mind map’, stuck up on the wall in front of me, serving to guide and constrain (to something under a book) the annual update — and, again appropriately enough, driven by a little ‘app’ called Simple Mind. The researcher-in-residence (aka, Nicola) had established as 2011 affirmations a return to mental, physical, and spiritual fitness — not that the first had ever wandered far from the path; nor had the last, although always evolving, lapsed in any significant way. For the middle — well let’s just say for both of us, it had become a little more substantial than we would have wished (that would be ‘the middle’). Enter the Pomodoro Technique — with mind maps to follow close behind. For the household accountant, discipline (read time management via Mr. Pomodoro and its 25-minute ‘chunking’) and organization (mind-mapping, at first glance, looks like a flow chart gone postal — but it works!) are figural in whipping the old brain back into shape. And the happy vehicle for all this structure is a return for Nicola to a long-lapsed piano passion. Touching base with musical muses sees her regularly shuttling between Stratford and Toronto. Oh dear, how does one bear the restaurants, the city’s vitality and energy, and contemplative time to and fro on the train? Practice has taken on a multiplicity of expressions from daily twenty-minute meditations and work-outs in the basement ‘fitness lab’ (more of that later), against a background of double flats, scales, and regular viewings of Piano Anne’s You Tube postings. How could one not lose weight?

2011 saw both Jill and Andrew move households — their respective ‘better halves’ initially and energetically fulfilling the role of fiscal devil’s advocate — to digs that are both charming and well-situated. Jill and Brant find themselves mere minutes from work in downtown London, on the edge of ‘old North’ having cheerfully escaped the ‘is that police cruiser for this complex or the next?’ angst of the east end. Simon and Andrew can fall out their flat’s front door and end in the Distillery District, a treed, ten-minute stroll from the Cathedral and spitting distance (hmm, should work on that descriptor) from St. Lawrence Market.

As for the permanence bit, Jill saw another boogie man (oops, boogie person) fall off the radar — the persistent worry around renewal that haunts the contract worker. LoL (that would be London Life — although it could equally be the other tagline, I suppose) saw fit to ‘make her permanent’. One of those, careful what you wish for situations, of being ‘legit’ in a structure that is not exactly one’s ideal — but when is it otherwise? And so ‘I can see clearly now’ not only describes the immediate vocational future; but also the actual eyesight following some recent surgery to correct persistent double vision (seeing one boogie person is bad enough, but two!).

Permanence found its way into the Toronto household as well with Simon securing permanent residency status, after a long and varied roller coaster of an application process. Never hurts to be too careful with those Yorkshire-men seeking to set up Lord knows what kind of covert, organist cells in our unsullied landscape. Working pro bono really was getting a bit old. St Mary Magdalene’s is the big winner with Simon now able to take on the assistant’s role in their storied music program (move over Healey Willan). And Andrew continues to be a ‘one man band’ at St. James Cathedral, more than capably filling the role of interim director of music for another year. No mean feat between ducking office manager tantrums and balancing a music budget, with weekly recitals and a good bite out of a goal of playing his way thru’ Bach’s organ repertoire.

And mobility wasn’t limited to bag and baggage. Well guess that’s not technically true as David chose, for his cycling adventure of 2011, to drag just that from sea to sea across the north of England. Two weeks on two wheels with two panniers (and several thousand pounds of camera gadgetry) was just enough to make some 25% climbs thru’ the Yorkshire Dales, let’s say more than challenging. Lots of opportunity to see the countryside in infinite detail with pedal, pedal interspersed with puff, puff (and not just the occasional pause and push). Morecambe to Whitby (been there, done that, bought the t-shirt — no really!). And there’s absolutely no correlation between turning 65 (I’ve got Stephen Harper’s letter explaining the OAS clawback to prove it!) and undertaking challenges more suited to a twenty-something, than a sixty-something. Taking no chances on back-sliding in the winter of our (cycling) discontent, Kurt Kinetic (the cutest little lime-green trainer — think training wheels with a lot of carefully calculated drag) has joined the indoor stable of treadmill and exer-cycle.

From man in motion to gal with a goal — more on the mobility front. Jill realized a (very hard fought) target this year breaking four hours for her marathon time with a 3:56 at Detroit this Fall (absolute ‘days’ to spare). Way to go (and go and go. . . as she closes in on another target: a 3,500 km. year — 3,431 as I write — looks like a couple of stacked workouts in the final days of 2011). And a lot of those post-wall moments could have ended less satisfyingly without the one-man support crew, photographer, whipping boy, sport’s psychologist, and all around cheer leader: Brant. This man gets the 2011 family award for biggest heart and thickest skin by a country mile! Little wonder that in his ‘off-duty’ (when is that anyway, Jill?) moments, he finds restorative comfort staring contemplatively into the depths of aquaria; and can be heard polishing his ichthyological communication skills — no grief or back-talk from these little buggers (and besides, they’re on the other side of a glass wall!)

Even houses have their neurotic sides (or, in this case, sidings). As word of all the household moves filtered down to Chez Neal, we noticed distinct signs of an identity crisis beginning to surface. Naught for it, but a long-overdue facelift — with new chapeau (aka roof) and togs (board and batten siding) to fend off any further, incipient security issues. And to put a period at the end of this sentence, Nicola reworked the ‘back 40’ (alias the ‘potting plot’), creating a Provencal, micro-climated, kitchen garden. One could almost feel the tension ease in Neal’s shoulders as the aubergine and pomodoro (that would be eggplant and tomatoes to us locals) proliferated!

And finally, just to ease the UK to colonies transition, a very significant British contingent found its way for visits to our fair shores, with Simon’s parents, Debbie and Brian, grandmother, Jean, and cousin, Marj sampling the fare at Chez Neal amongst other destinations. No arm-twisting required at all to ensure our return visit in the upcoming year — not a day passes that I don’t moon over the Dales of England’s north.

Blessings from us all,

Nicola, David, Jill, Brant, Andrew, and Simon — with Morag, (the UPPERCASE — for anyone whose heard her bark), Obie, the exclamation point (! — for anyone whose pulled burrs from his fur), and Martha, the editor (for anyone who asks).

The Beginner’s Mind

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“In the beginner’s mind (sh0sin), there are many possibilities; in the expert’s there are few”
Shunryu Suzuki
Perhaps twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to hear the convocation address delivered by Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul, Soulmates) to the new crop of University of Toronto graduates. His message was succinct, clear, and, I’m sure to the freshly minted BA’s, just a bit paradoxical. ‘You’ve spent four years learning, cramming your heads with information. Now, just before you step into the world, empty it all out!’ He was not diminishing their efforts; nor impugning the importance of knowledge. He was merely pointing out that information, in and of itself, can be as limiting as it is useful and instructive. Suzuki’s pithy opening to his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, captures this same sentiment: when approaching any subject, maintain an openness and suspend preconceptions to reach the ‘correct truth’ (an alternate translation of the Buddhist term, shosin).
A few weeks ago, the Globe and Mail reported on the ‘brightest community in the world’ — and here we all thought it was Stratford — Shanghai!! Evaluated on standardized, high school-aged tests (evidently creating a basis for comparing academic performances across cultures), this mid-sized city out-stripped a host of other Western and Eastern candidates. What I found telling was that the educators even in this city were quick to point out that their educational policies have as top priorities test-taking skills and acquisition of content-heavy, broad information bases — evidently at the cost of fostering creative thought (and generally necessitating significantly extended ‘school days’). Great for high marks; not so sure about opening minds.
It seems that these priorities are not restricted to the Tiger Moms of China. Our culture too, protestations to the contrary, appears to validate the former of these two approaches (acquisition of knowledge), granting the designation of ‘expert’ to he/she who knows the most about a subject versus to those who choose to think outside the box, with the emphasis on understanding and the ‘how’ of a particular subject of interest. My wife has recently chosen to ‘redo’ her musical education, having completed grade 5 (in piano) in her mid-adolescence. Her approach this time round, I found a little confusing at first: integrating the physics of kinesiology and posture, mindfulness, mathematics, and the ‘psychology of practice’, as well as studying the theoretical rudiments (aka ‘theory’) of which I expect most accomplished musicians are intuitively aware (but to the casual player are a collection of rote, boring, and near random associations). Result: a very motivated student who now struggles to find the time in her day to fit in another practice. And all commenced at the preparatory level — a true beginner’s mind approach.
I had occasion to be chatting recently with a young man, currently enrolled in 3rd year university, only to hear this same theme echoed once again. Though the conversation was far-reaching, it seemed to return to the same thematic point of origin — whatever the content. A history major, he noted that he had little difficulty cranking out papers that were well-received by his faculty (and accordingly rewarded with good grades). But he was bored, lamenting that taking an ‘unpopular’ point of view — in his description, being less ‘conforming’, formulaic, or compliant with expectations — often failed to be endorsed with the hoped for ‘A’. Taking the ‘party line’ was the way to advance. He went on to say that, during a trip to Europe he found himself having to make a choice between ‘charging his camera’ (with which to document the reams of ruins they visited) and his iPod (source of much loved music and the portal into a more receptive, immediate state) — opting for the music over the camera. His rationale was that, in ‘shooting the sites’, he had become increasingly preoccupied with the right light, image composition, sun placement; losing his very present awareness / direct connection with the building, statue, etc. before him. Listening to his music, he became more immediately engaged, less distracted — and less obsessed with ‘keeping a record’, but risking missing the experience. As with information accumulation, interpolating, in this case, the photographic device between his ‘beginner’s mind’ and the site changed and constrained his experience — and was therefore, much to the dismay of his peers, eschewed.
Poets and educators, Robert Bly and Joseph Campbell (Power of Myth) in particular, underscore Suzuki’s ‘subversive’ stance as well. In a marvelous little essay, Bly characterizes the human shadow (that oft mis-named ‘dark side’) as the ‘long bag we drag behind us’ and, coincidentally, the repository of much of our creative potential. The ‘bag’ begins to grow (and become less accessible to us) as we move from childhood (‘that perfect globe of energy and curiosity’ — what a wonderful definition of the beginner’s mind), into adulthood, learning in the process what’s acceptable and what isn’t — to parents, teachers, peers, employers, friends; and stowing all those ‘not’s’ in our bag and generally losing touch with the content. And, one day, we look at our ‘globe’ only to find that it’s a mere ‘shadow’ of its former self, a slice instead of an orb — and we realize we have been ‘socialized’ out of our naive, ingenuous, receptive and curious selves. Campbell identifies a similar process as we discover and construct our personal lists of thou shalts and thou shalt not’s — building our formula for acceptance; but losing our (beginner’s) mind.
When we sit, when we meditate the task before us is to regain that lost capacity in the simplest possible way — by suspending our compulsion to think; even to think about thinking. To suspend the preconceptions, the judgments, the compulsions to evaluate — and to approach each experience ‘again for the very first time’, the true beginner’s mind with eyes (and mind) wide open with surprise and wonder.