7/29/2023 0 Comments Day #20 - ReflectionThis last writing for this Pod is my reflection on the past 20 days. Tomorrow is a large group celebration which seems very appropriate after this journey. I look upon this Pod and Service Space as a school for consciousness, a school for good citizenship (both local and global), and even a school for being better humans. That such a thing exists and thrives in our time is heartwarming for me. First, a big thank-you to a) all the people at Service Space who put this together and kept it going. A wonderful effort. b) all the people in my Pod who sent in their daily writings and commented on what I wrote c) all the people on my distribution list and Facebook who shared their thoughts and feelings based on what I wrote. I have tried to respond to everyone as best as I could. There were several surprises for me and I really loved them. Today, while food shopping at Market Basket, a large supermarket chain, I wondered if that also could be a school for consciousness / citizenship / humanity. They hire baggers when young people turn 14. Most of the baggers are boys and this may be their first job. They are often distracted by one thing or another. I wondered if these boys had been in a monastic order or even special circumstances, could their experience be transformative for themselves as well as all the customers who are buying groceries. Although this seems a flight of fantasy, I have seen it happen in a different setting. For 10 years Catherine and I volunteered for a week each summer at Camp Fatima in New Hampshire, a camp for special needs (exceptional citizens) children. There were 150 campers and 350 staff for a total of 500 people for the week. The waiters were a group of 14-year-old high school boys who, year after year, became transformed by the entire experience. These could easily have been the same boys working at Market Basket, but the outcome was entirely different. The camp functioned as a school for consciousness / citizenship / humanity for these boys. In some cases, the experience was so profound that the boys came back year after year. They became counselors and staff and helped other young waiters as well as the campers. Quite encouraging indeed.
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7/28/2023 0 Comments Day #19 - UnlearnMy wife and I are learning Polish and are beginners – maybe even slightly advanced beginners because we can now read and basically pronounce the words. We sing in the Polish choir. We can even make simple sentences but get completely lost when someone asks us a simple question like “how are you?”
The unlearning is that Polish is NOT structured like English. Words can move anywhere in a sentence depending on emphasis. Ends of words fit into “cases” where there is no equivalent in English. It is so cool to realize that the way my thinking (brain) has been structured from childhood is only one possible way of making sense of the world. It is a perfectly good way but limited perhaps like all other languages. This realization comes often and each time I find myself happy and energized to experience this. However, in my next lifetime, I am going to be born in Switzerland or some other place where all the children can speak 4 languages by the time they are ten years old! 7/27/2023 0 Comments Day #18 - CommunityThe “new” story – Community
These days, I see myself as a part of many communities: religious, spiritual, animal, environmental, psychological, and so on. My sense of being imbedded includes humans, but so much more. As a remarkable bonus, the major disease of our time, alienation / loneliness / disconnection etc. is not part of my everyday experience. I often experience myself as a strange composite of all the communities inside my body, communities of little beings, sometimes very little, but communities all the same. It is this deep sense of connection, interbeing if you prefer, that I wish for all humans. It makes an enormous difference in how everything is experienced. Animals feel this naturally. This Pod, the “new story pod” is yet another community rowing in this direction. It is, and has been a great privilege being part of it. I want to add this little story to yesterday's post. I remembered it before I fell asleep. Bickfords I was 21, had arrived in Boston, and had found my mentor, Cesareo, a fiery Cuban, 35 years old. We were having breakfast at Bickford’s, a family restaurant from another era, and as usual, I had all sorts of questions and frustrations. “Why is it that when I say something about inner growth, etc., no one seems to listen to me. When you say the same thing, people do listen.” Cesareo listened to both my question and my frustration. “Even if I told you, you could not really understand.” “Why is that?” “Because there is something you need that neither I nor anyone else can give you.” “And what’s that?” “10 years!” I was quiet. “If you still are speaking your truth from your understanding, then eventually, others will hear you.” Advice to Younger self
First – As I am now 76, “younger” generally means anyone under 60, myself or anyone else. Each age has its tasks and challenges, and there is great variation on how to go about this. Second – I rarely give advice. I prefer to accompany others as they go through their adventures / misadventures. Third – I like to explore with questions like these
7/24/2023 0 Comments Maybe or the law of otherwiseWhen I was in my young 20s, I met Irmis Popoff, a marvelous teacher in the Gurdjieff tradition. She was in her 70s and I thought she so old, like my grandma. Now that I am in my 70s, maybe I was just so young! She taught us something she called “the law of otherwise,” a deceptively simple practice that I have been working on for the past 50 years. It is that anything, everything can be understood “otherwise” than it appears at first impression.
What makes this teaching so empowering is the possibility for any of us, at any time, to bring a different level of understanding to what is happening. A different understanding allows me to see the situation differently, and thus the options for engagement expand exponentially. Just a few examples
“The Youngers”
Yesterday, Catherine and I rode our bikes to one of our favorite breakfast places. We sat inside next to a window. Outside, a party of 5, two parents, two grandparents and a one-year-old, not yet talking, got a table right in front of us. The one-year-old decided he did not want to be in carriage anymore and began to climb out. Nothing would stop him so mom picked him up and put him on the sidewalk. He began to crawl, looking at everything on the ground and above himself. He simply smiled. His crawling led him to a chair leg. Exploring the leg he reached both hands up, and pulled himself to standing. ” OMG, I am standing.” He began to walk and fell, scooched himself back to the chair leg and pulled himself up again. “Look” I am walking now, wow!” He almost fell again but grandpa caught him this time. His adventure continued for 10 minutes. Up, walking, down and back again. The child was in such delight that passers- by just stopped and looked at the life energy flowing through him. At a certain point, he looked at his mom, threw his arms into the air, which meant “you can pick me up now.” The whole scene felt like the Universe saying: You want to see beginner’s mind, true learning. Go no further. Here it is! 7/22/2023 0 Comments Day #13 - Exhale / Deep RelaxationOur 15-year-old dog Barq will soon be crossing the Rainbow Bridge. He was brought up in a kennel of sled dogs in a litter of 14. The theme for their names was soft drinks, so there was Barq (root beer), Cola, Shasta, etc. When children ask me why he is called Bark, I tell them it was either Bark or Woof and we chose Bark. That satisfies their curiosity, and then they ask if they can pet him. Children don’t care much about the spelling.
Accompanying an old dog or any elder being is a remarkable practice of acceptance. Barq now has leeway for his behavior. For example, he is no longer required to poop only outside, although it is certainly our preference. Catherine and I talk about poop the way that Eskimos might talk about snow. Living with many animals, domestic and wild, we see the subtleties and signs of health and well being directly in their poop. I “asked” Barq the other day how he was doing. He told me that he can’t jump up on the bed anymore, but can still make it to the couch. He seems to be enjoying his life most of the time. Catherine and I have decided not to travel until Barq goes. There is just too much to do in these final stages which may last a week or a few months. We know he will let us know and we will listen. Thus, we are deeply relaxed. Our hopes for Barq as well as ourselves have been softened. We accept his coming death and the inevitability of our own. If all fears and tensions are somehow related to our own fear of death, then accompanying Barq is a beautiful practice for deep relaxation. 7/21/2023 0 Comments Day #12 - The Air we breatheAt 4AM last night, I woke up calm, deeply relaxed and alert. Yesterday, I had written a post about failure and learning from failure, and my mind / body / feelings were still digesting the learning. My topic was not getting into any of the colleges of my choice. My wife’s failure (she is also doing the 21-day pod), was about coming in 2nd in a teenage hula-hoop contest, when she could have easily come in first. Both experiences left their marks on us.
From my calm and open state, I asked this presence that was within me (which felt like deep thinking and feeling) if there was another way to understand these, for us, traumatic events. “Have you considered that in the early years, when security, belonging and doing well are of utmost importance, it is the very air we breathe. To not breathe this air would be impossible. It is everywhere including our parents, schools, friends, TV, advertising and at the core of our culture. Consider the importance of being #1, getting a good job, meeting the right spouse, wanting the same for our children and grandchildren, and living the American or most other culture’s “dream.” It is the air we breathe.” I responded or had the thought “But, I don’t feel pulled by this too much these days, at least not all the time.” “Yes, and at those times, you are literally breathing different air. Look at your life especially over the past six years. So much love, so many accomplishments, and yet you feel that you don’t do much. Your most consistent emotion is appreciation or gratitude and simply enjoying what’s in front of you. Of course, not all the time but enough. And enough really is enough!” 7/20/2023 0 Comments Day #11 The Gift of FailureAt first, I could not think of anything related to failure. I don’t think in those terms anymore. My wife suggested to think of my youth, and this story came crashing through.
It was my senior year in high school, and I was desperate to move out of my house (NYC apartment in Queens) and go to sleep-away college. My parents had enough money to pay for it. I was a good student but not great and I applied to schools above my “pay grade” and was rejected by all except Queens College, a NY public commuter school. I had won a Regents scholarship which paid for it, so I had been given a free ride to college. My experience was that of complete failure. My friends had all gone to sleep-away schools and I was still stuck in Queens. My teenage understanding of “freedom” was simple “Do what I want when I wanted to do it.” My biggest fear was being trapped and I felt totally trapped. I was angry at everything and everybody including myself. I entered an intense depression, made bad choices about my courses (all science and math courses that required focus and concentration), almost lost my scholarship for poor grades, and mostly wore a black tea shirt. I basically wallowed in a toxic soup of self-pity throughout the year. I shut myself off from the many opportunities of college clubs doing all sorts of interesting and wonderful things. I didn’t even notice that they existed. I write this with a certain degree of embarrassment and shame because I had so much but couldn’t see it at the time. Then, toward the very end of the college year, I looked up from my Bunsen burner in chemistry lab and saw directly across from me a most beautiful girl. She had been there all year but I never noticed her. The next day, I took off my black tea shirt, put on something springlike, screwed up my courage and asked her out. To my surprise and utter delight, she said YES. She became my college girlfriend and our relationship was the basis for a marvelous college experience. Later, little by little, I came to understand that my complete failure to go to sleep-away college was the impetus for meeting my girlfriend including the many wonderful things that followed. Over the years, my understanding of “freedom” changed significantly and it is simply my ability to choose my attitude to whatever external or internal events occur. This has served me very well. |
David FeldmanDog walker, Dog Mediator, Father, Husband, Categories |