A new sort of gazing-house

On the night when you cross the street
from your shop and your house
to the cemetery,

you’ll hear me hailing you from inside
the open grave, and you’ll realize
how we’ve always been together.

I am the clear consciousness-core
of your being, the same in
ecstasy as in self-hating fatigue.

...don’t look for me in human shape.
I am inside your looking. No room
for form with love this strong.

...No need to wait until we die!
There’s more to want here than money
and being famous and bites of roasted meat.

Now, what shall we call this new sort of gazing-house
that has opened in our town where people sit
quietly and pour out their glancing
like light, like answering?

Rumi, in ‘The Essential Rumi’, trs. Barks and Moyne



Last night in satsang with Pamela, someone said he finds himself wondering mid-sentence what is happening. He said it differently, but I think he was pointing to the gazing-house. I find myself less and less inclined to engage in conversations of the sort that once sustained me, as if the silence of answering is of more interest than the words of questioning.

A friend tells me that we are a culture of language. She says language apparently arose from the rhythms of music. We speculate that our speaking is more about rhythm than the words. Perhaps we are like birds enjoying the sounds they send out from their bodies with less attachment to meaning than most Westernized humans can imagine.

Another friend who recently received a Tibetan teaching on dying reports the teacher said, “Dementia is a purification.”

I have come to a new peace in the last days in which I find myself celebrating my life. “I could die a happy woman,” I report to friends. “When I review the experiences of this life, I celebrate the fullness.” This sense of background satisfaction catches me by surprise.

I can’t point to any one thing that brought the turning toward this understanding, but one event does stick in my mind as being of particular help, and that is watching the Dutch film ‘Antonia’s Line’. It is a story of a woman celebrating her life on the day she is to die. A simple use of flashback. What strikes me is the celebratory quality of the story, the sense of fullness within quirky and spontaneous responses to the situations of life.

The mind panics a bit--what shall I talk about if I have nothing to fix or right or resist? I’ve never been one to enjoy gazing into the eyes of others for long. I’m like the cats--a bit of a receptive gaze is plenty. Being in silence is very comfortable, but I prefer the side by side posture with my looking to the world.

Or better yet, the rhythm of easy doing things together--cooking, stitching, gardening, trying to put words to paper. In my gazing house, there would be long sheets of paper and colored pens, pencils, paints to use, and an on-going poem, and cloth and thread. And, there would be a few rooms for naps, and a noisy kitchen with a long table, and another room for dancing and music-making, and a sensuous place to retire to for love-making. This is what Antonia created in her life, and I believe she died a happy woman.

Hand-crafted life

My friend and colleague Jorge often expresses great satisfaction in learning to live simply, to live “a hand-crafted life” with few ambitions of career and less longing to acquire more stuff.

My community of friends celebrate creativity through painting, photography, music, dance, words, textiles, food, garden--the usual array that has been used for as long as humans have been human. Only a few are famous at what they do.

I think this is what Gary Snyder meant when he said in an interview that the ambition of a Taoist was to become a melon-grower. Or what Carolyn Myss meant when she said that maybe your “job” is simply to be “a light in the neighborhood”.

My Surface Design Association magazine arrived in the mail yesterday. I am in awe of what is happening in the textile art world. My pieces look simple and unformed next to the work of Lauren Camp, Jane Dunnewold, Joy Stockdale, and so many others who are really pushing the possibilities of expression through cloth. I am a late-bloomer who does not have time, energy, or ambition to reach their level of technique and brilliance.

But I don’t wish for it to be otherwise. I don’t wish, as I once did, that I had had the courage to major in art in university, or that I had thrown over work or relationship to pursue the illusive role of writer or artist later in life. I like my slow, simple hand-crafted life. I like that my engagement with cloth these days is great fun and without goals. I just plain enjoy the process of stitching and seeing what follows.

Yesterday I took a short walk with a friend. “There is where a friend lives with her elder-dog, who I go to visit when she is at work. And here, meet my friend who started taking care of the feral cats. And that is the Tibetan center, right next door to the busy liquor store. And there is the woman who sells honey on Fridays.” I’ve unwittingly landed in a neighborhood where people talk with one another and know something about one another’s lives. It’s refreshingly ordinary.

Local members of Surface Design Association are gathering for the first time next week. We are invited to bring some of our work to show. I feel a bit nervous to share my simple beginnings, but on the other hand, I feel deeply happy to have arrived at a point where I am doing something for sheer pleasure and curiosity. It is truly this latter that I wish to share more than the things I have made. These hand-crafted objects are simply offerings of beauty and praise, no less than the purr of cats, the song of birds, the sound of snake sliding across grass, the turning of leaves to the sun.

Call and Response

Anni Albers, a Bauhaus artist who used cloth brilliantly, wrote in her essay ‘Art--A Constant’, “We can recognize in material a willing bearer of ideas which we superimpose upon it... A balanced interplay of passive obedience to the dictation of the material on the one side and of active forming is the process of creating. Working with material in an imaginative manner, we may come out at the end with an understanding of art or with a work of art. For as material alone gives reality to art, we will, in forming it, come to know those forces which are at work in any creation.”

This essay is dated November, 1939. In this and other essays of that period, she refers to the confusing times. I think that often in the art we make we are trying to work out confusion. We are trying to sort through so that we may make sense of life. And here I willingly expand the notion of art to all creative impulses, including growing and cooking food, making order, making a mess, styling hair, shaving, and the rest of daily activities.

In the current issue of ‘Selvedge’ (Issue 10), a gorgeous textile magazine printed in England, an article on the use of bamboo in craft and art states, “There is a basic...respect for materials that permeates the Japanese sensibility. It is fundamental to the perception of the world around them and may be linked to the Japanese language. Studies have demonstrated intriguing differences between English children, who are likely to recognise and group simple objects by shape, and Japanese children who are more likely to focus on the material first.”

I’ve just finished another series of four textile pieces, which I am calling “Studies in the Geography of Cloth and Thread.” The material is cloth I’ve dyed, except for one small rectangle of ikat from Japan, white silk organza, thread, and the background canvas which was intended to be a drop cloth for house painters. I find myself engrossed in the conversation. What, dear material at hand, is wanted next? I stitch at all hours and am reluctant to turn my attention elsewhere. This is my devotional song right now, listening for the call, listening for the response.

I almost gave up at the third piece, ‘Steppes’. Too messy, too busy, too incomprehensible. But the movement in the materials kept me engaged and hopeful that understanding would come clear. The fourth piece, ‘Springs’, wanted great simplification. To my eye, it is the most successful, but I see that the prior three conversations with material were necessary to land at the source.

All together, they tell a story, or several stories, and they evoke in me some unspoken clarity. The doldrums of the past weeks have relented a bit and gratitude has come around again. I have no particular explanation for this shift. Empathy, kindness, patience, and the pleasure of cloth and thread suffice.

Studies in the Geography of Cloth and Thread: Vales, Rivers, Steppes, Springs

"A word is a being." M.C. Richards

In an interview in The Sun, M. C. Richards, the author of ‘Centering’, said, “Try asking yourself where the words are before you speak them. I think we make a mistake in trying to restrict a word into something that we can read about in a dictionary. A word is a being. Writing becomes a more intimate and inspired activity when you see you’re writing out of your substance, out of the mystery.”

Earlier in the interview, she spoke about color. She had observed that children in Waldorf schools use color to make words, so she took up that practice too. She discovered that spiritual awareness can come “through something as basic as color--making some kind of contact with that reality we call color.”

I find myself sitting in the doldrums these past few days, a becalmed, no headway experience lacking color. I ask myself, where are the doldrums before I name it? There is something intimate to be seen here, but it seems there is no forcing it. It’s like night vision. If I look closely, or strain to look, I can’t see.

What soothes most is color. The window above my desk holds the view of lilacs coming on against the intense blue of the Southwestern sky. Vinca is valiantly blooming in the drought. This is a ground cover considered a weed in many parts of the world, but here is a welcome blue flower and shiny green leaves. A few miniature hyacinths popped up their blue-purple. The roses are getting ready to bloom--they will bring a brief flurry of pink and orange.

In my stitching, I am attracted to the bright tropical colors. This desire for the brights I suspect is arising from the same longing that wants to fully live life, that wants the veil to dissolve. But, dear thing, it keeps looking elsewhere, in the future. A different place, a different circumstance. Anything but this.

There is a place in the ocean near the equator called the doldrums, a place where the waters are often becalmed, or there are sudden unexpected small storms. The word apparently comes from “dull.” Not shiny, tarnished. I feel this in my solar plexus--a gray dullness. This and a persistent cough are the residue of the flu.

If thinking in the form of “something is wrong here” didn’t arise, I suppose I would curl up like a cat, go for walks, eat delicious foods, and enjoy cool drinks. I would more easily let the mystery work itself through without worrying at it so much. Eventually a small storm is likely to refresh and invigorate movement and vibrancy. In the meantime, I’ll bring some lilacs indoors for my table, and then I’ll go buy some more bright silk embroidery floss to add to my stitching.

Invisibility

I’ve been giving consideration to Rimpoche’s report of feeling invisible when she is thoroughly enjoying her body. I’m guessing this is like Tolle’s referring to the “inner body”, which to my mind is another way of saying non-separation. Tolle describes it as not “really the body anymore but life energy, the bridge between form and formlessness.”

“When you are in touch with the inner body, you are not identified with your body anymore, nor are you identified with your mind....you are no longer identified with form but moving away from form-identification toward formlessness, which we also call Being. It is your essence identity.”

I think this is what Rimpoche means when she says it feels good to be Cat from the inside out.

This business of form and formlessness is tricky. Here we are, embodied, with a mind that tends to believe it knows best. Mind wants to show “me” formlessness, but does it through form-identification. It is so cute, so eager, so excited about Life it wants to be sure I track every second by creating a story around what is happening.

When I was younger, I would often feel dismay in a library or bookstore--how could I ever have the time to read and understand all the knowledge contained in one small room, let alone a large building? These days I sometimes feel dismay in such places, but for an entirely different reason--how sad to think of all the minds focussed on acquiring knowledge through reading in the pursuit of happiness when everything we need is already right here.

Instead of “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” I think closer to the truth is, “A mind is a sad thing to believe.” Not to diss the mind--it has many uses, including putting these words together to be shared with others. It is just a little overrated, as I think Rimpoche would agree. And I agree with her that we have a lot to learn by focussing on the loving, sensuous body from the inside out, by learning to be invisible.

I like too that this gives the mind a chance to deeply rest. It’s been working very hard trying to protect Life. Time for the leisure of retirement.

Rimpoche

Rimpoche reports through Sharon that she really likes her body. She likes the way it feels and moves. She likes how it is to be a cat from the inside out, especially in the warmer weather. She says she feels almost invisible when she is enjoying her body. And, she says, she thinks humans can learn a lot from cats’ ability to be loving and sensuous.

Even though I don’t experience these communications in the same way Sharon does, I trust them. And I trust that connecting with “others” in a more direct way is something humans have always known and been deeply nourished by.

If one needs studies, they abound. People who pet animals on the whole experience less stress. People who spend time in the natural world are renewed. Children with autism are often more relaxed when in the company of calm animals. Some say it was dogs who domesticated humans, who taught humans the benefits of group cooperation.

I think that if I were to have a “talk” with Rimpoche, she would assure me that we are here to serve one another. That we are here to celebrate that there are so many different bodies on this earth and that we all have much to teach and learn with one another.

I see her confidence growing daily. Although she still prefers to keep her distance and rarely spends time indoors, I have a sense she will grow into her name of learned teacher. And I hope I will grow into learned student in the best sense of the notion as our family of cats, humans, plants and trees matures.

Half a picture and cat humor

I sent some photos to Sharon before I talked with her about various cat and people things. One was this photo of Oh-Oh and me. I had been trying for some time to get a self-portrait of the the two of us as we sat outside in the sunshine. I held the camera out at arm’s length and tried to get both of us in the frame. Oh-Oh was either interested in getting close to the camera or settling in on my lap with his head turned. Of a dozen or so photos, this was the best.

When Sharon was looking at it, she said all the cats thought this was funny. And they got interested in a series of half-photos.

That is why in the Rimpoche post there is a half-photo at her request. Actually, it’s closer to 3/4, but she seems satisfied with the apparent humor in it.

"You are welcome here!" Pamela Wilson

Pamela is the queen of welcoming. In her presence, it’s easy to welcome whoever and whatever arrives.

“I feel lonely,” I say. Her shining eyes light up even more. “Who else is loneliness going to sit with except you?” And, “Maybe loneliness is lonely for You....”

She likes to interview these notions that come to visit. “What do you want?” she asks. “Who are you really? Would you show me your true nature?” Or, “Can you see the vastness behind the loneliness?”

This morning, as is the habit of this body/mind, I woke with Worry-Planning in full gear. “Hit the floor running” was a family value. I recall clearly the clang of a metal utensil on the steam pipe that ran upstairs into my bedroom in my childhood home. This was the alarm clock my father devised. I was to jump out of bed and stomp on the icy cold linoleum floor to let them know I was alert, up, and hitting the floor running. From the age of eight, I had one or two dozen lambs to bottle feed and give hay and water to before the school bus came at 7:30. Developing automatic habits of planning was my way of getting the job done on time.

I don’t regret those early morning chores, even when it was bitterly cold. We lived far enough from the influence of lights to see the stars clearly. The Milky Way was a dense band of white. In the winter, the stillness was a balm to the rush to getting the bottles ready. Later in the year and in the summer, the dawn was a favorite time. I rarely slept past the sun coming up over the ridge even when I had the luxury to do so. I suppose I was still attuned to the vastness behind the planning, and that the sky and quiet were precious reminders.

This morning, instead of activating my habitual resistance to this worry-planning pest, I found myself welcoming. “You are welcome here! What would you like, what is it you want?” Not surprisingly, the answer is, “To be sure of engaging fully in Life.”

Who can fault that wish? With the seeing of this, I relax, and the vastness behind the apparent obscuration shows itself naturally.

Pamela reminds us that seeing your true nature is simply being natural. Honey, her dog companion, models naturalness for us.

As I type this, Oh-Oh, who knows much about engaging naturally and fully in Life, has come to offer the conclusive words on the subject, “dfvcccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc-ccccccccccccccccccccccccb.”

Rain barrels, flower pots, and wildness

Some weeks ago, members of the Motorcycle Gang discovered that the top of the rain barrel next to my studio door has a screen over it and therefore is a place to curl up in without falling into the barrel. An added benefit is that the barrel offers an excellent view into the studio. ZoZo and Felicity have since taken advantage of this perch. I’ve become diligent about testing the tautness of the screen. A cat fallen into the barrel would likely drown. It is the sort of image that can get my mind into a panic.

A while back, I watched Felicity race across the street in front of a fast-moving car. They all cross the street frequently. I don’t know what they do there, but I see a cat pathway through a fence and around a neighbor’s house. Crossing the street is part of the path.

I determined early on in my relationship with these cats that I would refrain from interfering with their wildness as much as I am up to. I had just re-read Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ “Women Who Run With Wolves.” She writes, “We lose our illusions when we take the risk to meet the aspect of our nature that is truly wild....” She celebrates the feral in us. Like me, she considers the civilized life suspect and lacking in vigor.

In the curiosity of rediscovering my own wild nature, I’ve loosened my attempt to control the rhythm of my days. I’m more willing to see the should-thinking that arises around even the smallest of things that appears on my mental To Do List. I surmise that trusting life leads to trusting needs will be taken care of, and that in the increased trusting there is the miracle of needs being taken care of more easily. It’s tricky ground because the mind can so easily go to fundamentalist thinking about faith, sin, redemption, etc.

I often think these cats are leading me back home. I had thought to plant some flowers in the flower pots. Because of the drought, we are more restricted in our watering. Soon we will be admonished to only water trees and to let the rest go. But saved shower water and dish water is sufficient for a few flower pots. It seems, however, that this will drop from my list, or at least half will drop. The cats probably like the cool packed earth of the pots, and perhaps they like the slight elevation, so they plant themselves in pots daily.

I do enjoy flowers, but there are other ways to have them, including buying them from a local farmer. One less thing on the To Do List. One more way to respond to life instead trying to make it happen.

Living in a barn

About two years ago, I bought two Gabbeh rugs that I particularly liked. One is of a deep red, and the other is off-white with dark blue. I had long admired the modern Gabbehs and these two were particularly delightful to my eye. The first winter I lived with them, I made a wool sweater with designs from the rugs.

I lived at the time with only two cats, Bonz and Puffer. Bonz was beginning to pee in places other than the litter, but it was contained to two small mats that I put plastic under and replaced with clean ones and clean plastic several times a day.

When she was a kitten, she had confusion about the litter. We placed several litter boxes about the house to help her. Eventually, she understood that was the place to use. But as she aged and became more frail, she reverted to the earlier confusion. In the last six months or so of her life, she developed a tendency to pee on anything soft, including the bed. I put plastic and mats and old sheets in all the places she was using. I got used to the sound of light painters plastic crackling when I turned over at night.

She, and then the new cats, used the red Gabbeh rug I had in my studio as litter, so I took it up. The white one suffered from a different fate--Puff’s throw up. Puff has always had times when she throws up a lot. She too likes to do it on soft things. I took the white one up too and sent them both out to be cleaned.

Once Bonz was gone and the other cats got used to using the litter, I put one of the rugs back down, the red one. And immediately Puff started using it for her throwing up. I asked her to do it some place else. I think she tried because several times now she’s hit my slippers--mostly--instead of the rug. I leave my slippers on a corner of the rug at night, so I guess she figures that’s better than the rug itself.

My stuffed chairs have suffered the usual sculpting creativity. When Bonz and Puff were kittens, we tried to train them to use other things, like the scratching post. At some point, I gave up and simply snipped the threads off now and then. I later spent a year making slipcovers for all five pieces. Now they too are showing signs of shredding. I thought that cats that are mostly outdoors would prefer trees, but I seem to have got that wrong.

I live currently in a simple house made up of converted garages, various additions, old adobe walls and newer stick-built walls, and floors that slope. It is casual. When I saw the Gang of Four beginning to shred the slip-covered furniture, my heart sank.“All that work!” I thought.

How strange that I would come to think “nice” furniture was more important than the “work” of such beautiful living creatures. I know of people who have had cats declawed because the look of the furniture is considered more important than the balance and beauty of the cat.

I did for a while wish to live in a barn. I envisioned the downstairs to be most barn-like, with straw that could be swept and replaced, and room for the critters to run and climb. I would keep a few rooms upstairs more like I am used to, including the Gabbeh rugs on the floor. But I’m guessing in the end the upstairs would come to look more like the downstairs, or more like my current studio with bits of straw tracked in from the kitty condos, so I might as well stay put.

TangaRoo

The Gang of Four members have had some name shifts since we first met. I wasn't yet in the habit of waiting to "hear" what they would like to be called. Because they each reminded me of other cats I've known, I used those names but eventually they shifted a bit. Uh-Oh became Oh-Oh, Louise became Louie-Louie, Monkey Face (named entirely for herself) became Monkey Gurl, and Tangie 2 became TangaRoo. I kept the "g" sound like in tangerine, but when her color faded and when her personality showed up more clearly, I could see that a more original name fit.

Somewhere in her lineage is, I suspect, Mr. Marmalade. He's a sweet and petable cat from a few houses north. He used to come around when the girls were in heat, so one day I snatched him up. He was, I think, bewildered. He came back to visit a few times after the surgery, but he was no longer petable. If I see him this summer, I'm guessing he will warm up again. But the boys tend to stay closer to home after the hormone change, so I may only see him in his progeny.

Roo has Mr. Marmalade's sweetness with a mix of sudden episodes of bossiness. She's gotten a little less shy and is interested in petting and combing, especially about the head. She's also become more chatty. I have the sense she's telling me a story that usually ends in a question, as if she wants to solicit my feedback. "Did you enjoy that?"

Her favorite toy is the little soft spiky ball. I keep a supply on hand because they have a habit of disappearing. She loves me doing the ball toss with her, or lifting the chairs to see if one is under there in a place she can't quite reach. Lately, I've been finding the ball in the water dish and the evidence of a lot of water splashed about. She must be dropping it in to play with or to wash. I don't always understand why she chooses to do what she does. Her thinking, to me, seems quirky and creative, but not predictable.

From the beginning, she's been less willing to let me get a full-on photo of her. She looks directly at me until I get the camera out. Because I trust the intelligence of these beings knowing what they are up to, I ask questions. "Will you let me take your photo for Sharon? for the blog? Is it all right if I post about you now?"

I don't know who is asking whom. My experience of TangaRoo is just that. Something inside of my experience of myself. I don't know where I end and she begins. I do sense a difference in quality of energy in the experience of each of these beings who share my days with me. Roo's is smooth, playful, quirky, and imaginative. When strangers show up, she's quick to disappear. She knows her limits.

When the strangers leave, she comes out to play. This seems a sensible approach to life. Rest quietly in response to feeling overwhelmed and play with abandon and humor when revived.

The March of the Motorcycle Gang

I am not sure how many black and white short haired cats there are in this colony. Around half a dozen, I'm guessing. They look very similar to me. My neighbor seems to track them more easily. "Oh yes, that's Harley," he says. "And Tiny and Blackie." Or, "Negrito".

At the vets', I name them on the spot. Harley de Negrito, Davidson de Negrito. My neighbor takes up the name when I return them to him. But I can't keep track.

What I do know is that they seem to be mostly male and that they've discovered the cafe on my patio. In the morning, several hover on the rooftop of the neighbor-inbetween waiting to see who will feed first. I've taken to keeping an eye out for their disappearance before I set food out. The leader of the gang has become substantial in his width because of double dipping.

Lately, they've been testing getting in the door. I stand next to it like a bouncer in an exclusive club in New York. "No! No black and whites," I announce firmly. "Yes, you ZoZo, Mamacita, Rimpoche, but not you."

I know it's a losing proposition. Come summer, my door will remain open much of the day and they will explore with impunity. They are curious, as cats are designed to be. I'm not inclined to exercise exclusion in my life, so I predict I will relax my current standards as long as there is no marking being done inside my studio.

There is, I suspect, something here about accepting what life has to offer. Tolle advises non-resistance, non-attachment, and and non-judgment. Just as I didn't know that Penelope was bringing me a gift of support, I don't yet know what it is their presence is bringing.

All the same, I want to be clear, discernment leads me to continue the practice of avoiding patio service while they are lolling about. I doubt fat ferals is in the interest of the colony or my pocketbook.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form

We celebrated Louie-Louie's passing yesterday by chanting a version of The Heart Sutra and making dedications and thanks. A friend who has been ordained as a Buddhist priest came, as she did with Bonsai, put on her robes, and led the ceremony. The simplicity of it seems perfect for a small being who brought unadorned joy into my studio.

I had the sense Louie came around the day before wondering what we were going to do. When I set up the altar in the morning on my work table, I almost could hear him purr.

During the ceremony, I asked for guidance from him about where to put his body's ashes. I have in mind to plant something to especially mark his brief embodied existence. Bulbs that bloom in spring, or a native shrub, or some grasses that grow tall and die back in the winter. But maybe he'll want a tree to climb.

There is time. We are in a serious drought, so the earliest planting will be next Autumn.

Even though the other cats are nervous around people, and especially ones they aren't familiar with, they wanted to come in. Except for Monkey Gurl, they couldn't quite make themselves do it. So they hung about outside until all were gone. Then, with great gusto, they ate the food offering for Louie (Trader Joe's Greek Yogurt, which Louie once reported to Sharon he thought was food from heaven) and had a party with the cat mint offering.

Sharon has told me that cats go back and forth with greater ease than dogs or some other animals close to humans. Perhaps this explains their independence and apparent self-confidence. This emptiness-is-form, form-is-emptiness notion is no big deal. Like changing costumes between acts.

When I first read the heart sutra, I felt terrified. This body-mind is still suspicious of the notion there is no place to go because, when you investigate, it's clear we are everywhere. Up until recently, this didn't seem very friendly.

If you had said to me a year ago that in the next year I would accompany three cats to their last breath and even find myself celebrating the coming and going of form, I would have felt astonished.

Little Little Spot, Bonsai, and Louie-Louie, I bow in gratitude for this great teaching.