Breathing It All In... Blog #10

Wednesday April 17^th, 2013… Flagstaff Hill, Schenley Park…6:56 p.m…68 degrees … dusk…Last Blog…

The sun is low and deep not seeking attention instead humbly passing it to the sky.  She condescendingly glides through emptiness towards an invisible horizon. It feels like a moment where everything slides into their place.  The singing and chirping of the robins and wrens hushed; the screams of excitement from the ultimate Frisbee game whispered. The echoes of machinery muffled. All about them it is still and shadowy and sweet. It is a wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems greater: a moment when almost anything can happen or be believed in. It reminds me of something someone said to me long ago that I have never forgotten because it is right. “Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!” And Why not? There is a sunrise and sunset every day, and they are absolutely free, so why miss any of them? Like the first pangs of love the colors blaze a grapy dusk; the sun looks like burgundy, the color of pressed grapes. Sunsets drip and smell of fruits: melon fields, and peach groves with bits of tangerine. I trust Cezanne might capture it best. As the last remnants of redness seeped from the sky the air turned cooler, staining and dyeing the evening purple. 

I sit and breathe. Breathe… In… and out… simply… breathe. Of all the things I have taken away from coming to this spot this semester, it is the acknowledgement and humble attention I have given my breath. It is my breath that will resonate longest and provide for me the most.  It is easier here, more natural, less restrained, more pronounced, fuller, deeper and rounder. The presence it provides brings me nowhere/ now here.  The moment, dangling, never to be had, only to be… It is where I find my friend myself and experience: allows me to look with eyes that can see and listen with ears that can hear. Why can I find this easier here than elsewhere? What is it that nature supplies and provides for this ease?… this BIENG?…  this sensitivity to life?

Why is nature so beautiful? Why does sitting still or a short walk amidst nature have such a calming influence on our mind? Why does the sight of sunsets, flowers, green fields, blossoming trees, singing birds, and quiet streams fill our hearts with such ineffable joy ?

It might seem obvious for some, but my intense love and need for nature is still a great mystery, one that even evolutionary biologists would be hard-pressed to explain. After all, what is the utility in admiring a sunset, or delighting at the breeze blowing tree limbs and leaves, when it serves no evolutionary purpose? I suppose I could use reason to find a semblance of an ordered idea, but there is something beyond this limited language and consciousness that nature holds. Evolution and science can explain many facts of our daily existence, yet the answer to this profound puzzle lies beyond the reaches of present day science.

How is it that nature, in my breath, is trying to teach me to see the sacred in the mundane and the profound in the prosaic? In the preface to "The Forest Unseen", David Haskell reminded me that more than two centuries ago William Blake offered up the most extraordinary of possibilities in his poem "Auguries of Innocence". “To see a world in a grain of sand. And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”

Unfortunately, most of us don't know how to hold eternity in the palm of our hands.Maybe David Haskell can and has come as close to it as anyone, but I know I normally can't. To be honest, I feel lucky if I can just hold it together until the end of the day. I attribute that mostly to most of us having lost our minds.  And I mean that literally. Our attention is endlessly lost in the endless blur of appointments, to-do lists, responsibilities, worries, should have's, could have's, concerns and agitation that makes up our glorious and sophisticated modern lives.

There are times,though, that for just the briefest moment, we do pick up a vibration or sense that there is something more going on than this monotonous daily round of survival. But, unfortunately, those moments are too few and far between; those glimpses of clarity into the world pass only to see the waves of mundane urgency swallow us again. Tumbling through the chaos of our day-to-day repetitions, I wonder if Blake's vision of a broader, more expansive experience is nothing more than a poet's quixotic dream. Can we really see the Universe in a grain of sand, even as we slog through interminable traffic? Can we really hold infinity in our hands, even as we go shopping, drop off the mail, pay our bills, clean the dishes, do the laundry or search through Face Book?

When I sit quietly with my breath in nature, it seems to me that we can. The connection between the everyday realities we experience and boundless landscapes of cosmic beauty, inspiration and joy found in the flowers, sunsets and trees surrounding me is actually so close, so present for us all. I feel like they are there in everything we come into contact with:the dried fish food flakes stuck to the aquarium, the dust and pollen on my car, the mess on my desk and the dirty dish water in my sink.

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What Shenley park has told me in my breath is that the key is in the noticing and that happens by  living and not necessarily answering the question hidden in Blake's poem. Can we really see the whole world in a grain of sand?

Through the lens of stillness and the breath, I can begin to recognize how even the smallest things surrounding me like a snail’s slow persistent meandering, a blooming flower, darting squirrel, regal red cardinal, broken tree branch or torn patch of grass can be a gateway to an experience of the extraordinary, if only we can practice noticing.

We walk and look past a thousand natural miracles every day, from the purple sun's descent in the sky to the arc of birds seen chasing each other in joyous flight. Those miracles are there waiting for us to see them, to notice them and, most importantly, to find our delight in them.

For anyone looking for a little transcendence, I recommend that they go on up to Flagstaff Hill and breathe.

Blog #9 A Little Sadness Goes a Long Way

Flagstaff Hill, Schenley Park…Sunday, April 7, 2013 11:12 a.m...

This is the first day since we began these blogs twelve weeks ago that I come to this place of my own volition.  Each time I have been here previously, it was out of necessity, to fulfill a requirement. I have taken it seriously and have been the better for it. On each occasion, I have been granted a small dispensation of grace and well-being, and if for nothing else, I am thankful for the excursions and musings done here.

Today has been different. Today, I went for another reason. I went for me. I went because I wanted to and it wasn’t because of the weather. Schenley was warm today and enveloped me in an accepting kindness. Her reception was soft and gentle and abounding in hospitality. The abundance of generosity and wisdom in nature never disappoints. She is always there waiting to attend because she somehow knows before you do why you are there. The root systems within her flow down deep within the earth and extend its tentacles far and wide to pick up on the languageless vibrations that reverberate through the air and fall back to the ground.  Our feelings transmit directly to her before we are able to articulate and recognize what they are for ourselves. Without knowing it, I have cast out my sad nets and red signals to her waiting to be retrieved. I have heard the blaze of her invitation today and so I aimed my road towards her hope.

I had a vivid dream last night. In it I was drunk. It wasn’t a good or bad dream; I was just very drunk. No one was injured. It was just a couple of friends and I drinking. I woke up. I haven’t had a drink in for a while now, and I was curious as to the significance of this dream. Why now? Does it mean something deeper? I sat in bed and felt an undefinable emptiness. I felt weak and heavy, lifeless and prosaic, torpid and apathetic, somnolent and ache. I felt sadness. Cunning that little disease alcoholism is. I was experiencing an emotional pang and longing for something not in my grasp like a building love wanting to be sent out but not ready to be received remaining like an endless necklace wrapped around my heart. I hadn’t lost anything and wasn’t grieving but the feeling was certain. It must have been clandestinely accruing while I have been inundated with constant work and fatherhood. Feelings like this used to be triggers for wanting to drink in order to drown out the sadness and to not have to confront what it was, where it came from, how it felt, or what to do to assuage its demands. Not anymore. I get up and follow my morning routine to confront and disinter the causes.

 First, I kneel and give thanks and gratitude for the beautiful things in my life: my daughter, my daughter, my daughter, my daughter, my wonderful supportive and loving family, my best friends living in North Carolina, my home, myself, music, art, creativity, ideas, books, forgiveness, second chances, redemption, my recovery and the moment. I give dignity to my material poverty by naming the things that I have, that I need and remembering that I need nothing more, and although I may be monetarily poor, I am spiritually full and as rich as I could possibly be at this moment. After this ritual, I meditate, take a quick dive and swim around my nameless interior to check in and make friends with myself. This is my spiritual tool kit. But alas, I am still sad. The feeling persists like a solitary bell burning with echoes.

I have learned and trained in the art of letting go through searching for and acknowledging the derivations. I have made a call to nature today. Schenley Park offered her open womb for this ancient cleansing of letting go. I brought my sadness to her. I may be quiet and lethargic today, but I will not withdraw form life. Anchored and laying in the cool olive grass, staring up at the sky, I understand the unified cohesion of earth and sky. There is no separation save for our own imposed and illusory boundaries. I am reminded of the advice to always stay rooted to the ground, to stay down and not get too high with elation or excitement; to always stay grounded because it is the ground that will bring you up to the sky. I get it. 

Sadness is one of the most natural states of life and yet so many of us do not know how to cope with it. We as a society no longer allow people to cope with sadness in a salubrious and natural way. We are either taught to ignore it, hide it or suppress it when it expresses itself. Some families don’t allow their children to bear any semblance of it because they dash in to relieve it without allowing the child to experience and cope with sadness. Later on, when that “screened-off” emotion isn’t available to them when they need it, the loss of sadness will result in manic and unbalanced behavior. Sadness requires a great strength to bear and if we are constantly protected from it we will not develop the requisite endurance to cope with these essential, natural and unavoidable feelings. People will run out of ways to avoid the experience of sadness resulting in all forms of self-destructive acts. We have become a medicated pharmaceutical society. If sadness cannot be confronted organically we can bypass the whole notion of grief and wish it away through chemical drugs administered by Pfizer and the like. When an infant, child, or adult shows that he can cry from sadness you can infer that they have traveled a long way in the development of their feelings...like the wind blowing and whistling above me, sad crying is one of the main roots of the more valuable kind of music.

The park has bestowed a kind of solitude where I am not alone. Nature offers a place where I can be patient and attentive to my sadness while knowing something more than myself is also there to listen to it. There is a utility in staying with the sadness; this ground, this earth and sky, the sensuous warmth of the spring wind offers emotional support helping me to feel and endure this sadness. Lying on this ground, I receive from the earth, an underlying belief that the capacity to bear sadness wholeheartedly, without pushing the experience away, emerges as essential to being truly alive and engaged in the world. 

 

I have been coming here for a few months contemplating the ineffable powers, mysteries, and beauty of nature; wondered what our connections to it are, how we need it, take from it, destroy it, create it, are it, live with and without it. I haven’t found any answers that can be categorized or memorialized in writing; but today, coming to her humbly and vulnerably, not looking for anything, I finally may have touched upon a semblance of an answer.    

 

"It's not pretty" Blog #8

Thursday, March 28^th, 2013 3:38 p.m… Cold…Cloudy… Drizzly… 41 degrees of uninspired, unchanging and cheerless weather.

I didn’t find Punxsutawney Phil last week, but that’s ok. It seems that little rodent has been indisposed. While millions of people were blanketed in snow last week, it seems that I am not alone in shaking my fists with rage at that conniving, lying groundhog who so casually convinced us that we would see an early spring.  An Ohio lawyer, Butler County Prosecutor, Mike Gmoser, has decided that he won’t sit idly by and watch this fur-covered liar get away with it. He has decided to indict Phil for “misrepresenting an early spring”. What I proposed as a joke last week of “strangling that little varmint” has now been put into action as Mr. Gmoser intends to pursue and punish Phil by lethal injection. Yet another strange confluence between man and nature illuminating the lack of connection we have with it and the resulting

mental instability.

This is revolting; not surprising, but altogether disheartening. Just as dead canaries are indicators for miners not to further excavate their caves this is a baleful harbinger that we have indeed lost our way and our minds.  With all of the global, national, environmental, and social issues of the day, this prosecutor has taken arrogance, embarrassment and absurdity to new heights. This is the kind of story that can really disillusion a person. I suppose that he doesn’t have better things to do. In lieu of arraigning a helpless groundhog for shameless notoriety, perhaps he could be of better use to society exercising his political influence to regulate guns so that they might remain in more responsible hands limiting the amount of atrocities perpetrated by the madmen and sociopaths he should be busy prosecuting instead; just a thought.  There is an old saying that prosecutors can indict a cheeseburger if they want to. This moron intends to prove it, instead, replacing the cheeseburger with a groundhog.

Today, Flagstaff Hill is all shades of brown: a russet no -color sepia; even the grass appears oxidized with rust. On the surface, it seems fallow and lifeless. There is a spirit and soul missing today. It is mine; no doubt. I project onto her what I bring, seeing on the outside what has materialized internally.  I just can’t help it today. Some days you just don’t have the endurance to see beauty. It brings to mind a poem, by Charles Bukowski, called “I Met a Genius”. In it, he is on a bus rolling down the majestic California coast with its prodigious cliffs cascading into the beautiful expanse of emerald sea. He is sitting next to a young boy who is looking out the window. The epiphany happens; the profound moment of clarity happens for the both of them. The boy turns and looks at him and says, “it’s not pretty.”

There isn’t always beauty in what we are supposed to think is beautiful. Perhaps beauty must contain a semblance of ugliness for it to transcend the merely mundane and become truly beautiful. Whatever it is, I realize what I am looking at today is not pretty. My mind is far away; I can’t stop thinking about our upcoming project along with other end of the semester activities and papers all due at the same time. It is that extremely stressful part of the semester that sneaks up quickly on everyone. There never seems to be enough time, so I am never completely present. Instead, I worry about what I am going to do;  when I am going to do it; how to structure my day, dividing it into partitions of what times will be devoted to which project and the type of work needed in order for all of it to get done.  Phew! Just saying that is convoluted and tiring. I pant and worry and struggle to search for the energy to conjure up the creativity and brain power to find the words to fit my ideas and structure them into something of coherence. It seems entirely possible to suffocate under the weight of ideas constantly forming and disintegrating and coming back together, reconfigured, wanting what you had before only to realize that it is gone. I must trust, have faith and stay with the new; it will be reworked anyway. One thing at a time.

 All this swirling has made me dizzy. I put my head in my hands as I sit awkwardly on a hard bench that doesn’t assuage my mental agitation. I take my own advice and do one thing. I look straight down within the frame composed by my two hands holding the sides of my face that are perched by elbows resting on my knees. In between my two boots, firmly planted on the wet ground, I meet a stranger: a small terrestrial creature; it is miraculous I was able to notice it. It is beautiful in its living. Its copper-colored, dark olive brown camouflage fits in perfectly with the surroundings. I only notice it because of its bluish-white and moderate size umbilicus on the underbelly of its cone shaped shell and slow paced, lugubrious movement.  Looking down, I saw nothing but forest debris consisting of perforated broken sticks and mud, but this is another universe. This intrepid little wanderer has come out from under a log or possibly the ground to explore. Some snails are “burrowing” snails and only come out during or after a rain. Either way, his exposed vulnerability is admirable. He moves so slowly yet with purpose. Am I projecting meaning onto this creature? Undoubtedly; but nature is communicating. The snail’s dogged determination to do what it is supposed to, and nothing else, without question, propels a burst of determination into my own sense of purpose  I don’t have to feel inundated or suffocated by other people’s ignorance or my own tasks at hand. It doesn’t serve or provide for me or my work in any way. It is what is in front of me that is my small purpose for today. Even if I must crawl like the snail, I will move with purpose to accomplish that which I am supposed to do. I lift my head and look up. Maybe Schenley Park isn’t pretty today, but once again, nature has provided its wisdom and inspiration, given me clarity and shaken me back into coherence.

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Blog #7 Hunting for the Rite of Spring

Friday, March 22^nd, 2013…

1:36 p.m… 30 degrees… windy…

cutting-cold…bitter…

The promise of Spring disappoints. She betrays my trust. She had better be resting for an unprecedented fireworks display of life. Can’t come a day too soon.The always propitious and gilded sun seems insouciant today teasing us from above.  She smiles her incandescent glow for short luminous intervals then creeps back behind preteritious clouds.  Today is not a day for meditations on life and beauty nor contemplations of nature and experience. Today, I will participate and move within the park. I will not sit and wait for things to reveal themselves to me or arrive for my observational necessities. No, today I look back on our previous readings on hunting because today I am going to hunt that little bastard, Punxsutawney Phil, and wring his little varmint neck. I’ll show him a shadow: a huge, looming, ominous and inauspicious one. Short winter my ass; there is another imminent approaching snow fall arriving Sunday.

I take a few breaths; regain my philosophical passivism, my composure and acceptance.  I move on peaceably through the park. I haven’t explored or scrutinized other parts of Schenley Park since starting these blogs.  I have sighted only a paltry number of wildlife species from atop Flagstaff Hill. There have been a few wrens, a cardinal, and some grey tree squirrels, but not much else.  I would have thought the park would be teaming with wildlife and mammals, but it turns out that Schenely Park is really an account of humans and their activity in the park.

 There is no nook or cranny within this great area that hasn’t been explored, disturbed, utilized or vandalized by humans in some fashion.  Everywhere I go, the signs are unmistakable. Empty bottles, cans of beer and soda, yesterday’s newspapers, rags, wrappers, boxes, napkins, plastic knives, paper cups, plastic containers and other unmentionable debris defy the best efforts of the City cleaning department.

 A hillside looks “woody” and wild to the casual observer, but closer inspection reveals a ground cover of man’s making. What appears to be an impenetrable thicket turns out to be a jungle for the youngsters, crisscrossed by the paths of their youthful explorations. A seemingly sheer bluff takes on the aspect of a haven for mountain goats, but as I come closer, I see man’s footprints.  Narrow shelf-like paths zigzag back and forth, where the ardent wanna-be mountaineers have made their first timid climbs. 

 

Every open meadow is an ideal spot for picnics, sunbathing, throwing footballs, tossing Frisbees and at the highest point in the park is a green velvet haven for golfers; great for all of us city dwellers, but not so much for the wildlife. The roads and bridges are many. They are the arteries that allow us to reach the over 426 acres throughout the park, but they cut and slice and divide it into partitions. We, nor the wildlife within the park, can walk for any considerable distance without being interrupted by one of these concrete passage impediments.

It is hard to visualize the area as it was over a hundred and twenty-four years ago: a rich farmland, studded with pastures, fields and woodlands. Wildlife must have been abundant then, especially when considering that it was only one hundred years ago that the otter still played and thrived in Homestead, where  the great factories, steel mills and vast housing schemes have wiped out their last chances of survival.

 As I walk down the path towards Panther Hollow, the handsome bronze panthers that adorn Panther Hollow Bridge give mute testimony to the existence of those graceful and noble felines from the not too distant past. They are gone now; a growing city spreads rapidly, under the pressure of expansion, and engulfs the richest farmlands as its restless population grows and seeks haven from the hub of activity. City parks, like Schenley, are the answer to an urgent desire for outdoor recreation. They provide a veneer of cultivated wilderness, and an escape from confinement. The park is a place for the children to run, over green meadows, unrestrained by the fear of traffic, (as long as it is far enough away from the myriad of thoroughfares that run throughout the park) and where their parents may lounge in leisure, enjoying the sun or walking quietly along the path gazing into space or examining the ground for flora and fauna and wildlife, always listening and hoping that their children will wear themselves out before bedtime. This is a place for people to enjoy themselves, and for them, the park becomes a little world all of its own.

 

I share in this feeling as I continue my search for wildlife. My hunt has been distracted by my enjoyment and awareness of the scene around me.  Nothing is too small or too ignoble to lack meaning; there is always something to examine, and so, I continue my quest.

I reach the bottom of the path to Panther Hollow Lake. It has been known as “acid lake” by  

generations of Pitt students due to recreational activities which often include taking a “trip” to the lake. I thought it was because of the rancid smell the lake gives off. The lake isn’t just fed by streams and ground water; it is supplied heavily by storm sewers within its watershed. Leaky sewers are a huge problem that continuously contaminates this body of water and surrounding area. 

Before retreating back up the path, I finally spot something; there is movement in the bushes. I follow the movement of the grasses and get closer thinking it is a squirrel or possibly a rabbit. It reaches the open daylight and scurries across the path. It is a furtive, sly brown form slinking from rock to rock about the edges. I recognize its long, thick, naked-skinned tail; it is a Norway rat, as they are called here in Schenley Park. Most people just refer to them as alley rats.  They are the most abundant mammal within the park; not surprising considering they follow closely the pathways of man.  They have followed man in all his travels, shared his ships and means of transportation, and lived in shelters while they pillaged his food.  Although they are true wild animals, they have become almost domesticated in its dependence on man. It is a dangerous animal however. It spreads disease and can be vicious. It is bold, cunning and aggressive. When it is cornered it will jump to attack, biting with fury anything in its path. Here, in the park, he seems wary but wanders freely not worrying about its enemies. Its hair is coarse, rather long and lax, and its ears are prominent and almost naked. It has big black eyes that seem alert, but cold in appearance. It darts away before I can get any closer. There is very little good that I can say about this villainous rat stealing away with garbage we have fortuitously offered; I have always been weary of them; however, I am reminded that their presence invokes, once again, the imposition of man. Our garbage that feeds, and the pollution we cultivate, always gives a hand written invitation to this wild/domesticated mammal prompting me to remember the urban intrusion on our natural places.

 

Whether it is we that absorb, build and bend nature into the tiny bits of island green oases within our oceanic sized concrete and metal deserts or that it is nature that is absorbing our technology-driven modernity and social expanse, it is redefining what nature is today. Either way, it is clear that we are inextricably linked with one another for better and for worse. If only non-human nature would need and could enjoy our part of the equation as much as we need and enjoy hers,  our unison would really set off  a new kind of Spring resplendent with an unprecedented  fireworks display of life; a Spring truly worth waiting for.