Cyclist / Sailor / Author / Speaker
It seems that the deity dressed each soul which he sends into nature in certain virtues and powers not communicable to other men, and sending it to perform one more turn through the circle of beings, wrote “Not transferable†and “Food for this trip only†on these garments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It’s a circle of life thing.
I’ve been writing quite a bit in the last few weeks about new beginnings, about seeds pulled from their origin to fall and prosper on new ground. About the need to prepare yourself in all that you do, so that when opportunity plucks you from the place where you’ve grown comfortable, you’re ready to prosper and find the blessings waiting in the new place where you land.
At the end of it all, the time of the reaper comes. The winter descends, and your time in this life comes to an end. Hopefully, when that moment arrives, you’ll look warmly at the many opportunities that you were able to seize, and have few regrets over fertile ground you missed out of fear or uncertainty. You’ll smile as you move from this life that you’ve lived as the gift it’s been, and embrace the transformation into something much larger.
Early last week, I mourned the passing a year ago of a dog that was among the dearest and most devoted friends I’ve ever had. Colin and I hunted many fields together, until his eyes and ears failed him, and it became too risky to take him into the field any longer. I strive to be half the man he thought I was, and I hope to have a tiny fraction of the devotion he showed toward me. He lived many years past his prime, and in his final months I carried him up and down stairs. In the end, he suffered a stroke one day while sitting in my office, and I held him in my arms as I helped him pass from this life onward.
Colin never missed a chance to hunt. There’s no doubt in my mind that he could read my thoughts most days, and knew before I ever went to the gun cabinet when it was that we were going to the field to hunt. His enthusiasm for the thing he was born to do – find, point, and retrieve birds – defined every moment of every day for him. I have no idea how the mind of a dog works, but I can tell you that if they have any capacity for thought and reflection, he had no regrets at ever missing an opportunity, at ever passing up the chance to revel in Creation.
I took a friend hunting once. He watched Colin leap from the back of the truck, canvas the field like a fiend possessed for any scent of feather, pound through the thickest of brush in the hopes of finding a hiding place, never ready to stop. He shook his head over and over, saying he’d never seen such obsession and absorption in the joy of a task in his life as the experience of watching Colin succumb to the complete rapture of the hunt.
At that moment when I leave this life – hopefully someday far in the future – I hope to look back over my life, and be satisfied that I succumbed completely to the rapture of the many moments that the path of life presented to me. I hope that I’m satisfied that I allowed myself to obsess over and allow myself to be absorbed in the joys and blessings that surround me with every step.
I was reminded of mortality again at the end of last week, but that’ll need to wait until my next post. For today, I’m remembering my friend Colin, and wishing him happy hunting in that next place where he’s become…
If you’ve been following my last few blogs, you know that this is the time of year I’m particularly fascinated by the finches working the seeds out of the Rudbeckia and Echinacea seed-heads in my garden. Bobbing and swaying at the end of the stalk, they’re undeterred from their attraction to the seeds tucked into the drying seed-heads.
Many of the finches working tirelessly in my gardens this time of year are migratory – stopping to visit my gardens as they journey south. The seeds they coax from my garden are catching a ride through the air, beginning a journey south. They’ll fall on new ground, and find root in new soil, and transform themselves into a new plant in the season of warmth that’ll be coming soon.
It was a beautiful growing season this year. The Rudbeckia grew well, working hard to create buds that would transform into flowers that would attract bees, in turn transforming into ripe seed-heads to attract birds. And now, the garden has done all it can do, and the seeds are handed off to the finches. The journey toward transformation begins.
I saw my oldest son off on a great adventure this week. We flew to LA together, then shared a few beers at the airport while we waited for our next flights. When we parted – he for his gate that would take him to off to Southeast Asia, and me to my gate that would take me up to San Francisco to work for the week – we hugged each other and said goodbye, then walked our separate ways. I stopped after a few steps, and looked back to watch him walk away, till he turned a corner and was gone from my sight. I turned, and walked toward my gate.
I was glad I’d kept my eyes dry as we said goodbye, but I wasn’t able to keep them dry as I walked to my gate. The wet eyes came from pride at the bright and hard-working man he’s become, from shared excitement over his coming adventure, a little from the worry that every father must feel, and just a tiny bit for the loss I feel already at having him so far away from me.
All he’s done in his life to this point has been preparation for this adventure. Like the Rudbeckia plant that worked hard all summer to prepare itself for the finch, he’s worked hard to prepare himself for this moment of transformation. As I write these words, and the finches carry the Rudbeckia seeds south to new soil, his flight across the Pacific takes him to new lands in far-away places, to take root emerge again as the ongoing evolution of who he is becoming.
How often do we look at the life we lead and the seasons within that life as a continuum of growing seasons – where part of each season is the preparation and ripening of our “self†for our next journey of transformation? When the finches come looking for the seeds of transformation, will we have prepared them? If so, will we hand those seeds over and open the doors to new soil, or turn our heads down and hide from the opportunity to take wing and become again?
NOTE: Thanks to Tony Pratt for photographs
Having a bald head has its pros and cons.
It’s nice in the summer, as there’s no heavy mop of hair hindering the cooling ability that the head offers. It’s also nice at the end of a shower – one quick pass with the towel and my “hair” is dry!
Generally, cold and rain fall into the “con” category. That same heat-transfer capability that’s so nice in the summer is a real problem in the winter – I’ve got an arsenal of different thicknesses of beanies that I wear all winter to replace the nice insulating hair that left me some time ago.
Every now and then, though, the cold rain feels pretty good on my bald head. This morning was one of those occasions. We’ve been without rain for so long, and celebrating the chilly drops dancing on my head as I walked this morning was a pleasant reminder that autumn is rushing down on top of us. The sense of impending change that permeates the air in the fall exhilerates me.
I’m sure if I had to endure cool drizzle more than occasionally it would start to weigh on me. Enjoying the rain this morning, I thought of my daughter, as she considers graduate school in Seattle. I spent a desperate lifetime in Seattle one November and December, and don’t think I’d do well with the dark drizzle. But then, if you know it’s just the way things are, maybe you get used to it? I’d worry about her for sure…
It continues to amaze me – even after all these years of living – how much the person that we are is affected by the weather around us. One more of those “place” things that I love to think about…
I love watching finches pulling seeds out of ripened seed-heads. They’ll sway with the stalk as it moves under their weight, displaying amazing balance while pulling seeds from the blackened and drying head they cling to.
There are many seeds that only germinate if they pass through the digestive track of a bird, or at least germinate much better if they pass through that digestive journey. In fact, I’ve heard stories of plants that have gone extinct after the bird that feeds on their seeds goes extinct. (This may be enhanced legand, but it certainly seems feasable, so it makes for a good story either way.) Then there’s the story of certain forest trees whose seeds only germinate in the heat of a forest fire, essentially assuring that when the forest does burn, they’re the first plants to germinate in the newly cleared forest, where there’s plenty of light. (This one is well-documented.)
We see this cycle of life everywhere around us – this ripening of a seed, which then becomes the next generation. As a parent, I find great joy in watching my children on their journey of ripening, growing far beyond what I could have imagined when I watched them first sprout. And see them now at an age when yet another generation will soon begin to sprout from the ripening that life now shares with them.
But this process of ripening, journey, germination, and start all over again isn’t something that only exists at the macro level of the passing of one generation to another. Within the life we lead, we should look for places where this cycle is trying to emerge as part of our larger journey through life. We’re not meant to slog along, one step in front of the other, never looking up. We’re meant to mature within each season that life shares with us. Only through this maturing process can we ripen into the fruit and the vessel that’s capable of producing the seed of what we are meant to become next in this lifetime.
The journey of your life to this point has produced the seed of what you can become next. You’ve weathered many storms, and learned quite a bit to become what you are today. But what you are is only the vessel to deliver the seeds of what you can next become. Becoming the better you – the one that your soul and your energy is meant to become next – happens when you let go of the seeds and let them germinate.
The seed itself needs to go on a journey first – it needs some catalyst to help it to germinate. It’s probably different for each of us. For some of us, the seeds our life has produced will germinate best right where they drop. For others, finches will pull from us the seeds we cling to as they migrate past us, giving us a chance to germinate far from where we are today. For others, the heat of some fire is required to break open the seed.
I suspect in most cases, we don’t even know what needs to happen. We probably feel a ripening within us, but cling to the old vessel that we’ve been to this point, afraid to release the seeds of what we need to become next, afraid to let those seeds travel whatever journey they need to travel in order to germinate into the best “next iteration” that we can be. I suspect this is the source of a lot of the depression that we see and feel around us each day.
Are you feeling a bit “ripe” these days? Feeling a bit anxious about what’s next? Feeling a bit underwater or over your head? Feeling a sadness that’s hard to explain?
Maybe it’s time to let the finches take the seeds where they need to go, or let the firestorm scar and open the seed. Maybe the vessel that’s you has worked hard to produce the seed of what you need to become, and now you need to let the seed take its journey and germinate. There’s an even better you that can only emerge when that seed is allowed to take that journey – release it and follow it. Become the better you that you’ve laid the foundation for. Whatever you do, don’t fall down onto the cold damp fall ground and let the seed go to waste.
Embrace it.
Celebrate it.
Release it so you can emerge again – an even better you!
An update on my new bicycle wheels:
They arrived a week or so ago. They’re really quite beautiful. I moved them across to the bike, and have done just a little riding on them so far. Besides being beautiful, I LOVE the way they feel and handle.
Jude Kirstein built the wheels for me. I’m sure I was a difficult customer for her, as I really couldn’t give her very good direction on the aesthetics of the wheels, and she really wanted that direction from me. I needed her guidance and “vision” about what the wheels could become aesthetically, and she needed me to approve and be OK with things before she’d build them.
I get that about the position that Jude was in – I really do. She runs a small business, and she couldn’t afford to build a set of wheels that I’d reject. We went around a bit, and I was clearly extremely conservative – feeling comfortable with black. While she suggested some other colors that we could do for the hubs, I was clearly resisting out of my lack of vision. Then, at the last minute, I asked my daughter for advice, and she recommended blue hubs and nips. Jude was going to do just plain black since this was clearly my comfort zone, but Anna pushed me out of that comfort zone just a bit.
I’m really glad we went with blue. The wheels are truly beautiful, and very classy. I’ll update my “review” of the wheels after a few thousand miles, but for now, I love the look of them and the feel of them, and I think Jude did a great job.
But the important stuff is the dynamics of how things came together. Since I lacked the vision to see what might be in the wheels, and Jude was leary of creating something I might not like, I almost ended up with really boring wheels. Thanks to Anna, we punched out of that really boring place to end up with beautiful wheels.
But, is there an even better set of wheels that live somewhere in Jude’s imagination, that could be on my bike right now?
How often do we allow our fear of disappointing someone else keep us from allowing the truly spectacular to emerge from our imagination? Creativity involves risk, and creativity that allows the spectacular to emerge requires truly great courage.
Creativity comes from the soul, courage comes from the heart, and fear comes from the mind. We need to find ways to quiet the mind more often, and allow the heart to clear the path for the soul.
I love the new wheels, with zero reservation. I’ll write more as I spend more time on them. But to young folks like Jude, listen to your soul, and let your heart fight for the truly spectacular that wants to emerge.
I’ve got a friend who lost the end of his finger a while back. They found it, and thanks to the wonders of modern medicine were able to reattach the tip to the finger – minus just a touch more than the width of a saw blade…
Talking with him a couple weeks ago, he was describing how frustrating it was growing accustomed to the new finger, now that it was healed and becoming “usableâ€. Seems that the nerve connections didn’t come back together well, so that fingertip has very little sensation. My friend says that he never realized just how much he depended on sensitive fingertips to get the most mundane tasks done in the day, not to mention the more demanding tasks. To add insult to injury, he’s noticed that it’s not only the inability to sense touch to do fine work that’s a problem, but also the inability to feel pain. He was doing some work in the driveway the other day, and when he got into the house, he noticed that he had banged the end of his finger up badly, and wasn’t even aware that he’d done it.
Seems funny, doesn’t it, that we miss the ability to feel pain? Our fingertips need sensitive touch in order to operate as effective tools, and they need a highly developed sense of pain in order to keep them safe – safety does not equal lack of pain.
I suppose if I didn’t want to use my hands as effectively as possible – just keep them in my pockets all the time – these things wouldn’t be so important. Wouldn’t really matter if they were able to work as highly developed tools, and wouldn’t really matter if they felt pain – I’d just keep ‘em safe by keeping ‘em out of harm’s way all the time. But then, I would have chosen to cripple myself by taking my hands out of play.
Listening to him, it struck me that the exact same principles and notions that apply to our ability to develop and leverage our physical assets, (like our amazing hands and fingers), apply to our ability to develop and leverage our social and emotional assets as well.
Negotiating the emotional perils of treachery, betrayal, and the other bumps and bruises that are part of the human social landscape, we’re sure to feel a good deal of pain now and then. But it’s all just part of developing that important social sensitivity that allows us to interact closely with those around us. We could keep our social and emotional hands in our pockets, so to speak, and avoid any risk of pain, though doing so would keep us from developing tender sensitivity that brings us together with others in this life – it would cripple us socially.
Last evening I got home from a fishing trip, and my Brittany Spaniel was delighted to see me. She laid down next to me, and was in heaven as I softly caressed the back of her head and all around her ears, occasionally letting my fingers lightly work their way through the soft curls on top of her shoulders. I thought of my friend, and was thankful to have the sensitive fingertips that allowed me to create the wonderful interface between myself and my dog. Her half-closed eyes made me think she was thankful too…
To some extent, we get to choose how much we’re willing to feel in life, but we don’t get to choose to feel only the stuff that “feels goodâ€. Greater sensitivity allows us to build stronger and more effective tools for sure, but we’ve got to be willing to slog through the painful stuff in the process. The painful stuff reminds us of the strength of the tools we’re building, and as my friend discovered, the pain is often an pretty darned effective way of preventing us from doing real harm to ourselves…
Where in my life, I wonder, have I chosen to keep my social and emotional hands in my pockets – keeping ‘em safe – and subsequently missing wonderful opportunities to feel wonder and peace? I’m sure there are places where I’ve avoided pain by avoiding risk, but at what cost? How many soft floppy ears have gone unscratched?
You stand on the near bank of the Rubicon, knowing the way forward takes you to the other side. Once crossed, it’s a river that can’t be uncrossed. Behind is all that’s familiar, ahead is all that’s uncertain.
But when the path ahead lies on the far bank, how long do you sit on the near bank and worry about the path behind, rather than focusing on the path ahead? Do you know in your soul the crossing should be made – the crossing that can’t be undone? You can only get to the other side by leaving this side.
Maybe your job is draining the soul from you through mediocrity. The job is familiar, and some days feel “good enoughâ€. It’s a hard crossing to choose. The ear of your soul hears the path on the other side.
Maybe you have a good job now, but on the other side you see the path of a great opportunity. You like your current job, but the song your soul hears from the other side can’t be ignored.
Maybe it’s a new baby coming into your life soon, and the crossing’s already begun. You’re scared and worried about the path on the other side, but like friends waving in the rear-view mirror as you drive away, you see clearly your old comfortable life fading behind as the far shore of the Rubicon you’re crossing comes closer.
Maybe it’s a decision to go back to college, and leave the routine you’ve become accustomed to. To force yourself into a new routine that leads to places unknown. Maybe it’s an upcoming college graduation. College life is predictable and protected, and the job market’s been lousy for years. What waits on the other side? What will you make of your life when you step away from this near shore?
To quote Caesar, “Let us march where we are called by such a divine intimation. The die is cast.”
Life’s path brings us many times to the edge of the Rubicon. In most cases, we’re called to paths on the far shore, while still held to paths on the near shore. The decision to cross isn’t often easy, and crossing might not always be the right answer. But in all cases, if we’re standing at the bank of the Rubicon, what brought us here? Are we being pushed into the river from behind, or being called from the far shore into the crossing?
My children are all grown, and they’re finding their own crossings, either back into college, or graduating from college, or headed overseas into new jobs. So I’m finding myself spending a great deal of time on the banks of the Rubicon, wondering why my path has brought me here. I’m enjoying the bank of the river, listening carefully with the ears of my soul. It’s good to have age and patience on your side when life leads you to the bank of the Rubicon.
At One. In agreement. Reconciled. To bring together something that was separate. Harmony rising from dissonance.
Bring the words together to make the verb atone. The meaning is the same. To bring into a state of “at one-nessâ€. To come into harmony.
Things become separate for many reasons. I aim for one result, but find another. I miss the mark that I was aiming for. There are several Hebrew words that get translated into the single English word “sinâ€. One of these Hebrew words has exactly this meaning – to miss the mark, as-in an archer missing his mark.
Standing on the bridge between the past and the future, I can look back and see where I missed the mark, and ended up with a different outcome than I aimed for. Where I caused a break or ill feelings in a relationship. Where I sought harmony, and instead created dissonance. I accept responsibility, and seek to “put right†what I can – I atone – I try to bring back the state of “at-one-nessâ€.
The English language has a way to turn the verb atone into a noun. We simply add “ment†to the end of the verb, and we create the noun. Atonement. The “state†of having brought together that which was separate, having mended what needs mending, having found harmony from dissonance.
The path to the state of atonement requires action on our part. We must choose to put right what we’ve broken. Looking back down the path behind, where do I see separation? Where do I hear dissonance? What actions are required of me to bring together what’s separate, to allow harmony to emerge from dissonance?
Soon I’ll look in front of me down the path to the future, and make decisions about how to move forward. Doing this requires me to understand how and why I missed the mark in the past. Understanding the darkness in yesterday helps me bring light into tomorrow.
Accepting responsibility. Making amends. Asking forgiveness. Accepting the Light that comes with At-One-Ness…
When designing a garden, we like to create “transition momentsâ€. A transition moment is a place to stop as you move along the garden path. A place to stop and look forward and backward. Looking backward lets us see the path we’ve been walking on, and the garden we’ve been walking through, only now from another perspective. Looking forward lets us evaluate the path in front of us.
A transition might be defined by a wide spot in the path, or a wide spot accompanied by a sharp turn, or maybe a bridge. The best “transition moments†in a garden force us to make a decision, to decide on one path or another, to aim for one place in the garden or the other.
Along the path of life, we’re presented with transition moments all the time – probably far more often than we realize. Sometimes they’re planned moments, sometimes they’re ritual moments, and sometimes they’re moments of surprise that jump out of the bushes at us. Sometimes they’re all 3 at once.
Jewish tradition marks the passing of each year as one of those important transition moments in life. Each year, Rosh Hashanah marks the bridge that we cross from one year to the next. On that bridge, we stand and reflect – to look back and to look forward. In looking back, we honestly accept responsibility for the path that we’ve walked for the past year, looking directly into the eye of both the good and the bad for which we’re responsible.
On a garden path, a well-designed “transition moment†will hold me for a few minutes. It won’t rush me forward onto the next section of path, but will hold me a moment, to enjoy the reflection and appreciation that the moment offers.
As we pause on the bridge between the years at Rosh Hashanah, we take the time for reflection and appreciation. We don’t rush forward into the next year, but take the time to reflect and understand. We make decisions thoughtfully and intentionally. Jewish tradition defines this period as the High Holy Days that begin with Rosh Hashanah, and progress for 10 days toward Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Rosh Hashanah begins this evening at sundown for Jews around the world. I wasn’t raised with Jewish tradition, but I’m quite taken by this holiday period and what it represents. While this might not be a holiday that I celebrate by tradition, I can incorporate its sacred lessons, habits, and behavior into the next 10 days of my life. I can look for way to see this as a bridge upon which I pause and reflect, looking back down across the path that I’ve been walking.
A different perspective, and a pause…