Where do we go from here?

When I began this blog, it was intended to serve as a way to share the experience of my journey as I navigated some sort of uncharted transition. Over the last three years, it has followed me into the woods, onto farmland, out to the ocean,  through two eye-opening and growth-inspiring AmeriCorps experiences and praised the lasting imprints of encounters with dozens of beautiful hearts and souls.

To be this person, I think that I've had to do more nurturing than I take the time to recognize. I was a fearful, sensitive and reserved child, in a lot of ways. I clung very strongly to traditions, probably got coddled a bit too much, and had a lot of difficulty sorting it all out in a way I could present to those in my life. I remember hating summer camp and crying myself to sleep each night, just waiting for the next care package and counting the time until I could go home. I always cast myself in the light of the other, built up out of some expired, preconceived context. Even by the time I went off to college, I still grappled with the little child inside, throwing a fit the first day that my mom and brother came to move me into my apartment and not letting them leave until the next day.

Your nature is not fixed, yo.

I have of course, ridden the tumultuous roller-coaster of ups and downs in my growth over these years (as I try to make apparent through this blog), sometimes feeling like that floundering soul while gradually experiencing more and more significant intervals during which I baffle myself with the level of ''normal, self-reliant adult'' I'm able to feel like. I'm under no delusion that this fluctuation will ever cease - that's what life is - but lately, I feel like I can more clearly appreciate all the ways in which those little clusters of wise moments or challenging experiences have amounted to the fascinating, bewildering specimen of energy that is "me".

I think that most everyone can identify a select few key patterns/dilemmas/concepts that arise and re-arise relentlessly in their life journey. Some might write them off as common human things - issues with patience, the ideas of "should", balance being some of mine - but each one manifests in a poignant and personal way for each individual and if one can identify and embrace those themes, then I believe you start to nip at an aspect of life-meaning far beyond occupation, social identity or material success.

Placing an emphasis on this exploration has certainly helped me. One of my biggest habit patterns has historically been the gravity with which I linger on the question of "what should I be doing with my life?" and other preoccupations of that vein. Ironically, the amount of time I place on worrying about this has never seemed to translate to any practical action plan. All dots in this connect-the-dot drawing have seemingly painted me as a dabbler. I think I am finally diverging from the path long-taken. Part of it may be just the growing exhaustion I run into each time I finish a "chapter" and suddenly feel directionless again. But more than that, I think that I've realized on a more internal level, how the meaning in my life is cultivated only from the foundational pieces of my soul. The actions and projects that arise from that will always be secondary.

For practical reasons, I do of course need to keep one of my heads out of the clouds. But I am far less concerned with finding some cookie-cutter career path by which to meet those needs. Just as your body needs food to exert energy for exercise and movement, the soul needs to be fed if you hope to contribute to the world in any way that is meaningful to you. Once that process is satiated, nature will work with you to piece the rest together.

With you being key, there. You can't just kick up your legs, label yourself as a kind and decent member of society and hope the universe recognizes you. I may not know what this nature-meli collaboration is going to look like, but I'm still doing the research and taking the notes, a la dabble-style.

And that leads me to the present moment, and my over-due recap of where I've been and what I've been doing since I emerged from My Own Silent Idaho.

After leaving Idaho, I had one more weekend in Packwood paradise. Leo had the privilege of being my first sounding board for all of the thoughts and emotions and bottled-up ramblings that I'd been holding in during the Vipassana course and we spent the first night warming our shaky, cold and exhausted selves by the fire talking. Saturday was leisurely, watching races and taking pictures with my new phone lenses, and by Saturday night, I was recovered enough for a bon fire which was shared both with dear old Packwood friends and the few new AmeriCorps members that had made it to town. On Sunday, Leo and I ventured down to the Packwood picnic which coincidentally coincided with my last weekend there; a perfect way to get in good-byes.

So weird!

ALSO so weird! XD 

Dead fish = perfect guinea pig for lenses

With an orientation for my new job that Wednesday, I was thrown full-speed from the weekend into last-minute business, farewells and even more hectic packing. I had some wonderfully unexpected conversations with my landlord, our dear grocery owner Hal, and an old Butter Butte customer who was training to hike the Muir Trail by 2017. All of them allowed me to further process my meditation experience and recognize the ways in which it had integrated into my relationship with people and the world.

And on Tuesday, I moved. I managed to fit an impressive amount in Iris, leaving only a couple of boxes at the duplex to pick up at a later time. Granted, Leo had already taken quite a bit to his house but it was a nice illusion, that I had little enough that I could move in one trip, without a moving van.

You Haulin', Iris!

And where did I move to?

I'm not sure I mentioned previously, but I'm an Oregonian now, and a Portlander, no less (NOT to be confused with a PortlandIAr). I don't have my license yet, but it is on the immediate to-do list.

The house I found is rad, thanks to the rad individuals that live there. My housemate Daniel has been

there for a little over a year and in that short time, has managed to cultivate quite a productive garden, raise egg-producing chickens and ducks, and build a very snazzy indoor greenhouse of sorts. The additional residents are his 6-year old pup Chewie and his 4-year old daughter Aleina. Aleina and I hit it off from meet-and-greet numero uno and we will now be having regular adventure days each Monday. I've had to learn to be very direct and communicative about my boundaries and availability of course, serving as a babysitter some times but also needing to have my own space as simply another resident. It's been a good balance so far. We've done a couple fun meals together, and she and Daniel are both very understanding when it comes to space.

Pizza time!

Front o' the house.

Our kitchen kicks ass. be jealous. 

The bedroom, where I managed to hang or shelve ALL my clothes!

Chewie

Jumping way ahead, though.

So on Tuesday afternoon, September 29th, I moved in. On Wednesday morning, I began my training in Vancouver as an in-home Caregiver for seniors. From the moment I'd gone into my interview, I was surprised at how excited I was for the work described. While I've yet to have my first shift, I've gradually been getting a line up of clients and starting next week, will begin to forge relationships with these individuals one-on-one. The agency that I work for is incredibly client and employee oriented. Their main goal is to make sure caregivers can easily and efficiently meet the individual needs of their client. This means that complications, safety concerns and complex logistics are simply to be redirected to the office where our intimate team of office staff take care of it all. Not only does this allow me to focus on the present moments with the clients, but it takes a lot of pressure off and allows me to explore the less mundane and routine sides of work. One of the other things that I am excited for, is the learning opportunity. As an employee, I have to complete a 70-hour training to be licensed as a Washington Home Care Aid (basically, a step under CNA, since it is strictly non-medical). This is a training that they basically pay for and provide the Continuing Education Units for. It is also completely my choice whether or not I take any one particular client, and so I basically get to choose my hours. The only downside of this is that there is not always a guarantee of any number of hours from week to week, month to month.

My official-ness.

When contemplating the idea of a second job, everyone I spoke to cautioned that I test the waters of this current one first. Well, while I can nurture some traits, stubbornness is a natural quality that I will stubbornly never wipe out completely :) With about a week of city life under my belt, I have resumes out at two coffee shops, a grocer, two cider houses and a catering company. I was also offered a job this morning, at a retail store for baby items. Not at the top of my list, but we'll see where my other leads go.

I can drink ALL the wellness toddies now! 

The idea that I'm living in Portland is still a bit surreal. Outings that were considered "treats" when I had to go out-town for errands are now just around the corner. When I'm in Seattle or Olympia, I have to remember I don't desperately need to stock up on groceries because back home, I'm surrounded by a dozen stores that have things that I eat. This sort of material excitement maintains its novelty for a very short duration, and after the first couple of days, I fell into an overwhelming ball of doubt and negativity. Of course, a big change like this always has an undercurrent of emotional baggage that may not be detectable until the storm begins to settle. All of this was compounded by a very important piece of my personal life that I hadn't really tackled realistically.

I've been incredibly fortunate that in the last few months, I've been able to share so much of my life with an amazing individual. The experience has shown me some of the best parts of myself and taught me a lot about my social and  emotional growth. However, the experience is unconventional, and new for a number of reasons and in that, lay an opportunity for growth that I hadn't yet me challenge myself with.

Moving to Portland, I was suddenly geographically closer, but I was also even closer to emotions and challenges that I'd been hiding and avoiding. Until I was able to express and process those, the move had only come to amplify a sense of alienation and isolation. Thank you for the magic potion of communication and expression.

Once that was released, I began to turn on my optimism outlook again. While I'm currently spending more money than I'm making, I think I've made some good first investments. I immediately hunted down a bike upon reaching town, joined a yoga studio and signed up for an African Dance class. Yes, there have been cider purchases as well, but I promise I'm not going out to the cider house every night! I've also been scouring for free opportunities. I found a sweet Drum Circle, plan to attend some Vipassana Group sits, and have a calendar list of free workshops. On our first Monday Adventuretime, Aleina and I went down to Cafe Au Play to check out some free music. This cafe/community space is an all-volunteer-run center for kids and if you volunteer in the cafe portion, you get free barista training! Pretty neat. After playing there for a bit, we headed out to one of the many surrounding farms that advertised free Fall Fun. There, Alaina enthusiastically tried out all the fall-themed play structure items and hay maze and then we rode a hay ride through their fields of corn, grapes and pumpkins.

And thanks to Leo, I've been having plenty of free entertainment from the comfort of my own home as well:

I was also gifted with a spontaneous Seattle excursion when my acquaintance and now friend Tom texted to say he had a ticket to see American Idiot. I was never a huge Green Day fan, so I didn't know how I'd take to it, but I decided to go anyway since it was a free show and Seattle is neat and Tom and I had been trying to hang out for our first time for forever. 

Good choice! Before the show, we got dinner and cider (duh) and then headed to a venue that I was imagining to be regal-theater style, where I was imagining that I'd be watching a show. However, it turns out we had "Immersion Tickets" which basically meant VIP inclusive. We were presented with three options for groups to be in and then throughout the show, our "group" was directed through the scenes carrying out on stage. The venue was a tiny space with the seating making a 360 around the center stage. There was a  basement part of the set which the sitting audience got to see via TV screens, but where we got to go for quite a few scenes.

After the show, it was still early and we happened to be down the street from OutWest, the bar that Dusty had introduced me to. I recalled that Wednesday happened to be their Karaoke night, so we went down to belt some tunes.

It's a different pace, somewhere in between starving-artist feel, scrounging to make something that looks like a steady income, and exploratory-tourist feel, still fascinated by the possibility and culture. Three years ago, AmeriCorps was just a small dot on a map to test the waters of the PNW. Three years later, while the pace of the tide ebbs and flows and the mountains I'm surrounded by change from rock to brick, I've undoubtedly found home in this region.

And where do we go from here? Just into the next unfolding moment, folks.

<3 Melissa

10 Vipassana Take-aways

1. You can always go a bit further
Whether I had to push through one more hour or one more day, I was made acutely aware of how lazy I'd gotten in my daily life. Allowing myself to take a half hour to walk down the path from the cabins to the lodge felt like hard work. But it was rewarding. I may spend the last 15 minutes of a meditation wondering if I could go a minute further with the pain, and then 15 minutes would be up. On our rest periods, there wasn't much to do but stretch and drink water and I noticed how negligent I'd been to be aware of my muscles that way. Because of the diligence in the meditation practice however, I needed no warming up. I pushed into the farthest stretches because the pain was not registering in a way that made me reactive.

2. But know what serves you
I have a habit of blindly aiming to fulfill a practice or set of guidelines to the highest caliber, out of sheer stubbornness or naive paranoia that I won't otherwise achieve any benefit. However, this pattern of thinking is what makes me not stop for water breaks on a hike, or commit to three day fasts and put myself through mental turmoil, agonizing over whether or not I should allow myself a drink of something more than water. A Vipassana retreat does have to follow a strict set of rules, to give the practice fair trial. But Goenka himself emphasizes how important it is not to accept the practice our of fear, promise of reward, or with blind faith. I am still figuring out what parts fit in my life, but it was a huge step for me to begin to break the misguided rigidity I feel when presented with ritual.

3. A lot can happen in a moment
Just when I would be ready to give up during a sit, thinking that simply sitting with my eyes closed would not merit any changes for the rest of that period, I would sometimes experience a sweeping shift all at once, that would carry me into another level of introspection with myself.

On the more mundane level, I also became aware of how little I accomplish in a day. Sitting for ten hours really shows you how much potential time you are gifted with each day.

4. You're never going to be as perfect as you think 
The first part of the retreat brought me to confront all the bad habits and negative thought patterns that I brush over or try not to notice as a part of myself. Feelings of ugliness, selfishness, impulsiveness, laziness, ego all arose.

5. But you're always going to be more than you think 
On the same token, as I began to meet those darker sides with more compassion, I also began to recognize all the ways in which I embodied the values of vipassana. Ways I'd grown to be a whole-heartedly compassionate person, moments I'd grown to be less reactive of and times I'd learned to sit with discomfort.

6. And either way, you are loved
Through it all, I experienced overwhelming gratitude for having the opportunity to experience the fullness and richness of love and support, beyond my family, beyond what feels "expected."

7. Trust is a placebo for mind-power
I also found that I really don't trust that my mind is capable of remembering a lot, processing a lot, or dealing with complex critical analysis. Of course, because we weren't doing much besides hanging with our minds for two weeks, I couldn't rely on crutches such as the internet, taking notes (well, mostly) or filtering through others' views. The more I discovered my mind could hold onto, the more trust I could begin to build towards its ability. Self-fulfilling prophecy, of course.

8. Your body is alway listening, even when you're not
I discovered that a combination of a little less indulgence, a little more patience and a little more awareness could very well be the simple formula for the bulk of my digestive ailments. I'd told myself that much my past was over and parted with, but as memories began to arise, I noticed how the block in my gut could be directly associated with things I'd really not listened to an processed.

9. Cling to the tools, not the moments
There are plenty of times where so many reflections seemed to culminate in this overwhelming feeling of accomplishment and motivation. It was easy to feel like nothing would take me down ever again. But nothing lasts, even balance...

10...So never stop practicing. 
Since leaving and moving, I've hit emotional walls sooner than I thought. It's frustrating, but as long as I keep sitting and coming back to the lessons learned, as long as I keep engaging, I cannot be lost for long...

From 0-100: My dive into Meditation

If you had asked me how much experience I had in meditation prior to September 14th, my net worth in hours could have easily been counted on one hand. But between the 14th and the 25th, I shot from 0-100. 

If I were to say that for 11 days, all I did was sit, eat and sleep, most would probably shoot me a look of envy and befuddlement, disenchanted with their 9-5 and dreaming of even one day where they could forego all responsibility and indulge those three heavenly symbols of laziness. 

However, those 11 days have come to signify a significant milestone in my life, and comprise one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. 

The term ‘Vipassana’ literally means ‘to see things as they really are’. While there are a zillion and one ways to meditate while active, using mantras or visualization, the Vipassana practice does not utilize what are considered to be “fantasies” or “fabrications” to achieve inner calm. In theory, this is all very straightforward: You close your eyes, and feel. Scanning from head to toe, you feel that itch behind your ear, that dull throb in your inner arm, that odd chill in your right toe, the headache, the cramp in your side, the happy tingling through your neck to your feet. You feel it all, and observe. Ultimately, the goal is to reach perfect equanimity with every sensation that arrises; don’t cling to the good feelings, it will pass. Don’t feel aversion towards the discomfort, it will pass. Remain equanimous, anicca, annica, annica (impermanance.)

However, theory and practice are very different things (duh.) As Goenka (the teacher responsible for Vipassana in the West) says, the Buddha could show people the paths and tell them the steps to take it, but people would still complain when they didn’t feel enlightened. You have to walk it. Similarly, I could sit and describe a white duck to you. But if you’re blind and reach out to feel this duck, you could very well think that the color white means soft. In short, my writing is going to fall short of conveying the experience because ultimately, it is something that you just need to experience yourself to really understand. 

That’s my disclaimer. But because I like to write, and have this blog to document these very changes and growth in my life, I’m gonna gab. 

Day 1: Registration

I drove out to Idaho a couple of days early and took myself exploring at Craters of the Moon National Monument. I was a bit out of sorts the entire weekend, partially feeling like I should be practicing some sort of drastic aceticism in preparation for the piety to come. However, on Monday, after unpredictable clouds thwarted my hiking plans, I took Leo’s words of wisdom and went to find a giant sandwhich, coffee and a place to gab people’s ears off until I had to go into the camp. I arrived at Sawtooth on the earlier end of registration and spent the couple of hours nervously talking with my fellow cabinmates, each of us curious to know if we’d had any prior experience with this sort of thing, and wondering what on earth brought us there to shut up for two weeks. After registration was over, we were given a tremendous dinner and one more hour of talk time before being called into a small meditation room one by one to receive our assigned cushions for the duration of the retreat. I remember, 5 minutes into our first hour-long sit that night, I thought naively to myself how relaxing and painless this was going to be. 

Ha. 

Days 2-3-4: But really, days 1-2-3.

I was no longer delusional by the end of day one. The schedule is TOUGH. 

4:00am: Wake up

4:30-6:30: Meditate in the hall or in your own room

6:30-8am: Breakfast

8-9am: Group Meditation

9-11am: Meditate in the hall or in your own room 

11-12pm: Lunch

12-1pm: Interviews with the teacher/Rest

1-2:30pm: Meditate in the hall or in your own room 

2:30-3:30pm: Group Meditation

3:30-5pm: Tea Break

6-7pm: Group Meditation

7-8:15pm: Discourse

8:15-9pm: Group Meditation

A day of meditating from 4:30am to 9pm, feels like three. Lots of brain action happened in those first three days. Energetically, my space was very dark and crowded. My mind was jumping from planning for the future, to drowning in a memory managiary, to creating random cartoon illustrations. On the more mundane end of things, I had to restrain myself from plotting how I would begin this very blog, what music I would listen to first upon leaving, and what would be my first words once released back to the wild. I was also fascinated to discover that there are a LOT of hours in a damn day. This is quite a motivator for repurposing one’s time. Walking the small hundred-foot path to and from the lodge for exercise like a caged dog, I would sometimes feel like someone that “had to do time, to learn a lesson the hard way:” ‘I promise, I’ll never while away my hours on Facebook again!’ Contrary to the imagery that mindful magazines at your local grocery check-out line would have you believe, meditation is not graceful. You have 40 people sitting in a crowded room together with stomach gurgles and farts and coughs, and while the room is seemingly voiceless, the mind-chatter would probably be deafening if you could hear inside heads. 

But amid the mental chaos, great knots of habit patterns and engrained memories were beginning to be untangled. Because we weren’t allowed to write, I began to notice how much distrust I had towards my mind’s ability. Because we weren’t allowed to talk, I was forced to be truly self-reliant and take responsibility for my emotions, as opposed to finding distraction within others’ perceptions of the experience. As memories of my adolescence arose, I dipped in and out of dark spaces. I had moments where I just sat in awe at the acknowledgement that this person could be so fully loved by someone. Those moments turned into deep gratitude and then gradually into empowerment as the practice took us deeper into the concept of impermanance. Everything is a constant flow of energy and sensation, so the past cluster of energy or kalapas no longer exists. I began to recognize all the areas in my life that I may have let go of on an intellectual level, but that I was still deeply clinging to within my body. Once I began to address that, I could feel incredible shifts in the acceptance I had towards myself and my reality. 

Time and again, I’d had energy workers mention to me that I held a lot of anger and fear in certain places in my body. As these knots started getting worked with, I noticed how many of the communication conflicts in relationships with my family and others probably arose because I was responding with this old energy, associating from those angry and fearful identities rather than from the person I am now. At the end of a long day, these moments ultimately left me in awe and gratitude for choosing to come. 

Day 4: Hell 

And then you just have those days. It’s exhausting on the brain to try to wrap your head around the constant duality of “this is the most incredible experience ever! I fucking hate it here! when can I leave?!” By the afternoon of day 4, I was experiencing my first truly stir-crazy moment, laying in bed on our “rest period”, which meant laying still without my eyes closed until the moment we had to go sit still with our eyes closed. These times would come with varied intensity and I would find myself counting down the time in a thousand and one ways, trying to make the duration sound more tolerable. But then once again, a small reflective theme would come up and I would realize that there’s not much else I’d rather be doing. 

Another thing that got me through these moments was my heightened awareness to the natural world around me. I’ve always respected and loved nature, and try to walk around with eyes wide  open. Yet my attentiveness is always sullied by time constraints or social pressures to divert your attention elsewhere, or even because of some sort of worry that I’ll appear to be “trying too hard” to be “into” nature. But all of those concerns are stripped away at Vipassana. Without a second thought, I would find myself pausing on walks to pick up a pinecone or rock, or examine a branch. I would lay and watch the incremental shifts in light for what seemed like hours. And the chipmunks! I’ve never watched chipmunks so closely in my life! They’re absolutely fascinating creatures. Their speed is the land equivalent to a hummingbird, seemingly teleporting from one place to the next with so much as a twitch of their leg. These daily respites helped me through just one more hour.

And then we would go sit for our group meditations, and I’d reach pivotal moments that would carry me through just a bit further. And then we would reach the end of the day, which always concluded with a video discourse given by Goenka. These were precious moments. A very wise, very humorous and relatable teacher and storyteller, Goenka would make the whole room burst into laughter. While we couldn’t talk, these animated reactions made me feel human again and gave us insight as to the effects the practice had in life outside of our ten hours of daily sits. 

Day 5: Hump Day, and going rogue

At the half way point, I went a bit rogue. Not only did I sleep in past morning meditation, but I took advantage of the fact that the sign-up sheet for bathroom clean up was left with a marker hanging from it in the bathroom. From that day forward, I began to acrue a small pile of paper towel jotted with brief notations. 

While day 5 was equally difficult as day 4, I stumbled upon another big chunk of self growth that day. It was the day I really began to let go of the person I’d been in the past. This involved thoroughly exploring my detrimental relationships and feelings towards my family. And as I began to disassociate myself from those times, a loosening occurred in my gut. While there is still plenty of work to be done, I think that the retreat showed me just how much of my heath concerns are exacerbated by emotions. 

This was the day that I also moved more from partying with my bad self to giving sort of small pats on the back for ways in which I recognized I already upheld a lot of the values and beliefs that Vipassana emphasizes, from the active compassion to sitting with sensation, to observing versus reacting. 

As we approached the last few days of the retreat, my mind definitely became more and more restless. I had praised myself for tapping into large themes and become newly motivated for things to come. Now I wanted to take all of that energy and go “dododo.” It was hard to remain in a calm mind during group meditations, and many of the sessions evoked large physical stress responses in my head, primarily right between my eyes, and my jaw. It was uncomfortable and is obviously an area with which I need to learn to become more equanimous. But as Goenka says, these ten days are just a small step on a long path. I was not meant to accomplish enlightenment in two weeks. 

On the morning of the tenth day, we were allowed to break from noble silence. All of the realizations and wisdom I’d felt attuned to came crashing when I began to listen to others, finding that I’d gotten more roped into wondering about others as the days wound down and had lost that quiet center in myself where the real work was supposed to be taking place. We continued with group meditations that day, and I used the opportunity to refocus and tackle my naive sense of pride. 

On the morning of the 11th, as we said our last chant, I was bothered that I still felt a painful tension in my face. I should be elated! We’re done! It wasn’t until I was driving out in my car, that the acknowledgement of all the changes I’d undergone began to hit. Things were different. Despite the brain chatter and the moments I strayed from meditation to miss someone or plan something, despite the physical discomforts I was feeling, I had this sweeping inner calm underneath it all. Stopping into town to get coffee, I had no idea how it would feel to be amongst crowds again. And yet, I glided through the room like no one else was around, feeling in perfect control of my space. The same calm carried over into a conversation with my mother, leaving no underlying irritation or misguided communication. 

On the ten hour drive home, all the thoughts and emotions flooded my mind and yet I still had no outlet after two weeks. When I arrived in Packwood, the buildup had manifested in all sorts of physical sensations, from chills to nausea, to shaking. I made a fire and dinner while waiting for Leo to get to town and once he made it, I just rambled and rambled as we both just lay on the couch, him a physical wreck from a cold motorcycle ride and me crazy from all I’d been holding in. But still, an underlying calm. 

I do not want to reach enlightenment. I am an emotionally driven being and don’t mind it. I know that I still have plenty of digging at the roots of the themes tapped into in Idaho. But now I have tools and a framework for understanding those issues and a paradigm that keeps them in my awareness. Every time I sit to meditate, and every time I observe versus react, is a moment I am removing old Sankara or “sin” from my life. 

“If you can take 10 lbs off your head, take 10lbs. If you can take 90lbs off your head, take 90lbs.” 

Bahvantu Sarveh Mangala

May all beings be happy.