Monkey See, Monkey Do

wow, here’s a cool story about how the product i work on helped out with hurricane charley, one of the many pummeling florida this year.

when i lived in south florida, i never experienced a direct hit from a hurricane; though my parents’ house was totaled by hurricane andrew a few years after i had left. i went back to help patch the roof and chainsaw fallen trees. i remember then i had a clearer sense of impermanence and what’s not really that important, as we threw out huge piles of furniture and books destroyed by water damage. i still struggle with attachment, wanting to have a house a certain way and a certain collection of things. May we all appreciate the magic of life more and the security of things less.

our new center is really starting to come together, each week more detail adds to the beauty of the space. yesterday Chris built the shrine box and brought in more art. the benches are felted and in position, even without cushions yet they are comfortable to sit on. this week i hope to paint the two doors and trim, and bring over the furniture and art that i have been storing.

yesterday i was very lucky to attend the wedding for my friend Alfred and his sweety Noriko. The ceremony was gorgeous, precise, and warm. the reception was a real celebration of them and their families. Both came from extended families still well connected to each other, it really felt like the linking of two tribes. i also now have a greater appreciation for the decorum of a formal wedding, and how it can set the intentions and symbolize the bigger story of what is taking place. a truly wonderful experience and celebration.

my running progress has continued. i haven’t really increased my weekly mileage over the last four weeks, but each run is easier and more joyful. my heart rate during runs continues to slowly improve, and i’ve added a little speed work in the middle of each week which is making it all more fun. today’s short three mile run felt like one of the first runs in this adventure that was really a joy to partake. may that occur more and more.

the meditation center is looking *sooo* good i can barely stand it. with the new hardwood floor and baseboards up, the space looks simply amazing. there is still spot painting to do and the doors to prime and paint, but we’re probably only a couple weeks away from having a shrine and art on the walls and a workable space!

i was expecting about seven people to show up, and preparing to be happy about even that many people attending. but i was blown away when 47 people came. our first class, and we filled the room!

i was my usual nervous self introducing the class and introducing the class leader, but it all went fine. the a/v went without a hitch (thanks to two hours before hand troubleshooting it) and the Q&A afterward went about as well as i would have expected. next monday the saga continues, hopefully i’ll have the chance to connect people who return with our new center and our upcoming schedule of events.

these are pictures of the first 1000 US servicemen who died in iraq, thanks to the new york times. just looking at these photos brings another dimension and realness of the situation for me. i spent time today looking at each face, and reading each name. there is even a man in this roster who shares my name; and he has the same kind of smile that i do in the photograph. all this is so heartbreaking, thinking about each young person and the hope they had for the future unrealized, and the horror each family must be going through.

many months ago, I guessed it would be a good way to publicize our small meditation group by hosting a Pema Chödrön video class at East West Bookstore. The way the schedule worked out, we could have it over three successive Monday night’s timed to start just after Pema’s public weekend meditation retreat in the area. That way we could piggyback the publicity efforts for both programs, connect our center with Pema who is our senior teacher, and give us a timeline to rent a space and start something bigger.

so far it’s going really well. our center is rented, painted, with a new floor and baseboards; and it looks amazing. just being in the space astonishes me, it looks so beautiful; and it isn’t even finished yet.

but tomorrow i’ll be coordinating my first dharma program, the video class at East West. this is exciting and terrifying. i have no idea how many people will be there. it could be a very small group. tonight i sent out a reminder about the program to 150 people on our mailing list. i’m watching the video tapes to make sure they don’t have any glitches or quality problems, and then i’ll make an informational flyer about the center to place on everyone’s chairs. this is a lot of work, but it’s such a fun project. wish me luck!

went for another six mile run this morning, though i haven’t been running regularly over the last couple weeks. but even though it felt hard, it was also much easier than the last few runs of that distance. i guess the way this goes is you just steadily improve, the more you keep practicing. it feels like each run is still hard, and the progress is hard to feel. but over time it just gets easier and easier.

this saturday will be my first garage sale, mostly a fundraiser for our meditation center but also a great opportunity to clean out closets. it’s amazing to me still how after a couple years of trying to reduce what i own just how much there still is to get rid of!

just got back from a short trip to the desert. instead of spending a week there as i have in years past this year i could only fit in a long weekend. it was really good to take a break from my daily routine and also to take a break from any large projects or serious intentions for my few days there. the last few years included a project, adding something to the moroccan tent that i setup there or contributing to another art project. this year i did nothing of the sort. it took only two hours to setup camp, and less time to put it all away and head home. that was a terrific lesson by itself.

the one thing i noticed this year was the number of people telling me ‘welcome home’ when i arrived in the desert. this meme really took root this year. it made me think about how much i and other desert campers have come to identify with this yearly pilgrimage. there was a sweet quality to the announcement, a definite welcoming, but adding ‘home’ on the end turned that sense of community into more of an “us versus them” identity for me. i wasn’t being welcomed because i was another human being, but simply because i was ‘one of us’. i was one of the in-crowd, one of the people who have the gaul to brave the harshness and intensity each year.

i guess with any activity the natural tendency is to solidify an in-crowd and the rest of the world. but it did strike me as going counter to the gestalt of the desert - which seems limitless in its expanse and completely open and accepting of anyone. the sky is so wide there it captures your mind and one tends to stare out toward distant clouds or mountains. there is no real in and out in the desert, no real sense of place even or location. it’s easier there to see perhaps how our sense of in and out, member and non-member, is so artificial.