Searching for my Buffalo

The Beauty of Fog

Haziness is the life
Future, the swells of ocean
Solid no more
But the trees with the
soft fog leaves
What am I seeing
How can I trust
How can I tell
You never can!

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Composed May 11, 1996, in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Buddhist monk and scholar, the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, tells the story of a man who searched for his buffalo believing it to be lost. He searched, in the mountains. On the plains. On the beach. He wandered days looking for his beast only to return home without him. And then, he walked into the stable and discovered the Buffalo had always been there.

Some time ago, Thelma Box, founder and facilitator of Choices, said to me, "I experience you Louise as a woman who will never find an answer good enough for you."

Last night, I sat with my boss, the Executive Director of the homeless shelter where I work, who commented much the same insight. "You're always searching for answers. Looking for the gem of wisdom that will create a perfect world. It's already in you."

He was sharing his thoughts on my strengths -- and weaknesses. An informal performance review.

I laughed when he told me that and shared the story of Thelma's comment.

In Muslim faith, the oral tradition, known as hadith, shares the sayings and teaching of Muhammad from follower to follower. One written down 'truth' attributed to Muhammad, is, "Allah did not create any illness without also creating the remedy, except death [old age]."

In the Midrash Tanhuma, Jewish writings which form part of the Talmud, in Yitro 8, it is written, "There is no affliction for which there does not exist a cure."

Is there a cure for constantly searching for answers out there when the answers already exist within?

Like Rinpoche's farmer searching for his Buffalo, I search for answers out there in the world, never satisfied that the answer I find is the answer I need to make sense, to understand, to know all there is to know, to be all there is to be, to become all there is to become.

I search and in my searching go out into the world when within me, within my inner being, the path to knowing, to healing, already exists.

Always did. Always will.

We come into this world as an act of Love. The divine expression of God's amazing Grace. Perfect. Miraculous. Mystical.

And then, life happens. We lose sight of our perfect beginnings as time and space and happenings collide to block us from the view of the miracle of our lives. We cover our eyes, block our hearts, shut down our minds and become blinded to our truth by the idea, 'this is as good as it gets'. I am 'less than' and there's nothing else to be got from looking inside for my answers. There must be somewhere, someone, something, out there in the world that will make it all make sense for me.

And then, we encounter the somewheres, someones, somethings and struggle to make sense of why their nonsense doesn't sit well in our hearts and minds and spirits. We struggle to understand our role in creating the nonsense in the world around us.

Or we meet someone who has it all. Has the happiness we desire. The career. The home. The past, future, present we have always dreamed of.

And we wonder, why them? What do I need to do to have what they have?

We yearn. We pine. We wonder and continue searching for our lost buffalo somewhere out there.

And then, one day, hopefully, we wake up to the truth within us. No one has our answers. Nowhere out there is the answer to our inner happiness, peace, tranquility, completeness. The path to our well-being is and always has been, within us.

The Buddha calls it, 'Complete Wakefulness'. "The actual point of all our efforts on the spiritual path is simply to return to the state of complete wakefulness, which is the true nature of our minds," writes Rinpoche in Finding Your Buffalo. "Our minds are brilliantly clear and aware naturally, but that brilliant wakefulness is hidden from our view by clouds of confusion. These clouds are caused primarily by the turbulence of our thoughts and emotions. There is so much commotion going on in our minds that our view of who we are and what the world is like is distorted."

There is a cure for my searching. There is a healing path that leads inward, deeper into my knowing of who I am. And when I live my truth, I do not yearn to find the perfect answer. I do not search for the perfect way to my perfection. I already have it. It is, and always has been, within me.

For the answer to my question, Who am I?, is, I am enough. Always have been. Always will be.

Enough.

Enough searching
for answers somewhere out there
where I see what I desire
reflected back
in the eyes of those
who have
what I want
and don't see
they already have
what they need
to see
in them
and I
in me.

Nameste.

Gentleness in Homelessness

Gentleness is the antidote for cruelty. Phaedrus

It is just a small gesture. He looks at her. Lifts his hand. Touches her cheek. Softly. A gentle touch. Loving. Tender.

Pulling back to the larger view, you expect to see them sitting at a table in a fine restaurant. Or perhaps, in their candlelit dining room.

Pulling back, you see, the room is crowded. People move amongst the tables. Serving plates of food. Every chair is full. There's clatter and chaos and noise and voices arguing and voices speaking in hushed tones. There's activity everywhere, and still, he holds his hand against her cheek. Gently. She closes her eyes. Moves her cheek closer to the palm of his hand.

A quiet intimate moment amidst the chaos of the Day Area of the homeless shelter where I work.

Gentleness amidst the daily grind of making ends meet when there's nothing in the middle to connect the emptiness of a life at the end of poverty.

It is, I think, an unexpected place to find such a small, simple gesture. But then, the unexpected is always happening at a shelter. The unexpected took up residence long ago and hasn't been able to pack its bags since arriving in from the cold, surprised to find itself in this place, lacking all knowledge of how to be, how to get by, how to survive in homelessness.

Another moment. Another tableau.

A woman readies her bed in the Intox area. She's inebriated. Unsteady on her feet. As she stuffs her purse under her pillow, its contents spill out onto the six inch space between the end of her matt and the end of the next one row over. Amongst the spillage, a glass bottle of perfume. It rolls across the concrete floor. The lid falls off and the scent of sickly sweet perfume fills the air. The woman moans. Flops down on her matt. Hangs her head. Starts to cry. Defeated. The act of gathering up spilled perfume too much for her. She surveys the mess. A mascara wand, compact, kleenex, candy wrapper. The perfume leaves a moist trail of evidence between her matt and the next.

Another client, equally as under the influence, stumbles over. In her hand she holds a small teddy bear. It's long past the season, but the bear is still dressed for Christmas. Red bow. Santa hat jauntily set to the side. The woman trips over a matt and almost falls onto the crying woman. She laughs. Rights herself. Stumbles towards her and holds out the teddy bear. "Here," she slurs. "This'll make it better."

And she passes the woman the bear. Her smile as crooked as the bear's Santa hat.

Moments of tenderness. Moments filled with the gentleness of the human spirit sharing what little it has to provide succor to a fellow traveller on this road of life.

I am always touched by these tender moments at the shelter. Touched but not surprised. At the worst of the human condition is always the capacity for human tenderness. For a gentle touch. A shared gift. An expression of caring. Of wanting to make it better for someone else.

It is the human spirit's calling. To be tender. To share its gentleness.

St. Francis de Sales once said, "Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”

Nothing is so important to the human spirit than to share its gentle nature. To be the whisper of God reminding us of our heritage. To offer its tender soul like a kiss upon the heart that provides solace in the meanest of times, that raises hope in the darkest of times, that lights the path back to our human being through all time.

I see it everyday in this cold, hard place called homeless.

Today is Blog Carnival Tuesday sponsored by Bridget Chumbley of One Word at a Time and Peter Pollock of Rediscovering the Church. Held every second Tuesday, Blog Carnival is an online event open to anyone. The moderator's provide a one-word prompt or topic and you're invited to write, from your heart out, a poem, a piece of prose, a song, a sonnet, a line.

This week's prompt is "gentleness".

Go here to read and be inspired by the contributions from writers all over the world. New entries will be listed throughout the day and sometimes through to the end of the week. My favourite Tuesday night activity is to take my laptop to bed and devour Blog Carnival! It's a sublime evening of great words, thoughtful minds and inspiring writing.

Visit Blog Carnival's FaceBook page here.

River Deep (a poem)

River Deep

Memory flows
a river of time
carrying with it
past and present
remembering
that time
where pain flowed
deeply
lost,
stranded in a river of fear.

Memory floats
a balloon of hope
bobbing
on the river
caught up
in the eddy
pulling inexorably
into its spiralling waters
all memory of time flowing
along the shores
passing by.

Memory calls
from glacial pasts
to silt-slick estuary
river flowing, time passing
pulling me under
I release my grip
on memory's rope
and stand alone
stranded
on shifting sandbars
clogged with memory's
insistence I let go.

Memory shifts
land ends
water retreats
I lose
all sense of time
flowing into the river
I find myself
adrift
cast-off memory
floating past
beyond where time fades
into the sea
of life calling me back
to dance at the water's edge.

I let go
and flow freely
into the river
deep
with longing
for a time
and place
where memory releases
remembering
time past
into the waters
flowing by.


I didn't mean to write a poem today! I only meant to write.

And then, I visited Maureen at Writing without Paper, and read her brilliant poem, Sore Chasing Dreams and Glynn over at Faith, Fiction, Friends and got inspired by his beautiful My Western City Dreaming . And then, L.L. Barkat at Seedlings in Stone inspired me to get involved with Random Acts of Poetry at High Calling Blogs.

Write a picture with words L. L. suggested.... Glynn wrote about an old river town. What makes a river old? What ages its banks? I wondered. Time. Memory. Flowing.

And the words flowed and the poem appeared.

Drop into visit L.L. Barkat and read, How to Write a Poem. Get inspired! And just do it! Who knows what might flow free?

Easter Sunday

At daybreak on the first day of the week
the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were puzzling over this, behold,
two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.
They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.
They said to them,
"Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
He is not here, but he has been raised.
Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners
and be crucified, and rise on the third day."
And they remembered his words.
Then they returned from the tomb
and announced all these things to the eleven
and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James;
the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
but their story seemed like nonsense
and they did not believe them.
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb,
bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone;
then he went home amazed at what had happened.
-Luke 24:1-12

Easter Sunday. Sunshine casts a warm glow upon the trees outside my window. Hildegard von Bingen plays in the background as I type.

I can understand how the other's felt the story was nonsense. I can understand Peter's amazement. I struggle with the idea that the son of God died for my sins. That God would send his only Son to pave the way for our salvation.

In the Lectio Divina I have been studying throughout this Lenten period, I have struggled to accept the Word as the word -- a true accounting of what transpired over two thousand years ago in a land far away when video cameras were not around to record and news reporters were not on scene to report, play by play the what, where, when, who of what was happening.

I am a doubter.

A doubting Thomas. A sceptical mind that struggles to take the leap of faith to accept, all is well with my soul when I believe that Jesus died for my sins and on the third day was resurrected.

I struggle.

I believe a man named Jesus walked the earth. I believe the events transpired as the Bible states. I struggle to believe it was for my sins he died. Who would do such a thing? For me? An embryo yet to be conceived. A sinner yet to be born.

I breathe.

In the Lenten course, moderator, Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts invites us to enter into the story of Jesus' death and imagine what it was like to roll away the stone and find life resurrected instead of death.

I close my eyes and imagine. Fear. Confusion. Hope.

Could it be true? Could Jesus' words truly have been the Word of God?

I breathe into hope.

It is Easter Sunday and I am a child of God, the Divine expression of His amazing grace. He sent his son to die for me on the cross so that I could be forgiven my sins.

I breathe and leap onto an act of Faith. Why wouldn't I want to be forgiven? Why wouldn't I want to know God's magnificent Love everlasting?

Something Special -- The Butterfly Circus.

Spring lives eternal, even under blankets of snow. Hope never dies, even under hardened hearts. As the young girl taught the King in my story, The Heart Rock, even a heart of stone can be warmed in loving hands.

On this, Something Special Saturday, I share a short film (20 minutes) my friend BA sent to me. Created by Doorpost films, -- it is marvelous, inspiring and joyful.

Enjoy!

this is the link which seems to load faster than embedding the video in my blog!

http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/film/?film=4dd298f102c77b625cf37a9e7744ac68

Let it Be.

I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity... I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not--more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving. Beverly Sills

I am sitting by a window on a large comfy couch tucked into a corner of the lounge of Emerald Lake Lodge. Outside, the lake is still frozen. Snow still covers its surface as it covers the ground all around. Mountain peaks climb into the sky, shedding the cloak of the fir trees that march up their slopes as they reach higher and higher towards the heavens. The trees are iced with sugar-spun driftings of snow that undulate along the ridges surrounding this hidden valley in Yoho National Park. Yoho is the Cree Indian word for 'awe' and it is. Awe-inspiring. God-awakening. Peaceful. Tranquil. Serene.

C.C. and I have come for a break. A weekend get-away where we can unhook from the busy-ness of daily living and connect into the wonderfulness of being 'us'. Cell phones don't work up here in this remote mountain valley -- though there is wireless Internet (in the main lodge only)! There is no password to access it. No need to secure it. We are miles from the closest highway. There are no other pockets of homes or inhabitants, other than the wildlife and bears and moose aren't beating at the door to cyberland looking to overload the circuits.

It is beautiful. We arrived late yesterday afternoon, in time to watch the sun's fading light cast a light Alpen Glow over the mountain peaks. In time for a late dinner at the Lodge.

Over a bottle of fine Canadian wine from the Church and State vineyard on Vancouver Island, we sat and chatted, gazed out at the stars twinkling in the sky above and enjoyed fine cuisine. We shared a salad and C.C. delved into a main course of rib-eye Elk steak with cranberry confit while I nibbled at a spinach gnocchi appetizer.

Our cabin is a three minute walk from the main lodge. Overlooking the lake, bracketed by fir trees, it is quiet, serene, peaceful. Big stone fireplace. A cheese tray. Blinds open so we can see out into the night, we while away the hours talking and enjoying each others company.

In the glow of the firelight, we sip the rest of our wine and I ask C.C. to tell me something about him I don't know. He pauses. Thinks. And, then shares an enticing, interesting piece of his dreams. And in the quiet following his revelation, I wait for him to ask me to reciprocate.

"I notice you do that fairly often," I comment. "After I've asked a question of you, you don't ask back."

"I know," he replied. "I'm content with what I know about you. Peaceful. I don't want to disturb the status quo."

"Are you worried that what I might tell you will lessen me in your eyes?"

"No," he replies. "That's not possible. I'm just worried I won't know what to do with the information."

Accepting status quo. Challenging the space between status quo and intimacy.

It is a part of me that has always driven my mother crazy. "Why can't you just accept what is without having to keep digging deeper?" she asked through most of my life. "Why can't you just let things be?"

Let it be.

I have always been challenged by that admonishment. Let it be. What am I supposed to "Let Be" I've always wondered.

Let harsh words be. Let anger be. Let what you did be the last thing you did upon which you build the next moment of our relationship.

I'm not good with 'Let it be' when let it be is filled with the fear that there is nothing else to be said other than, it can be no other way. When Let it Be doesn't leave room for acknowledgement, amends, forgiveness.

I fear the what if's...

What if in letting it be I'm saying, it's okay to drink too much. Fight. Say mean things. Abuse.

What if in letting it be I make it okay for you to behave in unacceptable ways in my life?

What if.... Let it be really means, leave me alone. Don't bug me. Don't be a pest.

Sitting in this room of comfy couches and antique furnishings and golden wall sconces fanning their light out like angels wings unfurling onto the caramel walls above them, and a fire sparking in the huge stone fireplace and snow quietly drifting down outside the window, I slip into 'Let it Be' okay to just be in this moment. I breathe a quiet sigh of contentment.

I've never had issues with letting it be as long as Let it Be wasn't an invitation to carry the shame and sorrow, regrets and trauma of past mistakes, of missteps, of leaving the things we did that hurt the one's we loved unsaid and unforgiven.

There is no shame in making mistakes. The shame is when we let our mistakes limit our possibilities for growth, for forgiveness, for intimacy.

Let it Be.

Fall gracefully into acceptance, open up to the thought, the idea, the realization that all is well in my world, all is well with my soul, when I open myself up to 'all' that is without judgement, criticism, or condemnation.

Sitting in this quiet corner of the world, morning light shrouded through clouds billowing about the peaks surrounding me, I embrace my world and Let it Be.

What if.... to Let it Be is to step beyond the status quo into that space where we open up to total acceptance of who we are, who the other is, and all that is between us without fearing we are not enough just the way we are?

What if... serenity exists in knowing 'the other', or, 'our beloved' in all their facets. Good. Not so pretty. And just the way they are when their soul-light becomes all they need to light up our hearts.

What if... the challenge isn't in the question to Let it Be. It's in accepting ourselves with loving hearts so that we can accept the other into our hearts without fear they will walk away, stomple upon our dreams, or simply dismiss our fears, our insecurities, our foibles with a wave of their hand and a 'don't be silly'?

My mother always believed I was trying to create waves. To disturb her hard won peace of mind with my insistence that we delve into the unspoken.

In my insistence she was wrong to not talk about unsettling moments, I created a lose/lose situation where neither of us opened up to the possibility of more in our relationship. In my insistence we 'talk it out' and her insistence it was best left unsaid, forgotten, buried in the past, we stepped away from common ground into that place where I felt unheard and frightened that what had been will be again, and where she felt battered by my words and fearful that what was could only never be again as long as she didn't see it ever happened.

I listened to C.C.'s response to my question last night and smiled in the enveloping glow of the firelit room. "I love you," I whispered and fell asleep in the loving embrace of his arms.

Leaving the world better off

Some carry Chopin in their hearts, others thoughts of revenge. Gunther Grass

He is 60. Big man. Big hands. Big heart. He smokes. A pack a day. He doesn't drink. Quit that. Gave it up. It wasn't fun anymore, he tells me as we sit in his apartment on a quiet street across the river from the downtown core.

I listen to him tell his stories, walk me backwards in and out of his life as my emotions wash through me, sadness, joy, melancholy, ebullience, laughter, consternation...

He is dying. And he's okay with it, he says. I've lived a life and a half. Done things I never should have outlived anyway.

It was the cough that did him in. It wouldn't go away. Persisted. Resisted any attempts to dislodge it.

He finally sought professional counsel. The verdict was fast, swift and final.

Cancer. You'd best get your affairs in order, the doctor told him.

He was stunned. Angry. Frustrated. Disappointed. But never scared, he says. We all gotta go sometime. I'm just a little bit clearer on when mine will happen.

He just wasn't quite prepared for it to be this soon.

I spent three hours with him yesterday morning. Listening. Making notes. I had a video camera with me. Set it up as we chatted and he shared his ideas on what it really takes to 'end homelessness', something he's intimately familiar with having spent many years drifting from town to town, worksite to worksite, under the influence of alcohol and forces of nature he couldn't contend with.

I'd ask if he was willing to talk about his philosophy on life. Share his wisdom, his thoughts, his journey. Sure, he'd replied. Not sure how comfortable I am about the camera, but I always love chattin' with a pretty woman.

He's a charmer. But not the slippery kind. Sincere. Boyish. Thoughtful.

In the end, the camera didn't work and so, we chatted. I listened. He talked. I asked a question here. There. He talked more.

I've been making it on my own since I was five, he told me. After my mom put us kids in an orphanage for awhile, I pretty well had to take care of everyone. Pause. Even after she came back to get us. Taking care of drunks does that to ya'. Putting them to bed. Hiding the booze. He smiles. You become a good caretaker.

He was fifteen when he formally left home. Big kid. Blond. Blue-eyed. Handsome. I coulda' been a great thief. But it wasn't in me, he says. Blue eyes twinkling despite the gasps of pain each breath ensues. He cracked a rib a few weeks ago. Coughing did it. The bones, riddled with disease couldn't sustain the force of his cough. He needs oxygen to breathe comfortably. I smile at the contradiction of the oxygen tank and his cigarettes. He smiles too and continues with his story. I didn't want to steal from people. I wanted to do good in the world. Don't know if it's nurture or nature.

He thinks a moment. Lotta it was nature. I was good at conning people. I just never wanted to hurt nobody.

Doing good got mixed up with alcohol. Being a father got mixed up with not feeling good enough, with feeling like whatever he did, someone always got hurt.

Last time I saw my son he was 17, he says. He gasps as he takes a breath and pain ripples through his ribcage. I was already looking at a better man than me.

It's been 18 years since he saw him. I want to. I mean, I would if I didn't feel like I might be messing up what's going good for him now. I don't want me to be the reason he goes off track.

He is a big man. Big hands. Big heart.

He's lived a life. Big life.

How did you lose the tip of your finger, I ask him and he tells me a story that has me laughing and crying about working on the rigs and a flying wheel and carrying his glove into the hospital with the fingertip still in it.

It's the authority figures that always got his ire. The lack of good intention.

There's three things we need to teach our kids, he says.

1. How to lead so they never have to follow.
2. How to stand up for themselves so they never have to fight.
3. How to be humble so they always know it's not about falling down. It's always about learning from what's happened so they can take the next step.

We all have a duty to leave the world better off than when we got here. We all gotta do our bit on changing the state of affairs. We all gotta take steps to create value.

His next steps are limited. They haven't given him much time. Haven't given him much hope -- 5% chance of killing the cancer. 0% chance of coming out of it alive.

And still, he is at peace. Putting his life in order. I've never been too good at the paperwork, he says. Never been too strong on the 'getting it done' without a whole lot of procrastination.

Pause.

I know I'm just filling in my time with the busy work as a way to avoid doing what I gotta do about my son.

Laugh.

The biggest game is me fooling myself.

Pause.

I might be willing to write a letter. Maybe even do a video message.

He points at the camera. Silent. Unmoving. Not-recording.

Not having a working camera made it easier to get comfortable with it here.

Laugh.

Gotta find value in all things.

I'd gladly help, I tell him.

I'll think on it, he says.

And I know he will. He is a man with a big heart looking to leave the world a little better off than how he found it. And, he is a man of his word. Always has been.