Hermitage Update, Spring 2013

Theme: Greening Mountain Trails

It happened of an afternoon. We walked up to yurt to do some work in morning. Later, we walked down. Buds leafing, ground sprouting, sun dancing. All of a sudden -- spring!

Practice proceeds apace.

Rokpa, Cody, Panta Rhea and Bodhi Chitta have made their accommodations, adjusting their dogness and catness to one another, and each seems sweeter in so doing.

The Hibernian bicyclist painter, carpenter, designer, plumber plies his skills on wohnkuche ceiling and upstairs bedroom and bathroom. Chaos haunts the stairway in four-footed and two-footed trespass.

Practice is back in Cabin, which also was tinkered with, as was the yurt, now available for solitude/respite, furnished and warm enough to bask in the song of tumbling brook water.

We change Thursday evenings. A partialing of concentration between A Course in Miracles and other Western lectio options are divided into 2nd, 4th and 1st, 3rd, 5th Thursdays.

Final class taught last evening at college for this semester. A good stretch.

Bicycle out and about again. Patient visiting at hospital returns. Garden put in. A broader stillness watches from Bald Mountain.

We sit in silence with and for all our sentient and existential kin. We pray for those ill, suffering, and dying. We speak with one another about whatever shows up for conversation.

This is good. And, for now, enough.

Peace, and what is, good!

,   Rokpa and Cody, (woof); 
Panta (Rhea), and (Bodhi) Chitta (meow)   
and all who grace Meetingbrook

9May2013

Feb, March 2013 Hermitage Update

After the blizzard, day by day, snow melts.

We've been on the road around Maine with Saskia's work.

Prison, with dust-up and replacement of key personnel, is on hiatus. We're thinking of combining with Buddhist Group volunteers to inaugurate Mindfulness, Meetingbrook, and Mashugana. 

Conversations and meditation practice at hermitage. We like the non-duality of Rupert Spira, the intelligent inclusion of Raimon Panikkar, the silence of God, and the don't-know mind of Zen. Of course, all poetry is uncertain gift.

We look forward to the final month of winter. Snowshoes have been useful. Grippers are great inventions. Ski poles serve through all seasons.

Finally, a word about shifting translation and hermeneutic interpretation. Everything that is heard these days must go through a straining process of re-translation and re-interpretation. Quelle est la difference? This question is the resonant echo whenever anything is heard or read. Lesson 21 of ACIM reminds us: "I am determined to see things differently."

Along with what the Dalai Lama's teaches in his Ethics for the New Millennium about kun long:

Kun Long --In Tibetan, the term for what is considered to be of the greatest significance in determining the ethical value of a given action is the individual's kun long. Translated literally, the participle kun means "thoroughly" or "from the depths," and long (wa) denotes the act of causing something to stand up, to arise, or to awaken.  But in the sense in which it's used here, kun long is understood as that which drives or inspires our actions--both those we intend directly and those which are in a sense involuntary.  It therefore denotes the individual's overall state of heart and mind.  When this is wholesome, it follows that our actions themselves will be (ethically) wholesome. 

It is a winter's storm of despair and desperation we face with the shenanigans of politicians, potentates, and professional embezzlers. Most everything becomes militarized: corporations, public safety police, banks, government, and the myopic watchdogs going blind -- the media. "Wholesome" is a drifting slog through blowing misinformation. I think everyone is frightened. Aporia, difficulty and uncertainty, settles over everything.

That said, our spirits are good. Saddened and wary, but good. The reasons we'd cultivated for being alive and remaining loyal to institutions, both civic and religious, have weakened and fall apart. Now we must rely on experience and revealing feeling to negotiate what lies before us in a complicated and phantasmagorical world.

So we sit. Pray. Converse. Attempt to be of service. Read. Watch. Learn. And cultivate a trust which is near, intimate, and willing to endure a skeptical eye.

Things
come and go. 

Then
let them.

Having to --
what do I think
to say now. 

Nothing but
comes and goes
in a moment. 

(--from poem, A Step, in Pieces, by Robert Creeley)

Robert Creeley is quoted as saying, "form is never more than an extension of content," in Charles Olson's essay on poetics, "Projective Verse."

Here, a hermitage is a place that recognizes aloneness.

Solitude.

(Given, we might be alone-together, or, alone with others.)

Here is lived the paradox and contradiction -- there is no other.

Alone we are profoundly, intimately, with-one-another!



Peace, and what is, good!

,   Rokpa & Cody, (woof); 
Panta (Rhea), & (Bodhi) Chitta (meow)   
and all who grace Meetingbrook

15Feb2013

Summer 2012, Update Theme: the Paragraph Refusing to Become Two

The old saw is that there are only two seasons in Maine -- winter, and the 4th of July. Today, therefore, is not winter. Time to write the summer update! The day is gray and green. Rain, visiting early, might return this afternoon. Parades are safe for now. Fred donates his 16 foot yurt to the hermitage. It was disassembled from Appleton and resides under tarp in trailer until platform can be brought from old site and reassembled here. Volunteer labor has been gift as well. Jay and I talk of meditation and Claude Anshin Thomas as we drove around Monday morning to purchase right bits for DeWalt and Makita drills. What we do buy does not fit, but the trip back and forth to Belfast was for the conversing company and not simply the hardware. At practice Tuesday evening we read "Sound of Wood Preaching Deep Underwater Words," Transmission Thirty-Eight, Yun-yen to Tungsten-Shan, from Living Buddha Zen, Lex Hixon's commentary on Zen Master Keizan's Denkoroku: The Record of Transmitting the Light. The final line of closing poem goes: "No way to enter here." And this sounds perfect. It takes no way to enter here, and, there is no way to enter here -- we are here! So it is with meetingbrook hermitage. Saskia sails this week, giving lessons to her 9 year old niece, native of Africa, bundle of energy visiting for the week. I begin volunteering at Pen Bay Medical Center, walking miles the first 4 hour shift with 77 year old woman training me. Jack is back leading Thursday Evening's A Course in Miracles, bringing his deep history with it and great desire to communicate it. Friday Evenings remain vibrant as we explore spirituality in what mystics, ecologists, artists, poets, scientists, and other creative thinkers are musing these days. Recently we've engaged Ray Kurzweil, Juan Enriquez, Gilles Deleuze, Forrest Gamble, Teilhard de Chardin, Ilia Delio, David Abram. German Shepherd Cody settles in, now devoted to Saskia since Erika's passing. Rokie likes the company, continues to come rowing with me, and is himself devoted to every round ball within eyesight. Saturday morning practice remains lovely and focused on mindfulness. So too Sunday Evening Practice, our two hour practice replete with soup and bread, dessert and conversation following sitting, walking, and chanting. As a hermitage we are just that, a hermitage. People drop in to use the chapel/zendo or the bookshed. They come and go, no one bothers them, the place is free, open, and informal. Summer is halfway over. Noon approaches. All is good. So is God, good. As is, you. Remain in good spirits! Peace, and what is, good!

, Rokpa , Cody

and all who grace Meetingbrook

4July2012

Spring 2012, Theme: It is time

It is difficult to remember what month it is . Weather leapfrogs then reverts, circles, ages, jumps from hiding, crawls down hole in ground.

Ok, it is May. The rains came late. Basement sump pump woke from slumber and picks up as if half a year was half an hour ago. Sweet green stepped from hiding. Tiny umbrella clusters of budding leaves peek from popping bud, wriggle free, open, straighten out, and swell in rainfall mixed with reluctant sunfall. Everywhere it is spring! Mice are ambivalent about returning to outdoors.

Saskia finally returns to Maine after what seems (to her) like eons of sorting, packing, ridding, remembering, and brother-sistering her parents family home in Massachusetts. The tarped final trailer load is in the dooryard neatly wrapped and waiting as skeptical barn looks out as if sated stomach were to say, "That's going...where?"

We are back in the meditation cabin for practice. Quaker Meeting will migrate to Vesper Hill Chapel in Rockport come June. A potential reception of a yurt begins to scout out southwest direction for doorway and proposed deck up by brook. Black-flies are uncertain the surprising drops in temperature are finished. They hold caucuses whether to tea-party passersby but cannot (yet) come to consensus.

There were 22 of us at final class of East Asian Philosophy at hermitage. We did a thorough practice before small circle discussions and wider circle completion in wohnküche.  Saskia's soups and hazelnut cake sealed the metta and metaphor of the evening.

You can hear lawn mowers. Winter tires wonder if it is safe to crawl into white plastic for their rest. Barn knows nesting rafters will fill with phoebes and bats. Empty bird feeders lay on side outside barn on kindling box as straggling birds come by like scouting parties to verify it is not a temporary lapse of attention, but the end of sunflower seed for the season. They fly off to mountain trees and bushes to renew foraging skills passing grumbling grey and red squirrels complaining the loss of cracker barrel gathering place that beckoned them the last two months.

Cody, the big German Shepherd, knows he is here for good. He contemplates adjusting his modus operandi to befit a place of sequestering stillness. Rokie likes having his cousin around. They are good together.

Meetingbrook considers gratefulness, hospitality, study, and spirit worthy considerations and attends as best it can to their practice and conversation.

Flannel clothing, heavy coats, gloves and scarves, all grow accustomed to hooks and hangers in foyer.

It is spring!

For now.

With love,

All are blest

Peace, and what is, good!


, Rokpa , Cody

and all who grace Meetingbrook

11May2012

Winter, 2012, Hermitage Update

Theme: Practicing wonder

It is a brown January winter, so far. Some splashes of snow, including Christmas day several inches, but mostly, oddly, fluctuating temperatures and periodic mud. An unlikely Maine stretch.

David (Tibetan practice) visits from Antigonish. Nancy (Vipassana practice) from New Hampshire. Sam (Franciscan practice) from Connecticut. The bookshed/retreat has been warmed and welcoming.

The life of a hermitage is a quiet life. Except for the large German Shepherd who barks a storm running out from barn each time, whether 3AM, 7AM, or 9PM. He is a gentle giant with an enormous sound likely to keep all four footed and two footed creatures a little cautious. He comes that way. He's harmless. But his practice has been unswerving protectiveness of an elderly gentlewoman living alone on a hillside. We try to invite him into a more quiet greeting for this new outside. But sometimes, I admit, my greeting of the outside feels just as gruff.

We've begun an emphasis on eco-spirituality, eco-philosophy, and eco-theology on Friday Evening Conversations. David Abram, John O'Donohue, Thomas Berry, and the authors of "Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth," Ilia Delio, O.S.F., Franciscan Keith Douglass Warner, O.F.M., and Pamela Wood.

We continue to wander the middle place between traditions, the middle way between extremes, and the relational middle sanctuary of presence -- what some call the hospitality of heaven. There are no strangers there. It is an odd assortment of unique and loosely-knit pilgrims on the path of intention toward discovering self-forgetfulness with the help of generosity, compassion, and wisdom.

The Irish workman has migrated downeast. The aged farmhouse will adjust to the absence of tablesaw and Makita in the same way an aged body adjusts to the hours after rehab or exercise. It's nice to be off.

Saskia is back on the road gathering numbers for her work. I am back at my desk considering East Asian Philosophy this term. Our lives, like many lives, are side by side, respectfully (always trying) greeting each other in the meeting place between us. The task of being a hermit in the open (hito) is, as Dogen put it, "one continuous mistake." Still, we keep on.

Every once in a while, when we look around what is going on in town, we shudder with recall and curiosity about returning to the market-face of the hermitage. Most days we shrug our shoulders, shake our heads, and sober-up. And yet, we wonder.

Wonder is good medicine.

Twice a day.

Like prayer and meditation.

Good health to you!

Peace, and what is, good!

, Cody , & Rokpa ,

and all who grace Meetingbrook

Late Autumn 2011, In memory of Mutti

Erika Huising came here to meetingbrook. Saskia's mother spent her final two weeks here. She came here, as well as to live, to die. After being with her for 8 weeks in Southwick, arranging medical care here in Maine, Saskia began the migration to Camden with attentive care. For two weeks Erika was able to be with us in "Mutti's Room" so beautifully renovated by Mr. Murphy for her.

The hermitage community was extraordinary as was the Pen Bay Hospital doctors, nurses and cna folk for the weekend spent there. Back at meetingbrook, home health was begun, as was hospice. The rally to service was quick and comforting. The last few days were attended by daughters Saskia and Heidi, granddaughter Natasha, a visit from son Jurgen, and the wide and faithful community that graces meetingbrook.

At last breath Saskia and I were at bedside. The mystery completed itself at 2AM, 10Nov2011. Two hours later five women bathed and clothed her in (what was to be, and was) her Thanksgiving attire. She lay in state in front room for two days attended by silence, meditation, grief, prayer, loving people, vigilant dogs, flowers, candles, and the gratitude of all for her life with us.

As Buddhists chanted the Heart Sutra (unbeknownst) in Merton Retreat Saturday morning, four of us carried her body to waiting casket outside Wohnkuche glass doors. The 'green' casket made by Maine woodsman was bedded by wood shavings under silk covered pillow. We placed her in the casket on the wood shavings. Those at meditation came to assist the transport of casket to hearse for drive to New Bedford cemetery.

At gravesite we spoke eulogy with carrying help of brisk wind, antiphonally spoke blessing "In Praise of Earth" by John O'Donohue, then read blessing intended by Erika for the assembled as worded by O'Donohue:

A BLESSING

May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and may anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

~ John O'Donohue ~ (Anam Cara)

Cody, her large German Shepherd, takes up residence with us; his huge bark a good camouflage for his gentle nature. Rokpa and he are good companions.

Now, two weeks later, on eve of Thanksgiving Day in the United States, there is a quiet hiatus that follows the passing of a loved one. Life, as they say, goes on.

It is with gratitude we thank Erika Huising for her life among us, the blessings given us, the friends and community giving themselves, and the exquisite Earth for its giving and receiving.

What we know of God is embraced and extended therein.

With love,
Saskia, Bill, Rokpa, and Cody
and all who grace meetingbrook
23November2011
Thanksgiving Eve

Summer 2011 Hermitage Update

Theme: Screening season

Cusp. In Maine it is the time between Memorial Day and the 4th of July. We figure it won't snow on the 4th. It's safe to paint boat bottom and uncover grill outside barn.

The pea pod is brought home from harbor. After a year's continual service forgivingly navigating winter swells and early spring winds she deserves scraping and sprucing up. We paint bottom dark blue, paint floorboards sky blue, slather boiled linseed oil/pine tar/turpentine soup on sides and inside boat, paint top strake pink. (These are the chosen colors Anna left on the boat when she asked us to steward the double-ender, and they will continue as she wishes.) The yard has looked like a boatyard with hanging oarlocks, anchor, lines, bumpers, tarps, cardboard, brushes, rags, and assorted clamps, wood screws, work-horses, dog, and cat.

Chapel/Zendo is fit and used with gratitude and quiet joy. Merton bookshed/retreat is stretching loose as three months with resident guest comes to end. I sit upstairs and read at end of day, watching sunlight's final climb up Bald Mountain, then shade of dusk drawn down over this valley bowl.

Visits to prison for conversations and class in philosophy of friendship continue Each week. As unofficial nobodies we delight in coming and going with only intent the good of all -- employees and inmates -- in heart and mind. It has been a gift to be allowed to be present, converse, and engage the education we all need to cultivate. No other agenda; no other purpose. Perhaps when anyone leaves prison they will have an experience and skill to carry with them of listening/speaking, appreciating/thinking, clarifying/seeing through. The links between the greater outside Meetingbrook community and the prison Meetingbrook communities grow strong with holding lines.

The nursing home poetry, tea, and thee Fridays are wonderful. These 90 year olds and their younger compatriots bring words that evoke laughter and tears. Grandchildren attend. Friends show up. We're going to need a bigger room. The delight of poetry to insinuate itself into the human psyche and corpus penetrates us at each meeting. As some weaken and some do not show up we are more intent to keep doors of attention open so that profound sentiments will amble halls to rooms around corners where they reside watchful and wondering.

Life is an odd friend.

We are pleased to share it with those we can -- free, informal, and open.

And with you.

Friend!

Best,
Saskia, Bill, Rokpa, Mu-ge*
And all who grace Meetingbrook with presence
27June2011

*Note: On 5July2011 Mu-ge, our dear cat companion, was found dead on the edge of Barnestown Road. We are saddened. We miss him. We are grateful for the time, 9 years, he spent with us.

(9July2011)