A little compassion

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." ~Rumi 

The Rumi quote above was one shared with us at the yoga class in the park that I do every Saturday morning. It is interesting how certain quotes speak to us at particular times. When my yoga teacher shared this with us it did not really resonate with me at all. But tonight the words came back to me, and they seemed perfect for this blog entry. I am practicing compassion tonight, you see. Compassion for myself, that is. It has been an incredibly hard day. I still do not have full time work after all my hard work to find a job. Establishing myself as a freelance writer is some of the hardest and (thus far) economically unsustainable things I have ever done. No matter how hard I try, I feel like a black sheep in a very white flock here in California. I have reached the farthest limits of my capacity to live with my parents, and I am ready to have a vehicle again so that I do not have to depend on rides or borrow a car every time I need to go somewhere. My Monday was one I am very grateful is over. 

 I reached the end of the day feeling at my wits end, with no brilliant ideas of how to remedy my situation because I do not have the resources to move right now. I even wrote a blog entry (not this one) which I promptly deleted upon completing it because, frankly, who wants to read about another person's struggles when each of us already has so many of our own? Then I read my friend Sharon's blog entry, which is all about what a rough time she is having right now, and how she is dealing with it, and finding ways to practice compassion with herself, and suddenly my black day got ever-so-slightly less bleak. Let me me clear: I do not take pleasure in other people's misfortunes. But I realized that her willingness to be vulnerable to the world and share the hard things she is going through as well as the good things makes her far more easy to relate to. It also reassures me that I am not the only black sheep out here who feels like her life is coming apart at the seams.

We live in a world where the media is always showing us images of happy, beautiful people with flawless skin and designer clothes. Where the only emotions that are acceptable in public are happiness, excitement, joy, enthusiasm, etc. Periods of sadness or loss locked up behind closed doors. But in reality life is about the happy times and the sad times. Every low means there is a another hill ahead, and every hill is followed by a valley. So why did I delete my first blog entry tonight? Why do we censor some of our most profound moments of being human? Why do we pretend that we are doing great when in reality we could really use a good chat with a close friend or to have someone call and cheer us up? Why are periods of sadness or struggle looked down upon as blemishes in our lives--as something we feel we need to hide?

I was visiting with my mother's best friend Cheryl the other day on our seven hour drive down to L.A. I was telling her about my attempts to find work in the United States this year, and how discouraged I am feeling right now. She listened a long time, and when I was done venting, she smiled, and said "I think this is good for you." "What is good for me?" I asked her. "These tough times in your life," she said. I asked her to elaborate, and she said "I've always thought that people who have never experienced real hardship in their lives lack a certain degree of depth that those who have confronted tests and struggled through them seem to have." Cheryl has had many long and hard tests in her life, and is one of the happiest and most optimistic people I know, so any thoughts she has to share on the subject of tests I always listen to carefully.

Reflecting on both Sharon's blog entry and Cheryl's thoughts on the matter has brought me to the conclusion that human beings are vast, beautiful and powerful landscapes which pass through many seasons, and that sharing only some of these landscapes and seasons undermines the resilience of what makes us as human beings so distinct -- our spirit or soul. Tough times are good for the soul. So to glaze over them and only write about the good times gives a false impression of who we are and how we came to be where we are in our lives. When I read other people's blogs I am curious how this person became who they are, with their distinctive qualities and strengths. Knowing that they had to get through hard times to get where they are makes them feel more human -- I can relate to them better as a reader. 

So anyway, getting back to compassion....after reading Sharon's blog post I decided to get away from the job hunting sites that I have been staring at numbly all day long, light some candles, fill the bathtub, pour in some essential oils, and take care of myself a little. Invite my mind to stop spinning endless stories of when and how and where and how much longer, and just inhale the warm air, rest my eyes and breathe. It took a very long time to convince my mind to let go, but when I finally stepped out of the bath tonight I felt about fifty pounds lighter, and after I had rubbed tingly peppermint lotion on my feet I felt even better. It is getting later now and I think maybe time for a hot cup of tea. There is a lovely cool breeze coming in the window.  Being compassionate with myself does not take the tough times away, but they do help me to stay hopeful and positive. How do you treat yourself with compassion?

Forging a path

It has been a long time since I have written a blog entry. The leaves are still falling, but fall is finally giving way to winter, and the temperature has finally dropped low enough to actually justify wearing a light jacket when I go out.

A lot had happened over the past few weeks. One big thing was creating a Tischen site for myself. Tischen is a site that offers free web pages on which businesses or individuals can advertise their services or skills and be contacted by potential clients. Although I do not have my own domain name, I found the exercise of describing my skills and services clearly to be empowering and illuminating. Creating a Tischen page helped me to begin to clarify for myself what it is that I am doing with my writing and how I can bring together some of my own interests and passions with a practical service that could be of value to someone else. If you are interested in checking out what this looks like, visit my Tischen site at http://www.tischen.com/ArianaSalvo

Another exciting thing that I have been engaged in over the last few weeks is a process called Loving Inquiry. Loving Inquiry is a creative and contemplative practice that uses the creative arts as a means of developing gentler, more loving and compassionate relationships with other people and with the natural world. It was developed by Ahava Shira, an inspiring poet, performer and educator who recently finished her Doctoral degree at the University of British Columbia. I met Ahava at a conference on poetics in Charlottetown, back on Prince Edward Island last year. Although I met many inspiring people at the conference, she and I clicked immediately because I was working in the organic farming industry and love poetry, and she lives on a 23 acre organic farm nestled into the flanks of Mount Maxwell on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. She also comes from a Jewish background (her name in Hebrew means “love poetry”), and I have been learning a lot about Judaism over the last couple of years and am always excited to learn more. We have managed to keep in touch since the conference, and when I heard that she was starting to work facilitating workshops (both on the farm and online) for women who are trying to find their calling in life, I immediately asked her to sign me up. Over the past few weeks, a group of ten women and myself have come together on a tranquil little island floating somewhere in the vast sea of the world wide web, and have been receiving inspiring quotes, questions that are intended (and do!) stimulate directed writing practices, and activities that we carry out in our own time and share with the rest of the group through poetry, narrative, photography, painting, drawing, and any other form of creative expression we choose to use.

I am on Facebook. I email. I chat. But Ahava created a web site that is so tranquil that when I sign in I can practically hear my entire body let out a sigh of relief to be stepping over the threshold between the constant motion of my life and the silent space for reflection, contemplation and sharing that I find inside the site. The colours are soft, poetry floats down the side of the page, and images shared by all of the women of our collective landscapes and community appear and fade in the middle of the page. It feels like home.

This past week Ahava asked if I would write an article about her work that she can use to reach out to a larger group of women. Although I have only been taking part in this workshop for three weeks I was very excited to be able to share with others what Ahava is doing and the very tangible benefits that come from participating in her workshops. I started the article yesterday. It is my first official article, which made me slightly nervous. I want to do a good job. But it also is sort of thrilling. I am doing what I love, and I am helping a friend to do what she loves. I imagine she feels the same way! If you are interested in hearing more about Ahava’s work with Loving Inquiry, check out her blog: http://www.ahavashira.com/

I began thinking about the theme that Ahava asked the group to reflect on this next week tonight: compassion. It is a virtue that I am nowhere near being a master of, and going on eleven months of not having a full time job, my compassion for myself is probably at it absolute lowest point right about now. But thinking about compassion made me reflect back over the last week, and what came to me is this:

Last week I was at a thanksgiving supper with nineteen other amazing folks, some of whom I had never met before. It was an amazing meal, the fire was crackling, and the conversation was stimulating. One conversation that especially struck me was one I had with a man from Haiti named Pierre. He and his wife and their three kids have been living in the US for a number of years now, but he recently resigned from his high paying job with the State to move back to Haiti and establish an NGO that focuses on establishing sustainable small-scale agriculture initiatives in rural communities. He asked me what I am doing right now, and I explained that I had done my Master’s degree in Island Studies, my love was organic agriculture and writing, and that I was trying to find what I should be doing with my life right now. The man leaned back in his chair and told me: “This is wonderful. We were meant to come to this supper and sit next to each other. Your skills are exactly what we need in our project in Haiti. You are perfect. Could you please send me your resume?”

After ten months of no fruitful connections, I have to say that shock is a mild description for how I felt being told by this man that I had skills that were extremely valuable to the people of Haiti. I also felt fear. Fear of even the possibility of moving to a country that graces the newspaper daily because of cholera epidemics and rampant violence, poverty and natural disasters. I told Pierre that the work sounded amazing, but shared my fears of going to such a place as a single white woman. He nodded. His wife had already told me how terrible the conditions in Haiti were. I expected him to drop the idea. Instead he said to me: “Yes. Haiti is in a terrible state. But we cannot pretend that we are insulated from the suffering of Haiti. We cannot live in such immense comfort and ignore such deep suffering just because we are afraid or separated by geography.” He went on to tell me that if everyone with skills that could benefit Haiti stays away out of fear, the country will never be able to dig itself out of its current misery. His words are still echoing through my mind and heart now, almost a week later. After some reflection, I realized he is right. I am afraid, but if I let my fear outweigh my compassion, what kind of world am I accepting to live in? What kind of future exists if I allow fear to prevent positive change? I sent him my resume yesterday morning. I am not sure where it will lead, but I keep praying that I will have the courage for whatever comes of this encounter, and that I will be able to use my skills to contribute to his effort.

I feel like I am coming down with something tonight, so in the spirit of compassion (and because I feel lousy), I made myself rosebud tea with honey, relaxed in a hot bath, and brought a hot water bottle to bed with me. All acts of compassion. There is a lot to learn about this virtue, but it seems the universe is bringing me plenty of opportunities to practice!