Practice is a rehearsal

Making a clearing in the dense forest of your life

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A song I’m loving:

Lone beauty, 35mm film

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself to this world
so worthy of rescue.
— Martha Postlethwaite, Clearing

Last night, my husband and I were on the livestream for a talk with Lama Rod Owens, Dr. Angela Davis, and Prentis Hemphill, put on by the EBMC. We were supposed to attend in Oakland but I had been sick all week and didn’t want to infect anyone, so we watched from the couch at home instead. We lit candles and ate popcorn out of a huge stainless steel mixing bowl, sipped tea and absorbed the conversation. There was a wide tapestry of wisdom woven between the three of them, but there is one thread in particular I keep pulling at. Dr. Davis spoke about practice being akin to a rehearsal — and our practices being rehearsals for living. And as we engage in our practices, we get to experience a little bit of what we think freedom might mean.

I have been staying with the swirl of responses, feelings, and reactions the last few days. I have been sifting through think pieces and hot takes, getting overwhelmed, returning to my own interior, to my own felt sense within. I have been watching my daughter make up songs in the tune of Pink Pony Club (“dance, on the ruuuuug, IIII’m gonna keep on dancing on the”). I have been sick, hacking up a lung, losing my voice, drinking seemingly endless cups of tea and still not waking up well. I have been stocking up on nettle, spearmint, oatstraw, and rose for daily herbal infusions. I have been turning to poetry and the redwood tree in my backyard and the softness of my cat’s fur. I have practicing staying with what is, rehearsing for what is to come.

Density, 35mm film

In processing the election results here in the U.S., I have been noticing how often I am able to reach toward my own center as opposed to 2016. I am noticing a deepening desire to expand my capacity to be of service, which feels like the opposite of despair. I am accessing a steadiness, a knowing, a grief-filled calm not because I think everything will be okay (I think so much won’t be okay), but because perhaps for the first time in my life, I feel like an adult who can stay with difficulty. I feel like an adult who can meet pain fully, without wincing or turning away. I feel like an adult who can return to center. I feel like an adult who can sit with grief and dive into the underground, without being so afraid of what I’ll find. I feel like an adult who isn’t embarrassed by what I don’t know. I feel like an adult who knows how to ask for help, who knows how to collapse into someone else’s arms. I feel like an adult who can withstand uncertainty, the unknown, the lost places. I feel like an adult with a soft heart, yes, but also with a fierce protector within. I feel like an adult who can face the world, who wants to stay with what is, even when I’m disgusted by it. I feel like an adult who has been practicing for this — an adult who finally has the desire to truly be present here, in reality, even when what I find makes me want to throw up with rage.

I have spent the last few years making a clearing in the dense forest of my life. I have been learning to meet heartache with compassion, with wide, wide arms. I have been learning from guides and mentors and teachers who know what it means to walk into difficult realities with an open heart, who have lineages of dreaming. I have been learning how to mother my child, which in turn helps me understand how to mother everything. I have been standing in my integrity and heart, even when they get questioned by people I thought knew me best. I have been learning to feel all the way down to the cells under my flesh. I have been unwinding from old stories about who I thought I was. I have been practicing, rehearsing. And this week, as I’ve sat with the devastation and rage, the grief and fear, the anxiety and deep breaths, I have also felt the results of my practice, the playing out of what I’ve been rehearsing. I have felt myself being who I hope to be during times of deep difficulty. I have felt myself stay with the ache, which has helped me stay with the humanity of myself and others.

Forever pulling over, 35mm film

What I want to practice most during these next months and years is an ever-widening ability to meet others fully, perhaps only by trusting who I do and do not want to build relationship with. I want to practice offering my gifts with less trepidation, less self-consciousness. I want to practice attending local city council meetings. I want to practice a more regular meditation practice. I want to practice remembering my fierceness doesn’t negate my compassion. I want to practice building strength. I want to practice standing even more firm in my values and morals, even when it creates discomfort in myself or another. I want to practice bringing my neighbors leftovers. I want to practice using my privilege for good, for bettering. I want to practice listening with my body, not just my mind. I want to practice remembering I am no one’s savior but I can be someone’s ally. I want to practice staying close to the heart, even when the rage boils over and outward, because it will. I want to practice leading in ways that center honesty and generosity, steadfastness and love. I want to practice staying with the discomfort of building community. I want to practice amplifying those who know more than I do. I want to practice saying no to what I know is not okay. I want to practice standing alongside those who will be most endangered by what is to come. I want to practice tending to myself with more intention so I have more to give, so I am more me everywhere I go. I want to practice remembering We before Me, acting beyond myself, knowing I am a collective being and not just an individual. I want to practice imagining new worlds. I want to practice experiencing little bits of freedom where they are, in conversations and in poems and in every single move each of us makes toward something more beautiful.

A clearing, 35mm film

What I want to say most, to you my beloved reader:

May you trust your rage, your grief, your compassion, your hope.
May it all be fully felt so it can be composted into right action.
May you turn toward all the things that bring you most alive.
May those who carry hatred learn to meet their own pain instead of leading with it.
May the most vulnerable be deeply protected, held, loved.
May you go slowly when slow is needed; fast when fast is needed.
May what isn’t working die so what is more true can come to form.¹
May we each find our part, our corner, our role, our offering.
May you trust you are here at this time for a reason.
May anything that isn’t love be forgotten eventually.
May your heart be tended to with the nourishment of the elements.
May you let what is asking to be felt come out, come through.
May you fall into the arms of another when it’s too much to hold.
May you forget about perfection so you can do something.
May you remember what matters most and let it be your lighthouse.
May your tender heart burn for what is right.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ If you have an hour, gift yourself with watching this

△ On becoming an American writer

△ Stay Strong, from the beloved Alexis Pauline Gumbs

△ Re-reading this profound book, with such gratitude for her wisdom

△ 10 ways to prepare and ground amid a Trump win

△ Unpacking the republican victory on TransLash

△ The things we can control

△ The Working Families Party mass call

△ These words from Buddhist teachers in 2016

△ Four heated discussions

△ A few words from Patti Smith

△ The gift of the conversation hosted by EBMC

A lighthouse.

With care,
Lisa

1. In the Love, Power, and Liberation talk, Lama Rod Owens spoke to the necessity of letting ourselves die so who we truly are can come forward in place of who we thought we were. He spoke of the world as it is needing to die in order for something new to be built. I am thinking so much of what I need to let die. I am thinking so much of what can come when we face death as a portal, a doorway, an opening.