Monday, November 08, 2010
Fresh Writing: REVISION ~ What Can I Believe?
Last week was the poem I called Would You Believe Me? which wasn't really a poem. It was a scattering of words that were racing in via my observation of the trees out the window. I sit, each morning, candles and incense and tea. I just try to breathe and be quiet but of course my mind has other plans: chatter, chat, plan, ponder.
So this little rush of words came as I was fuming over edits suggested by someone in my newest book. As a courtesy I had asked this person to read the chapters and boom, they came back revised. She had re-written pages including dialogue to fit her version of my life. Predicable and still, so surprising. Each time this happens, I am amazed although I have no idea why. None of us sees the world in the same way so of course, each will have a unique view.
It's my job to be honest about my truth. And it is your job, memoirist, to tell your truth. And it your job, spirutal teacher, to write your own book and tell your truth and promote your land, books, life etc.
But I digress.
So I wrote this word play last week, framing my thoughts around observations of the trees and birds.
And this week, I revised and then submitted it to a magazine on Buddhist practice because I really like the conversation about guru's in the U.S.
In India and Tibet (and many other places), they have guru's and then there is a lot of guru abuse. If we turn over everything to our teacher, we lose something essential which is our own truth and that's just not good. Having a guru can be like becoming a child again. No good.
We need to think for ourselves and trust our own innate wisdom and learn a new way to surrender that is fresh and personal.
Anyway, so this is a revision of the last peice and tones down all the teacher chit chat. It's not a poem, nor is it a narrative. It's more like a narrative poem. I don't know. It's an experiment. I like it.
Across the way is a small forest. Four birch trees planted in a row. They are too big for the curb where they were placed, perhaps ten years ago, as little wisps of white bark. Today, their roots explode the concrete sidewalk. A silent attack.
The trunks of those trees are thick and solid though. Strong. They would cut like butter with a chain saw.
Perhaps that is why I love them so and why I seek them with my eyes. The birch trees are a beautiful place to rest my mind. And they are so much more. They are out of place in the urban fray. They are overgrown and beyond being contained.
In a moment, with one call from the city or a landlord, that small forest could be reduced to fire wood, kindling, memory.
Like you. Like me.
The birch trees make me see how life is so fragile.
As I sit at my window watching the trees, the leaves, small and delicate, blow away. They are golden coins that sail to the street.
~
I had a teacher once. She called herself my spiritual friend. We met when divorce had me spinning in confused doubt. It had been my second marriage. There were small children involved. I found myself attracted to a musician, adding drama to disaster.
Failure, shame and confusion whipped me into a frenzy. I felt like a summer funnel cloud that toppled over the plains.
I cried at the feet of this teacher, confessed the tangled mess as if she were my neighborhood priest.
She coo'd, clucked and then agreed to be my teacher.
It happened that fast.
Then she escorted me to her talk that detailed the financial needs of her new spiritual retreat center. 
I went along, no questions asked and clutched to the hem of her prayer shawl like child, desperate and scared. I pulled out my checkbook that very day and wrote a five thousand dollar check.
Absolution.
My friend took that money, a blissful smile on her face and said I would accumulate a great deal of good karma.
Over the many weeks that passed, I noticed that my friend's interest waned between checks. If I called to tell her about the sorrow of my heart, I would hear nothing. For weeks. A month.
But if money were the subject heading of an email, instant return call.
Of course, she was very busy.
And who was I?
One of hundreds, perhaps thousands.
She had many other students and responsibilities.
I learned, like most children do, how to get the nourishment I thought I needed. I brought in money, I sent money, I raised money. More and more, all the time, and my teacher kept her hand out. I began to note that there was never enough money for this friend. Her need was a black-hole.
A student is told to watch her teacher for twenty years to make sure the teacher is good and pure.
This was my first mistake.
I watched my spiritual friend for moments and then began writing checks with my low self esteem.
Buddha said look inward, keep looking in until you find the ground of being. Emptiness. He also said something like this: "Question everything, even me."
But as we went along together, my spiritual friend had another Buddhist teaching for me. She said a student cannot question her teacher. A student is always wrong and the teacher is always right. To question a teacher is to earn lifetimes in a hell realm.
Lifetimes.
I wrote more and more checks. Until I ran out of money. And then she was gone. My spiritual friend disappeared.
~
Today, sitting at the window I watch the trees and wonder.
Can a student free herself of her guru and still achieve that desired state of liberation? Or once we tether ourselves to a guru, are we forever bonded or perhaps enslaved by our hasty decisions?
I question everything and I just breathe in the possibility of freedom. I watch the trees and my heart and the wind and the leaves.
I try to keep faith in my own good intentions. 
I worry, a little, but not much. What will be will be. Being a bug might not be that bad. It could be like a fresh start. Perhaps I'll be a lady bug and then work my way to earth worm and then bird and perhaps dog and then horse. I could earn my way back to being Jennifer again and then make better decisions the next time. I could rise beyond. Become Buddha perhaps. It could happen. Or not.
Little birds gather in the bare upper limbs of the birch trees. They are so small and so light they do not have any problem getting foothold on twig or air.
The wind blows, fragile leaves fly and the birds argue in high chirps. In a moment, they lift in a cluster of wings, they move up fast like pebbles tossed high by a child. And then those birds are gone.
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