The shaman I have been seeing in my soul retrieval work – her name is Carol Tunney – has two dogs, Bernese/Husky mixes, Jack and Jill. Both are approaching 14 years old, both are coming near to the end of their time and this week I went to her home to photograph the two dogs. Her own cameras were destroyed in a fire last year. I take photographs of dogs on the edge of life often, it is something I am drawn to to and love to do, capturing their beautiful spirits as they end their time with us. Jill does not often look at a camera, I was told, but she looked at mine, and I loved what it saw in those gentle and peaceful eyes.
The spiritual life is filled with cliches, as is all life. The writers know to respect cliches, because cliches come into being because so many people embrace them. If you seek a meaningful life, choose to be awaken, aspire to authenticity you will hear similiar terms and phrases: live in the moment, you can only take care of yourself, fear is a feeling, not something real, love yourself and you will learn to love others, take responsibility for your life.
Cliches become cliches because they are generally true, and then they are invoked so often as to lose meaning sometimes. Of these terms and ideas, taking responsibility for myself has become the most compelling, challenging and important idea for me. It was something I had not done in my life, needed to do, wanted to do. I understand how central an idea it is to becoming the person, the man that I wanted to be. I have always struggled to understand what the idea meant, and I am making progress with it. I am grateful for it. It is helping me more than any other idea.
For me, taking responsibility means this:
– Dropping struggle stories. I understand life. We all live, we all die. Things happen – accidents, storms, misunderstandings, betrayals, taxes, money troubles, sickness, the violent and disturbing occurrences of the world beyond. Our parents will grow old and die, and so will our dogs. Each of these things will not be a tragedy for me, a repudiation of life. They do not mean there is or is not a God. It is the nature of being human, and I have chosen to embrace being human and accept it for what it is. I think my animals have taught me that. And I have learned to look every day for the love and beauty and light in the world. This is what balances hardship for me.
– Do not blame others for my life. To become aware of resentments, jealousies, this idea that other people are to blame for my troubles – parents, spouses, bosses, the world-at-large. I feel these things all of the time, now less than ever, and less all the time. I am proud to be responsible for my life. I make my life. I work hard, sought and found love, work to become aware of these corrosive ideas and feelings. They do not help me, they drain and weaken me.
– Do not think and act out of anger. The gift of the Internet is we are constantly forced to confront the broken and angry people of the world, and to see in them a mirror of the things we do not wish to be. For me, politics has become the same challenge, the same opportunity. In seeing what I do not wish – my life is not an argument – I can come to see what I do wish. I am learning to approach life with compassion and empathy, even – especially – when I am angry or disturbed.
– Do not make decisions out of fear. Fear is the natural enemy of responsibility. It causes us to make decisions out of reality, to turn to other things than ourselves for help, to work out of panic, not clarity. Fear challenges the notion that we can care for ourselves, the essence of taking responsibility.
– Finding my strength. My Truth. Taking My Stand. It is not about what others might do or think, it is about what I believe. I am learning to state my truth, and take my stand. I am not responsible or in control of what other people might do. I am increasingly in control of what I wish to do.
Every day, I ask myself what kind of life I wish to life. And also, what can I do to live that life. Sometimes taking responsibility means taking risks – buying a home before the other one is sold. Sometimes it means foregoing security and conventional wisdoms about safety and health. I never can say these decisions are the right decisions, only that they are my decisions and I will live with them, speak my truth on their behalf, take my stand on them. So far, this is what I am coming to see about taking responsibility for my life. It has made me stronger, more peaceful. It is perhaps the most important among the great cliches of spirituality.
Our farm fronts on a state highway, but has 17 acres out behind the farmhouse, separated from the pasture by a stream and now, a fence to keep the sheep and donkeys in. We hope to expand that fence one day when we can afford to, but this afternoon, as the storm began to ebb a bit, we decide to walk through the woods to the rear of our property, bounded by an old stone wall on a rise. We had taken some short hikes to the back, but we were just too busy moving in to really explore the property. What better time, we decided, than in a biting winter storm.
I don’t believe I have ever walked all the way back before, and it was not simple going in hills and high drifts. We walked the dogs (Frieda on a leash) through the pasture, and we were both delighted by the forest, beautiful trees, brooks, brush and quiet open spaces and gentle hills. We both had the same idea – what a great spot back there for a small cabin, a retreat, a place to walk, think, perhaps meditate. A meditation cabin. I’ll picture it in my head every morning, perhaps it will come true for us one day.
The dogs loved romping through the forest – Lenore was excited by all the snow and raced up and down, Red keeping up with her. We kept Frieda on a leash and she picked up sticks and tossed them in the air. We had to find planks to get across some water and we curved too far on the North and ended up behind a neighbor’s house, to the North of our property. How wonderful to have these woods. Once we cut a path through the brush, we can walk back there every day, a perfect place for the dogs, for us.
The woods opened up a whole new world for us, a new kind of path, a connection to nature.
We saw two deer hunting stands, there is a pond, some open spaces, birds nests and dens. It is pristine back there, undisturbed for more than a century. A new dimension of our new house seemed to open up, right behind us. When we walked through the pasture, Simon tried to walk with us, he followed right behind me until we shooed him away from the fence. But one day I will take him on a walk through those woods, perhaps he can join us every day.
One day, perhaps I will have a meditation cabin there. Maria would love that too. I could write there sometimes, we could eat back there, even camp there sometimes. And right there, in our back yard. These woods are our back yard.
Storm Center did not say don’t go outside and take photographs, even though it was the brightest idea of my life. Standing out on the highway in the wind, though, squinting through the driving snow, I wanted to catch the desolate feel of the day. Somehow this sign spoke to me of it. Photo album going up on Facebook.
