Doctortayria's Blog

For those who read yesterday’s blog about my daughter competing in the USA National Weightlifting Championships today, I’ll follow through. Arlene did really well. She beat her own records, pushed herself into new territory by lifting well beyond what she has achieved before. And she finished 5th in the nation in her category.

I learned about teams by watching all day. Only 3 of the team of 8 competed today, but the whole team drove 16 hours drive to be there because that is who these kids are. It’s not about any specific thing anyone does to assist or support the others, it is about the love that makes the whole organism unquestionably one organism. And without that individuals simply couldn’t do it. I am telling you, athletes who do these astonishing things, it is the love that drives it and makes it possible. I never saw sports in this light until today. What a delicious revelation.

I am leaving tomorrow morning before dawn to begin the first part of my journey that leads to Africa and back. There are two open suitcases  in my bedroom, one from the last trip to Mexico containing things that I didn’t unpack in case they might want to come on this trip, and the other definitely for this trip that I have been tucking things into for days as I think of them. All day I have been circulating about the house like a madwoman doing the 1000 things one does on the day before leaving home for a month. Every time I go into the bedroom I find my dog Coco burrowed into one or the other suitcase either in a deep sleep or sitting up looking at me like “Where are we going?”

I know what he means. I always want to stowaway in God’s pocket. Tell me where we’re going, I’m in!

Thirty-three years ago tonight was the first time that my ex-husband and I, who had been friends for 7 years, moved our relationship from friends into something that led to marriage and children. June 9 after that was a date I noticed, and in many of the years since then remarkable things have happened for me on that day.

One of my earliest inspirations and mentors in spiritual life is St. Therese of Lisieux. I have read every recorded word of hers, and for many years read something from her writing every day. I went to Lisieux in France to explore where she lived and stepped from earth to heaven for those hours I spent with her there. I was fascinated to read that one of her most extraordinary visions of Jesus happend on June 9, and she always considered it a holy day for her, just as I had for many years before I read that.

Today is June 9. I woke up with a dream that I believe marks an important breakthrough, have touched some deep chords in my personal journey today, and am leaving in two days on a big adventure – Africa, Kenya, here I come. There is an exquisite mathematics to the universe. When the markers like this come around, I cannot help but marvel with wonder, and with humble gratitude.

Lion and Ranger in South Africa

There is bear scat on my driveway and around my property. It is spring and my apple tree is beginning to fruit. A neighbor who noticed the bear traces suggested today that I might not want to sleep out on my screened-in porch. I sleep out there every night except in winter. I love it; I love the air, the stars, the owls, the sounds of the forest, the fireflies, the crickets. I wouldn’t even think of not sleeping out there, except now he asked me the question. I truly believe the bear wouldn’t want me, it wants apples and berries. I’ve had a bear look straight in through the screen at me and then walk away.

I got this e-mail today with several pictures of a ranger in South Africa being tender and friendly with lions, jaguars, hyenas, tigers and such – the uploaded photo here is one of them. I don’t want to be naive, but I really don’t want to live in fear of these creatures either. I’m sleeping outside.

is the only power. There is no other that trumps it.

It has been raining for two days here on the mountain – lightning, thunder, wild wetness and stranger shades of green that come through with the grey clouded light. I was standing in my kitchen this evening, looked up and suddenly saw the trees at the bottom of the meadow outside my house moving in the strange light and had a clear sensation of each of them as specific talking, very aware, very conscious beings – just as unique and conscious in their way as we know ourselves to be as humans. I felt it like a blast, a sudden and clear revelation that I had never seen before. I kept looking at them and the sensation remained. Now it is dark, but I hope to develop this sensibility and never forget it, to remember and strengthen it. I feel its truth at a cellular level. As Thomas Berry says, we humans have become autistic in our separation from the consciousness of and communication with nature. Something broke through my autism very powerfully for those few moments today and I never want to go back.

An old Buddhist maxim: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” The maxim comes to me now, not in terms of enlightenment but in terms of travel. Just got back from Mexico, and am off to Africa in just over a week. Six and a half acres to be mowed, garden to be weeded, hundreds of e-mails to answer, phone calls to be returned, bills to be paid, business to be set up, loved ones to be connected to. Chop wood, carry water.