Just Breathe....You Are Enough Dr. Adela Sandness

Touching Joy
There are many contemplative traditions that emphasize the importance of balance. First Nations traditions - in reference to the Medicine Wheel - will speak of balance, the balance, for example, of the emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual aspects of ourselves.  Many First Nations traditions will hold that, by bringing these aspects into balance, we become a balanced, whole, harmonious person.
Chinese traditions, historically, have also had strong influence in our understanding of balance. The symbol of the yin yang is, at least in part, about the balance of opposing principles. The inner and the outer, the black and the white, where there is white inside the black and black inside the white.  By coming together in a balanced way, often our parts are understood to become a whole.
The ancient Indian tradition, from which Hindu and Buddhist traditions arise - the origin of Indian understandings of enlightenment – sees harmony and wholeness in a slightly different way.
We are part of a whole. We will be whole to the degree that we connect to that wholeness of which we are apart. The means to connect to that wholeness is not so much a question of balance as it is a question of alignment. Our inside world and the outside world is composed of many composite elements. Our well-being depends, they would say, on those composite elements coming into alignment.
In this view, there is an organic alignment of things. Humans are connected to a cosmic whole: the inner world of the body and the individual person can only mirror this much larger flow.
It is similar to the Chinese understanding of the Ta0. There is a way of things, an ordered and sequenced flow of things.
For my students, I illustrate this idea by telling a simple creation story which outlines this view. Once upon a time, there was a golden egg. It floated on an ocean that existed in the time before time.  This ocean has always existed:  it will always exist.  There is nowhere for it to go. The golden egg floated…and it moved. It opened…and the top became the sky, the bottom became the earth, and the space in between became the atmospheric realm in which we all live.
The ocean is life itself. Although it would be perceived and articulated differently as Buddhist and Hindu traditions would develop each in their own way, both traditions would begin - in the time period between about 1500 and 500 B.C.E. - with a view that says: there is life itself which pervades everything.  It is just like water:  the water in our bodies, the water in my teacup, the water in the rivers, and the streams, in the oceans of the earth, in the ocean that is the sky (for if it were not an ocean, it would not be blue! If it were not an ocean where it could rain come from!)
There is this quality of the mirror, a reflection. Life is just life.  Water is just water. It will take different forms, and different shapes, in different places or different times, perhaps a bit in the way that water is liquid, or solid, or steam. Yet life is just life. It is present with us. We don't earn it. There is no question of deserving. It just is, in the way that oxygen in our atmosphere is.  We are enough.
Life is just life. Will we vibrate with it - celebrate with it - be fed by it as if connecting to an electrical current, or will we somehow come to feel cut off, or atrophied and desiccate . We are parts of a whole. We will feel whole to the degree that we connect to that wholeness of which we are apart.
At its most basic, the old Indian worldview is a tripartite system:  heaven, and Earth, and the space in between, where the opposing poles of anything serves simply to define – to help us to see - that space in between in which we all live.
Watch a sunrise or a sunset, and notice.  Because of the opposing poles of heaven and earth, we are able to see this space which is everywhere, inside and outside the world of form. The hand, or the body, or the stars under an

Roll in the Sand
 
As some of you know, this week was moving week on the university campus where I teach. Extensive renovations in one of our main office buildings meant that we moved out of that office building into temporary housing for about one year's time. They stripped that office building down to its bricks to do a major renovation. This week we, and our countless boxes, moved into the completed new building.
While I was unpacking one of those boxes, I came across an envelope of photographs that had gotten lost at the back of a filing cabinet about 10 years ago. It contained one of the best photographs that I have of Sarah The Wonder Dog, my magnificent golden retriever who died just over three years ago.
In the photo, Sarah – as a two year old – is sitting on the beach, at sunset, chewing on her stick. Where else would she be? And what else would she be doing there? Of course she is on the beach chewing her stick.
The beach in that photograph is about a 15 minute drive away from the beach where she had her last big play before she died at the age of 13. It was a miraculous Christmas day here on the East Coast of Canada where - very oddly - the snow had melted, and the sun was warm, and the weather tasted of spring. As a Christmas present to both of us, Sarah and I went to her favourite beach. It was a very flat beach, that we could access from very close to the car:  at the age of 13, she could no longer climb over rocks or walk up steep hills.  This was a very flat beach, with very shallow water, and it was possible to walk on a flat surface for quite a long distance.
We walked for about a half hour.  It felt like a long time, because at home – with her sore hips – we would walk about two blocks before it was time to head back.
On one side of the beach was the ocean with its waves and the pull of the tide. She knew that she wasn't strong enough to be in the pull of that tide, but she realized that on the other side - maybe some hundred metres away - there was an inland lake without tide, and she had even managed to get a little bit wet in that water. We were both so delighted by the treat of this!
We had finished our walk on the beach, and we were heading back to the car, when suddenly there arrived a Christmas miracle:  three dogs and their humans, all six of them visiting from away, came out of a car.
There was a big, black and fluffy, very friendly and lovely, Newfoundland dog. There was a smaller dog who had been hit by a car and recovered with some difficulty. So this dog also knew what it was to have to struggle a bit in order to play on the beach. Then there was a blond, gentleman dog, a golden retriever just like her, an elegant noble gentleman dog slightly larger than herself who was wise enough to understand her perfectly.  In all of her years, I had never seen her look at another dog with such love.
It was as if this Christmas day on the beach – the last big play of her life - had been predestined for many lifetimes before and dreamed of in many dog dreams. The humans who belong to these dogs knew what it was to work with a pack and how to play in a way that included everyone. They had helped the smaller dog heal from the car accident. So they knew how to include in the play someone who moved more slowly than the others.
Sarah was so happy when she encountered these dogs that she immediately lay down on her back and began to make snow angels in the sand, wiggling back and forth with such joy - paws flailing in the air - and all of us, the three dogs, the three humans and me, stood around in a circle watching her as she made a full 360 Dog Angel in the sand. She was ecstatic.
Then it came time to play with the stick on the beach. Now the younger dogs, they could run far and fast to fetch that stick, and if the stick went into the water they could swim against the current in the ocean in order to bring back that stick. Sarah understood this, and you could see that she was both e

A Blue Moon
 
This Saturday May 18, at 6:11pm Atlantic Standard Time, is the Blue Moon. It’s the time to do things that you would only do once in a blue moon!
The May 2019 full moon is a seasonal Blue Moon. Usually there are three full moons between each astrological season. That is the time between each Solstice and equinox. In some years, there are four full moons in a season.  When this happens, the third full moon is called a Blue Moon.
This year, for we in the northern hemisphere, the astrological season began with the spring equinox on March 20th. The first full moon was less than four hours later on March 21st. The second full moon was April 19. The third - the Blue Moon - is May 18.  The fourth, and last full moon before the Summer Solstice, will be June 17. A blue moon occurs only roughly every two or three years. So make the most of it!
The full moon day in the month of May is celebrated in Buddhist tradition as Vesak Day.  It is sacred to Buddhists because the full moon day in the month of May is the day of the historic Buddha’s birth, the day of his enlightenment, and also the day of his parinirvana, the day of his passing at the age of 80. 
Vesak Day is  celebrated by Buddhists around the world.  It is believed to be a day when the karmic result of anything we do is amplified – is increased – 100,000 times.   What we do on Saturday, may we do it wisely!
So in honor of the blue moon, and the full moon day in the month of May, today we reflect on karma.
Karma is the relationship between cause and effect.   We eat the fruit of the seeds that we plant. Traditionally, it is said to be like the full moon reflecting into one hundred bowls of water. The moon has no desire to reflect into them all, but, because there happen to be one hundred bowls of water, there are one hundred moons at the same time.  They are part of one moon, the full moon in the sky.
Action is just action. Each action will have one hundred – an endless number – of effects. We don’t necessarily desire those effects, but because there is action, there will be the results of that action.  They are all part of the one action.
The Sanskrit word “Karma” is derived from the verbal root “KR-” which means “to do”.  So, the noun means “action”.   There is no such thing as “good karma” or “bad karma”. Action is just action, like the full moon in the sky.
Gravity is just gravity. It is impersonal:  it will be experienced in the same way by any being on the planet.  Actions have reactions.  It is not personal. The principle applies to everyone on the planet.   It is part of the natural world, like us and like the moon.
Some actions will yield desirable results; we might think those are “good actions”, from “good karma”. Some actions yield undesirable results; we might think those are “bad actions”, from “bad karma”. 
Yet the principle of cause and effect doesn’t care if you like it or not, any more than gravity cares if a bird falls from the sky.  If you plant apple seeds, you will get apple trees. You may wish they were oranges. It doesn’t matter:  the apple tree yields apples.
Cause and effect are two ends of a same stick. We pick up both ends of the stick.
Traditionally, it is said that there are four different types of action. The first of these is “pacifying”. Action which is pacifying is able to calm a situation or make an environment peaceful.  It softens our rough edges and helps things go smoothly, in the inside world or in the outside world.
The second and third types of action are “enriching” and “magnetizing”.  These are inter-related.  “Enriching” action  is able to see the inherent richness and potential of a situation and draw that out.  What we need, we already have: “enriching” action helps us to see that.  “Magnetizing” action comes from our strength of presence, our “beingness”.  It is the ability to draw what w

Dance into May
In my neck of the woods, in eastern Canada, the midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice will be May 5th, at 2 minutes to 4 o'clock in the afternoon. This is the moment when we astrologically step from the end of spring to the beginning of summer. Since ancient times – since the Iron Age - it has been celebrated as the final victory of life over death, light over darkness, and the return of life to the earth as the heat of the sun makes its way back into our world.
 In the wheel of the year, this is the opposite pole to Samhain.  Like Samhain, it is believed to be a time in the year when the veil between the world of the spirit and the physical realm is at its most thin, and humans can more easily connect with  the spirit of the land. The celebration of coming of summer, honors fertility, abundance, sexuality, sensuality, creativity of all sorts, and the growth of everything beautiful on earth.
Bealtaine is named after the Celtic god of light known as Bel or Belinus. It celebrates the return of the heat of the sun – and the heat of our passions – by the stoking of large bonfires, usually lit by striking two pieces of wood together, and rubbing and grinding till the sparks fly. A symbolic union of the earth and the sky, it represented the inner heat of light, insight, intelligence, and the fecundity and creative passion of life.  The bonfire was believed to foster and protect the fertility of the growing season to come.
In ancient times, Druids would kindle great “Bel-fires”, or bonfires, made from nine different kinds of wood. The fires would blaze on top of Beacon Hills. Each village would have its Beltane fire, believed to protect and bring healing and fertility. 
Cattle would be released from the barns after a long winter.  They would then be driven between the two fires to cleanse them of disease ,and ensure their fertility, and the richness of milk yield, in the coming months.  Young couples would leap over the twin Beltane fires, running between them or dancing around them clockwise. Young unmarried people would leap the bonfire wishing for a husband or a wife.  Young women would leap the bel-fire to ensure their fertility, and couples leap through the twin fires together to strengthen their bond.
Beltaine celebrates the fecundity of the earth, and the fertility of we humans who are also part of that natural world.   Beltaine became the traditional time for hand-fasting in Celtic culture.  The hands of the couple would be tied together in the symbolic gesture of tying the knot.  It marked the engagement of the couple. A trial marriage would then last for a year and a day at which point the couple could decide to officially marry or to go their separate ways. 
Beltaine was a time for young couples to make their way to the woods for nighttime love-making.  The village would welcome the “children of May” nine months later. It's a time when a broomstick could be laid on the ground, and a couple jump over that threshold together, as an early form of marriage.
In Scotland, sometimes juniper branches were added to the fire to increase the smoke’s purification quality. The bright fire - or White, shining fire at Beltane - would protect a couple's love, just as it would protect cattle from disease. To pass between the fires, or to pass through the smoke, cleansed the spirit - burning up and destroying any harmful influences - bringing health, vigour and vitality.  On Beltaine eve, all the hearth fires and candles would be doused, and at the end of the festival they would all be re-lit from the Beltaine bonfire,  renewing the fire of life.
In old Roman culture, the first of May was celebrated as Floralia, the festival of Flora, goddess of flowers. Flowers are part of the Beltaine celebrations in many parts of the world.  Hawthorn blossoms would be used to decorate homes and barns and turned into a sweet wine. May baskets were filled with the first flowe

Being and Becoming
 
It's wonderful to be back having taken some time away – at semester’s end - to take a deep breath. Today we explore being and becoming.
I had a wonderful conversation last week with a remarkable student in one of my classes. It was a long conversation over tea as we made our way to semester’s end. Among the questions she asked was: “what is the relationship between being and becoming?”  How do we become what we are?  How do we become what we are meant to be?
She was exploring the question because a very dear friend of hers had told her: “You have not yet planted the flag in the ground and declared, ‘this is who I am’”.   Do we ever plant the flag – like Neil Armstrong on the moon – and declare “this is who I am”?  Is the work of becoming ever complete?
My student, like so many of her colleagues, is getting ready to graduate.  She will move from one stage of her life to the next, from the known to the unknown, and into the next stage of her own journey of self-discovery. 
I have watched hundreds of students cross the stage at university graduation ceremonies.  They cross the stage, often at about the age of 22 or 25, and have all the rest of their lives stretching out before them.  The thing is:  so do I.  The power of that potential is always with us.  I have all the rest of my life waiting for me,  in front of me as well.  So do you.  So does everyone else.
To be alive is to engage the journey of self-discovery.
What is the relationship between being and becoming?  What we are is the result of our choices, as we take our next step or place the direction for the rudder of our boat. Through our choices we become who we are.
The great high renaissance sculptor Michelangelo:  they asked him, “How did you make your statue of David?”  He is reported to have said, “It's very simple; you just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David.”
How do we become ourselves? It is a work of artistry. We are the artists who carve our lives and make the choices that shape what we become.  As we chip away the parts that aren't ourselves, we increasingly become who we are.
Becoming:  from one perspective, it is quite simple. One who lies becomes a liar. One who steals becomes a thief. One who bullies becomes a bully. One who cheats becomes a cheater, just as surely as one who paints becomes a painter. It is a common sense observation which is part of old Indian karma theory.
The idea of karma is understood slightly differently in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions.  Each would agree that the effect of our choices shapes – in very physical ways – who we become.
Have you ever walked down the street and looked at someone and thought to yourself, “Oh that person is slimy. That person gives me the creeps.”? What we do creates a residues that stays with us and is hard to wash off. 
Have you felt someone walk into a room and said to yourself, “That is a good, decent and honest person.  That is someone I can trust. I feel good when I'm in the presence of that person.”  
What we do – how we behave - determines what we become. It is part of the basic principle of cause and effect, as inescapable as gravity. One who manipulates becomes a manipulator. It has a smell, a texture, a look, a stench:  it becomes part of the presence of that person.  It cannot be hidden. It cannot lie. As we behave, so we become. The weight of bad behaviour, that coats people with sticky residue,  covers up the beauty of what we could become.
Genuine becoming is a question of taking the unnecessary bits away.
So how do we engage our hammer and chisel to take away the unnecessary bits? Is it by planting a flag in the ground like Neil Armstrong on the moon, declaring, “This is me!”?
If I look back on the journey of becoming, there are a series of occasions, when in some sense, I would have planted the flag. So it's not a single incident, unveiling a finished

Own Your Strength
 
I received a fun email this week. It said: “Loved seeing a strong woman in a key position of power yesterday. You were fantastic.” Who wouldn't want to celebrate that?
So, today we reflect:  what is it to own our own strength? For the key position of power that we most genuinely occupy is the power, authority and responsibility that we hold in relation to the choices that we make in our own lives.
A position of true power is not assigned from the outside world. A position of true power is claimed by owning our strength in relation to the inside world.
There's a metaphor for this that comes from Buddhist practice. When one sits on a meditation cushion or bench, this cushion or bench is often placed on top of a larger, thin cushion.  This larger cushion, about two feet wide and three feet long, softens the impact of the ankle on the ground.  So the space that belongs to you in a shared, community shrine room is the size of that cushion:  three feet long and two feet wide.  In the meditation practice, this is the size of the world for which you are responsible.  Can you take your seat?  Can you own the strength of that world?  Can you rule, like a sovereign, that world, within which you sit:  three feet long and two feet wide? 
Can we own the strength and confidence that we bring to our own bodies, and the power and strength that we embody through our own voice?
That’s how I described the exercise of final exam preparation to my students this afternoon. We will have a final exam. It means that there will be grades to support them as they move towards graduation, but the test isn't actually about writing the test. The test is one of growing in our capacity to own the power and strength of one's own voice.
Can they think in an interesting, creative, flexible and sophisticated way? Can they own the strength of one's own voice and say what they have to say?  Just like in life, there is no single one right answer. There is only the answer that we claim as being right for us.
Can we own the strength of one's own voice? The real test is how well we know how to do it in our lives.
What is it to own one's own authority such that one's voice becomes heard?
Let me offer some suggestions. 
First, I propose that it is an error to confuse kindness with weakness or aggression with strength. Aggression - in the sense of dominance, control, territoriality and the old colonial perception of “success” - the capacity to manipulate, to expand one's territory of control - is an expression of fear. It is rooted in fear. It seeks to compensate for an internal sense of “not enough”, grasping for more on the outside because there is some sense that there's “not enough” on the inside.  Because it is an expression of fear, it merits my compassion not my complicity. We don't need to empower cowardice by confusing aggression with strength.
What then is strength? It is that which creates, supports sustains and maintains life.   
Genuine strength is honed and polished like a well-tempered sword.
Owning the authority of one's own voice, owning one's own confidence, owning the capacity to vibrantly “be” is honed over time.  It is polished by means of the friction we have with others. 
We become increasingly strong because we have to be, for whatever reason.  Then, because of whatever it was, we have become more strong.  How could my strength have been developed were it not for the hard things, the undermining or the oppressive presences, that I have encountered?
The overt expression of forcefulness is sometimes required.  Strength itself is more often revealed through the spaciousness of our being, not the hardness of our edges.  It’s in grace and joyfulness, subtlety, playfulness, elegance and discretion. Genuine strength seldom shows itself through the pushing of buttons, any more than it allows one's buttons to be pushed. It's not a pushing and shoving situation.
The meditat