Arrival at Ezeiza, Buenos Aires, Argentina ~ November 3rd, 2004

It's always been this way with me.  A whim....  A fantasy..... A dream....

I get this whim and there I go.  It was like that when I applied to university.  It was like that when I moved out to Lake Tahoe.  It was like that when I moved to San Luis Obispo.  And now, it was definitely feeling like it as I sat, restlessly, in the La Guardia Airport awaiting my flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Yet, quite honestly, I am not like the Fool in a Tarot deck , who leaps before he looks.  I actually relish  pre-trip planning.  It has always brought me much satisfaction.

I mean, it wasn't like I had no idea where I was going... I spent months researching various locations according to my World Points Rewards destinations.  I knew that I wanted to go some place warm, some place I could improve my Spanish and some place where the infrastructure wasn't too alarming for a 'gringa' like me.  After much deliberation, I chose Argentina.  Ironically, it worked out quite well for me financially, because historically Argentina was always more expensive than Chile, but due to the "Crisis" in the late 1990's, Argentina became much more affordable for the international traveler; and I would soon discover, that there was a kind of unique 'renasance' occurring organically in a country with such cultivation and appreciation of the 'new' and 'beautiful'.

On the flight, I sat next to an Argentinean woman who lived in Buenos Aires, but traveled frequently between there and the US.  She was remarried, living outside the vast capital city of 13 million, and had a daughter, approximately my age (much younger) who was attending the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) as an engineer.  We had an engaging conversation until I divulged my plans to essentially assemble my road bike in the Ezezia Airport and ride into the city.  She vehemently opposed.  She said, that, God-forbid should I be her daughter and she was my mother, she'd only hoped that some woman would do the same for her daughter.  She insisted that I accompany her and that her husband would then take me into the city to find my hostel.

There I was, inside a very small, foreign car (sorry, guys, I don't know the make of the freakin' car!!) but it was like a Fiat or Seat.....anyway, there I was, my HUGE bicycle box and I sardined into the back of the car with them squabbling in (what at the time, to me, was a completely foreign language).  Then at times, they'd look back over their shoulder to engage me, "Jill, there is the blah, blah, blah" or "Jill, where is your hostel again?"  and, my favorite, "Jill, why did American re-elect George Bush?"

So, at their 'quinto' which means, 'house outside the city' they gave me an 'alfajor' (small chocolate cake-like treat...think Little Debbie Cakes) and a Coke.  Then, her husband took me into the city.  It was strange to drive into a city so grand, so busy, so beautiful.  There were these amazing avenues lined with trees and tall buildings with architecture similar to France or Italy.  I admit, I had never seen anything like it.  Upon reaching the hostel I had registered for, we discovered that it, in fact, no longer existed.  (This apparently was common in the new era of international tourism here).  We rang and rang the bell without luck.  So, I picked the second hostel in my guide and they had a room available.  We drove over there and with that very move, that very, variable in time, that very alteration in my plan, my entire life changed.

Impermance

This word has been on my mind lately.  And then I "Googled" it.  First of all, let me state that I just love that we as a nation have turned a company name into a verb.  Here in America, that sort of shit happens all the time and it truly defines "American" ingenuity and culture to a great extent.  I am in favor of it, in many cases.


So, impermanence....well, Webster's will say that it is the state of being impermanent.  Not so helpful.  But it gives a host of wonderful synonyms that I just simply fell in love immediately.  Ones like: ephemerality, evanescence,  fleetingness, and transience.  Wow!  I had no idea.  I mean, I had an idea, but it was so tempered and restricted by my cultural upbringing and education.  But these words together, afford a new perspective on the word impermanence entirely.  I get giddy thinking how might I include such words in my every day language.


"Oh, excuse me; I was caught in a state of fleetingness and did not realize I cut your off in traffic."  "My evanescence simply does not allow me to hear your complaints at this time."  

Life, as we know it, could really all be very much imagined.  In our heads.  The "tapes" that replay over and over.  Much of what we experience isn't real in the sense that it's actually happening; most of it; is a result of what we perceive and project.   We're so busy with the mind and the voices, judgments and fears in our heads that we are not actually living in the very moment of now.... And that, is our disconnection with our state of impermanence.   


Why Impermanence, you might ask...?  Well, gosh, do I have to be so blunt?  Is it just me, or is life a daily experiment in how we relate and react or respond to impermanence?  The very nature of day turning to night and then back to day is a constant reminder that our world is in flux.  As I write this blog, we are coming towards the Autumn Equinox; the time when days become shorter and shorter until we reach the shortest day of the year.  Then suddenly, everything changes again, and it becomes Spring and a new cycle of life, day after day repeats itself. 


I was thinking about the impermanence of Facebook and what an ironically indelible manifestation it has created in our society.  We post things, that, for that moment in time seem so important, yet, as days, even now, seconds pass by, the prominent passage we've interjected into the flow of information, which seemed so necessary, so obvious, soon disappears into the vast "older posts" dominion of cyber-life.  It's lost in the cyber-river of information on the web; which in itself, is an ephemeral world we rely upon for connection to others; ironically instead of interacting with others face to face.  My goodness sakes, my mind is spinning!


For, just four months ago I was lamenting on the oppression I felt from one individual, but, today, I can proclaim that I miraculously find peace and solitude in the "what is". The impermanence of life eludes us daily, yet becomes so evident in a historical context.


I am taking yet another fantastic class with the Ventura Center for Spiritual Living.  This one is called, Foundations, and it's really about the foundation of the development behind Science of Mind (SOM); how it was formed, and the core set of principles and beliefs.   I was reading one excerpt from a Reverend Christian Sorensen, D.D. (and I apologize for not knowing who Mr. Sorensen is or what D.D. means....); however, he was speaking in regards to grace.  And, again, the focus in SOM is on what is, not what one perceives.   


"To rest in Spirit, one's desires vanish and needs disappear because every need was met before becoming aware of it.  Living by grace allows Spirit to express to it fullness.  In this pure state of being, prayers are no longer for something, because that means there is a desire.  Prayers become simply listening; this allows the power of the God-thought through.  Of course it's the "I" who first starts the listening but that "I" dissolves into the Wholeness and the prayer becomes a Divine Proclamation. This graceful approach lets in the warmth, color and love of God's kingdom made manifest as your life."   

I spent a lot of time in my life wishing for things and then lamenting when they didn't manifest.  I am realizing that once you put a label on it; once you attach yourself and all your desires, judgments, etc. to it, you limit it, you bog it down and it has a hard time manifesting because it wasn't set free to be what the Universe knows it to be.  The way to peace is the way of impermanence because you release all expectations, doubts, fears, etc.. and just allow yourself to be, in this very present moment, that is, for only this moment and then it's gone but the beauty of it all is that a new moment is always there for us....


The way of the Buddha will talk about 'impermanence' as "an undeniable and inescapable fact of human existence from which nothing that belongs to this earth is ever free".  I don't think they mean we are eternally damned to this life as it is.  I think they mean that our desires and human tendencies trap us into our "constructed" reality.  When we free ourselves from those desires, we become, like a true enlightened Buddha, free from the entanglements of life as we (us humans) know it.   Pema Chodron would say it was the Ego.  The ego, according to her, is the root of all suffering, because it will try to narrow down definitions of our thoughts so that it can control them; thereby controlling our actions, thereby securing it's own future.   


I remember when I read Siddhartha for the first time. What struck me most from that story, was when the Buddha was sitting near the river and he noticed how the water moved by so quickly and that it never was really ever "there".  There was a constant impermanence to the river, just as there was to time, and therefore we too are impermanent.  If there was no time, then there must be no suffering.  If there was no suffering, then there must only be joy.  I think that is sort of how it went.   I am still a little confused on the simplistic thinking that if there is only impermanence, then there is no suffering and therefore only joy... I mean, we experience pain and suffering...don't we?  Isn't it real when it is happening?  If we lose a loved one, can you really say that the pain you feel from that loss isn't real? 


I guess, what it may come down to this: the Universe holds Everything.  In It there is joy and suffering, loss and gain, plenitude and lack, love and hate, etc.   We, as beings, conscious of our existence, get to choose what we want to feel and therefore express in our lives.  It's that choice that makes the idea of impermanence so fertile.  We get to create, moment by moment, the life we chose.  What a blessing that is.  Whoever gave us that gift should be praised, no?  


I'm not saying, run out and scream "Lord Jesus, you are my Savior!" for that really has no relevance in this discussion. (and personally that gives me a whole host of unpleasant reactions, none the least, require inter-venal injections of heavy doses of wine). 

What I am saying, however, is that, we, as humans, on this planet, have been blessed with so much.  Natural resources provide for us; space and time allow us to experience and access those natural resources; we have opportunities to interact with other beings with which we can love, create with and learn from.  


We, by no means, are a perfect civilization; however, we do have one thing that unites us, and that is that we are human, here on this planet, with Spiritual natures or tendencies.  We could try, perhaps, to find the commonalities vs. looking only at the differences.  Starting with our own intimate relationships, we may just be able to transform our very communities and thereby transform something grander.  It's just an idea, right?  But, seriously folks, what else do we really have?  

Isn't he gorgeous!?

So, finally, a quick shout out to my ex-husband, who after many months of being, what I would publicly say, difficult, has turned quite radically into the person I fell in love with over 4 years ago.  And that's not to say "it was all his fault alone".  No, I had a grand hand in the storm we created.  It's as if the tragedy we passed through has allowed us to rediscover our true selves again. Amidst the rubble of our past suffering, we've found that in the present moment, there is a lot of love. And, Ziggy, our dear son teaches us the value of impermanence every day.  

And this I've learned: no need to cry anymore over spilled milk. It's time to move on....time is, after all, moving on too..... Tick-tock, tick-tock.....

Prompts

I took a class a few months back, (ok, the guy had bad hair, but he has good ideas) in which he speaks of "prompts" as one tool used to change behaviors. The theory is based on psychological evidence which show that prompts repeated over and over for a certain period of time, help people change their behavior. As an environmental educator and policy maker for over 15 years, I've often struggled with how to actually enact a change in behavior in people that I am educating.

It's not easy. Take recycling for example. It's a rather accepted social behavior success story. They established a need, they provided a tool for citizens to utilize and then they profited by the success of the invention. For instance, a study conducted in 2007, shows that 3/4 of US residents Do recycle, but that does leave 1/4 who Do not. More than 25% of US Americans DO NOT participate, in some way to the recycling process in any means definable, such as: recycling, observance of simple marketing campaigns, requesting a change in service and most importantly, initiating a change in behavior; i.e. recycling everywhere and anywhere possible.

It's a widely held belief that recycling is one of social behavior modification programs which is fairly successful.  Yet, prompts only work to a certain extent in changing behaviors.  That is why social marketing uses many other tools, such as peer pressure, targeted multimedia campaigns, among others.

So, to focus on me (because, after all, it is all about me) I was noticing, that after having moved into my home recently, that I am always reaching for the light switch and I find it's not where I reach. It's on the opposite side of the doorway. And, I was caught by the idea that each time I reached for a light switch, it was, essentially, a "prompt". One thing that became apparent to me quite immediately, is that I am essentially re-training myself to find the light switch. And, I admit, that I become irate when I reach for it and it isn't there. Especially when I am rushed. Hmmmm......Is there a metaphor here??

As I move from room to room, what I notice is a almost unconscious reaction to reach for a certain direction and/or position for the light switch. I find this particularly interesting because I am in such a period of self reflection right now and wanting to change certain learned behaviors. I haven't spent much effort on "prompting" myself in this endeavor and it made me think, that just as it will take time and repetition to change my behavior to adapt to my new environment, it will take time and repetition to change myself.

I remember arguing with my ex about where to place the light switch for the bathroom in our old place based on visitor comfort and his need/opinion. In the end, we settled with a solution that made little sense to the user of the bathroom, but that made perfect sense to the "man" installing the electricity. And every time I would turn on the switch I'd think of that argument. Weird, huh?

Now, in my new home, when I reach for the light switch and find it's on the other side, I often think of how sad I am to be alone, in a different home; I remember the arguments and I remember the darn light switch in my old house. Funny how the subconscious tenaciously holds onto those sad memories.

Ah, but there is one marvelous aspect to this whole thing: you! Or me, or I, me, myself, you, yourself....the fact that we are our own minds, hearts, spirits and individual selves means we have a choice in how we react. Or better, yet, how we respond. I can chose not to think of the sad memories! I can chose to say a little prayer and count my blessings each time I can't find that darn switch. And it can be done in so many other ways...not just the light switches, but the person who cuts you off while driving, the parking space you didn't get, the broken finger nail, the stubbed toe, the bill that you forgot to pay, the fee that you owe, the friend who didn't call, the boss who was brusque.....They are all 'prompts' and they are offering you a choice. Aren't they so friendly and kind?

When I find myself reacting I am going to try and remember to respond. A conditioned response is so much more graceful and poised. Sure, I won't catch myself every time. It's not about perfection. It's the journey towards perfection that makes life worth living.

Maybe, I can use my new home environment as an experiment in a way to teach myself to speak kindly every time I reach for the wrong side of the doorway; maybe I can use it as a reminder of what is good in my life, versus focusing on what I sense that I lack.  I've been so blessed in this life. Even with the loss and the trauma, I've discovered diamonds in the rough stuff of life. I've rediscovered the beauty not only in myself, but also in the dark corners of unknown territories; as I get close to those places, the view opens up, the light shines bright and I see that things are not as scary as I had first presumed.