Here’s the latest….

Writings: Any way you look at it…

You have it. I have it. Most everyone you know has it.

It feels almost impossible to escape it. No matter what we see or develop feelings about, it ends up coloured by our old thoughts, our old wounds, our old successes.

Someone says, “Yay!” and we can’t echo the cheer, because we had a different experience.

Someone says, “I hate that!” about something we’re fond of.

And when we pat ourselves on the back because we have an open mind, because we see things clearly & others don’t, because we get it & they don’t…there’s a bit more.

See, everything we say comes from one place – our heart. And it’s great that each person’s heart is different from each other person’s heart. And whatever each of us sees & feels & knows is shaped by the life in front of us, the way we see it & feel it. There’s no way anyone else could see it exactly the same way.

And that’s beautiful. It’s our chance to share our angle on things with our friends, and sometimes with people who don’t have as good an angle.

It’s our chance to celebrate the people who see things differently (or not at all!) from us, because they have something to share, too. It gives us a chance of real understanding, while still learning to cherish the place we see life from as well.

And that’s the beginning of the chance to be kind.

Love to you all –
Brother Ian

Writings: Isn’t it hard to live in such an isolated place?

Couple of years ago, I ran into some visitors to Friday Harbor, around the time I was wrapping up living there for nearly twenty years, on San Juan Island. One was the nicest of people, and she said, “Isn’t it hard to live in such an isolated place?”

In our follow-up, I discovered that she got up each morning for an hour drive to San Francisco, went into her office each day where she worked until the ride home, and then watched TV till bedtime.

She discovered that I usually walked into town, saying howdy or swapping stories or sharing a hug, met my different clients at coffeeplaces and cafés, and then had soccer or basketball with the kids after school, and then something to eat at our place (with friends over) or at someone’s potluck. My kids and I didn’t have a TV, at least partly because I didn’t know when we would have had time to look at it.

So, all in all, it was a good question – I should ask her, “Isn’t it hard to live in such an isolated place?”

I love it that you share so much of the world with me. Now I gotta get down to the beach, before sunset. Wanna come?

Love you, in this light –
Brother Ian

 Be sure and check out Chris’ pictures – you’ll be glad you did!

Writings: Pity…not deep enough

From my friend Carmen:

Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity.

Pity has its roots in fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of “I’m glad it’s not me.”

As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”

To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honour all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone…

~Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, chapter 12

Writings: Giving stage, playing small, or sharing your voice

I had an idea I wanted to share with you.  It’s one of those things that I wanted to see what you think. This draws from my experience as an actor onstage, a newspaper editor, and an admirer of this rather famous bit from Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
         ― Marianne Williamson,  A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

I hope it’s okay if I admit to you, my friend, that part of the reason this speaks to me is a lifelong habit of shrinking, of playing small. I often have have tried to avoid conflict, avoid confrontation, by pulling back from a fight. Occasionally this means that I am able to make a gracious exit from a problem, or to keep peace by letting a face-off fade. There’s a place for that, but I think I’m more concerned about when I shrink from engaging, when I know I need to stand up.

When I was acting, one of the things you gotta learn is when to “give stage,” which pretty much means if something is happening on stage that is bigger than whatever I’m doing, I need to not be “bigger” or more obvious (or louder or more active, or whatever) than the main action. This was hard for me to explain sometimes to the excitable grade eights I used to direct, but it makes for a better show.

And that’s where I think I get a bit balled up in my rules to live by. I know there’s a difference between giving stage & playing small, but I sometimes act as if one is the other, and when I really think about it, one is sometimes an excuse for not doing the other.

Which brings us to the third bit here: Sharing your voice.

When I edited an online newspaper called the San Juan Update for fifteen years, it was an exercise is finding my voice. Should I print this? Should I post that?  Was it my place to impose what I thought on people? What was useful about this was the discovery how the writing & the decisions were easier once I knew “what I say.”

Not what I had to say, or what I thought I should say, or what I better be careful about. Instead, the easiest writing was when I was speaking to my values (community working together to share & heal) and knowing there were people in the readership (we had about 3000 daily readers). And that’s what I do, what I say. And the words come.

As a friend during that period says, “You find your voice when your heart comes to play.”

In theatre, “sharing your voice” is what a director asks a timid actor to do, so everyone can hear his or her lines.

I hope that for you, my friend. Speak out & make sure the people in the back row can hear you. You have so much to give, and the people in the world are poorer when you hold it in, or hold it down.

Play on!

Love & blessings,

Brother Ian

Writings: Musings, with Joni

I don’t know if I’ve learned anything yet! I did learn how to have a happy home, but I consider myself fortunate in that regard because I could’ve rolled right by it.

Everybody has a superficial side and a deep side, but this culture doesn’t place much value on depth — we don’t have shamans or soothsayers, and depth isn’t encouraged or understood. Surrounded by this shallow, glossy society we develop a shallow side, too, and we become attracted to fluff.

That’s reflected in the fact that this culture sets up an addiction to romance based on insecurity — the uncertainty of whether or not you’re truly united with the object of your obsession is the rush people get hooked on. I’ve seen this pattern so much in myself and my friends and some people never get off that line.

But along with developing my superficial side, I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing.

I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.

You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble.

You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.

Joni Mitchell

Writings: Putting the ‘happy’ in the new year

These are days of miracle & wonder – this has been a year of change & transformation & transition & letting go for so many people around me.

I treasure that we have shared so much as we’ve walked together – and as everyone says “Happy New Year” tonight, I hope you know that the joy & happiness in your heart today is there for you to share tomorrow & through the new days ahead.

It’s not the New Year that will make you happy, but you who will bring happiness to these days we share.

Writings: The Story of a River, with Thich Nhat Hanh

Born on the top of a mountain, the little spring dances her way down. The stream of water sings as she travels. She wants to go fast. She is unable to go slowly. Running, rushing, is the only way, maybe even flying. She wants to arrive. Arrive where? Arrive at the ocean. She has heard of the deep, blue , beautiful ocean. To become one with the ocean, that is what she wants.

Coming down to the plains, she grows into a young river. Winding her way through the beautiful meadows, she has to slow down. ” Why can’t I run the way I could when I was a creek? I want to reach the deep, blue ocean. If I continue this slowly, how will I ever arrive there at all?”

As a creek, she was not happy with what she was, she really wanted to grow into a river.

But, as a river, she does not feel happy either. She cannot bear to slow down.

Then, as she slows down, the young river begins to notice the beautiful clouds reflected in her water. Read more “Writings: The Story of a River, with Thich Nhat Hanh”