The Citadel

Letting go...its not easy...

Some things in life come in three's...

What is it about the third day of a meditation retreat? Each time I've been on
one its the same; the first day is the agony of getting still, then on the third
all the crap comes up, the day of becoming intimately acquainted with all
your toxins. The day you fight running and screaming "I want to leave now!"
The day of you in your car wanting to hurtle back into the real world.
Door slamming..gut wrenching! The horrible muck inside you that needs to be
looked at and released, feels as painful coming out as when it originally
went inside. Body and mind clench tightly against its release. Who wants
to look into a pit of suffering anyway?

Meditation? What's it all about?  All I had in mind on this retreat was five days
peace and quiet, blissfully breathing, isn't that what they tell you it does?  But
sure enough on the third morning I wake up feeling like I drank a whole bottle
of gin the night before, and more agitated than I can believe. The sting of the
third day is in full force. I want to run...I need desperately to stay.

After the two morning sessions I'm beginning to feel my being coming
apart and all the stuff I ever learned about being a spiritual warrior
comes into play. I will have to be very brave and let the poison seep out of
me and to that I will have to feel...it all. After lunch I head off into the trees,
the garden seems to be a private place to let it go. I jam my ear buds in and
turn the mp3's up loud to dull the horrible thoughts churning in my head.
There's a friendly seat under a friendly tree and I plant myself there, breathe
in and out, and let it all flow. What appears is so bad, I can't even cry.
It feels like lifetimes of abuse, wounding's, battering's , worst of all from
those I loved most and its like that for a couple of hours. I feel like an open,
seeping wound.

I have to make a choice. If I give in to my fear and run to my car I'll never get
past this. If I head to the temple I'll have to meditate with the fear. But I know
the temple means safety. I head up the hill, back to my cushion, cross my legs
and almost dare life to heal me!

The next things I experience are life changing....more soon...

Much love, Wendy.   

Take heart, forget mind...

 

"The Golden Gate" Photo: Wendy Bradtke 2004 (C)

As I wrote in my last blog about my retreat in a Buddhist Monastery, I'm finding new
insights keep appearing as I work through my day-to-day. I'm seeing even a short time
spent in silence in a meditative way, makes a real change. Imagine if I spent more? 
Not sure if I can grasp that yet, but given time...who knows...

...anyway...

If I see the retreat, and the changes I went through, like a series of locks - I've
been talking to my friend Jeri who lives in the Cuyahoga Valley about the Erie Canal -
then I understand how mind is like that, it flows, opens up and moves
to a new level all the time  -  especially when we meditate -  we become very 
conscious of that. Its like watching our mind as a river, bubbling
and moving and being aware we are on a boat being carried along. And for me
meditation is how I learn to steer my boat, rather than bobbing all over.

Well, I came to my first lock, a huge stepping up place, on my first day of the retreat.
Until then I had been struggling with a deluge of information, most of it about Buddhism
itself. I have never considered myself a Buddhist and I've really struggled with aspects
of its beliefs for many years.  In fact I'm very shy of becoming attached to any religion
so as I sat cross legged in silence, immersed in a flood of Sanskrit words and Tibetan
deities, I was wondering what the hell I was doing in this place!

But I was there because I had followed my nose, a thing I am very inclined to do. Maybe
my inner voice might throw a few clues my way if I asked nicely. Or was it more that I
yelled for help!

One of my certainties is that a "call for help" will always be answered. I began to notice
shifting currents in my mental continuum as a result of my "call". The answer was so
blindingly simple, and it showed me how dazzlingly dim I can be. I was focusing on
my differences, the loud ego part of me that cries ME! ME!and then THEM! THEM! was
trying to separate ME! from all that was around me. So why wasn't I focusing on what I
have in common with not only Buddhism but with those meditating with me?

• we were all looking for meaningful solutions.
• we were all trying to release our suffering.
• we all had our hearts and minds focused in the same direction.

Those things have weight to me, especially that I value them in others.
I saw that words were just words, terms just terms...and this is where I slipped
through my first lock...I slipped from mind to heart.

I had one of those wonderful moments, when life chucks you a life buoy, and you
climb in and let the rope guide you through the water. I let myself be guided, and the
water turned warm and friendly, and I experienced the joy of letting my mind go.

Over the next week I passed through many locks, and I'll write about them soon. But this
first one was vital. The heart is a GATE to the eternal self we desire, but to enter it we
may need to put aside things we build our life around; the identity we cherish
may need to be cast aside. After this realization my meditations flowed very differently
and that led me to my next lock...

...I had to confront my pit of suffering - more on that soon...

Much love today, Wendy x.

Finding your center

"Stepping stones" Japanese Garden at  Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Wendy Bradtke (C) 2004

Last week I experienced something new, a meditation retreat. 5 days long, each
with 6 hours spent contemplating my navel. My busy teaching schedule has never
allowed this luxury. Meditation time is woven into my daily life, and I have a kind
of pride in that. Ends up I loved the retreat, intense and challenging, resulting in
insights that are maybe life changing.

After my retreat I feel more centered than I've ever felt before. I've dropped down
from the heady high, but the centered feeling remains. And "balance" needs to be
considered here too as balance and being centered are related.
Together both form a interesting riddle to pick through.

For example I'm thinking of the simple act of walking; it needs both balance
and centering in abundance. Walking is a miracle of balance we accomplish
all the time, and thats not even touching running, bending, reaching and other
movements. It's all regulated by a little set of hair cells in our inner ear, if they
go out of alignment so does our balance in devastating ways. We get Vertigo.
Such a finely tuned thing, the body.

So one kind of balance...

Our balance also revolves around a physical center of gravity in our bodies. Dancers,
yogis, gymnasts etc. learn to move around their centers, as a pivot for all movement.

So one kind of center...

It takes that kind of balance and that kind of center to endure hours of sitting in
meditation. But ultimately its the other kind of balance and centering that carry you
through. The kind of balance and centering that exist as ideas. 

This is where it first gets really sticky and then easier in meditation. When you get
still/quiet inside, you naturally balance up and get centered.

Let me explain...

Easing the body into sitting still with cushions and chairs and any-old-anyway you
can make yourself comfortable whilst meditating is the beginning. Then hacking
your way through the sludge of thoughts with either breathing, mantram or good
old prayer, gets you to your inner agenda, the foundation beliefs you build your whole
reality upon. Big STUFF! Thats your center, the one made of ideas, truths and delusions.

I found my inner agenda is full of givens. They involve ideals of perfection, fulfillment
and satisfaction. I like to think that balance will create a buffer zone from all the
bumps, jolts and falls life brings. I want to immerse myself in the calming, quietening
rhythm that balance brings. I've delved into a zillion self help programs designed to
exercise control over outer events. I've learned how to fall and stand up over and over
again.

But this retreat showed me how I've been trying to squeeze blood out of a stone.

I learned through contemplating death - now there's a scary place to go - that life is
about evolution, impermanence and change. So its always going to be about walking,
falling, walking, falling - that's what balance is. It can't be one without the other. My
center has changed because of that.

I now understand its my center that matters most, the stillpoint round which everything
balances. Does the inner agenda at my center encompass things that have the capacity
to bring a lasting sense of fulfillment and satisfaction? Deep reflection going on inside.
Is it fine to occasionally anchor myself on shifting sands, provided I know that they are?
My whole center, deep inside, is being re-oriented to things more lasting. Reflecting on
this has became very meaningful. I gave myself a shovel on retreat and dug up some core
beliefs, some are like diamonds in the rough waiting to be polished into treasures, others
I need to ditch. They are not supporting my quest for fulfillment and satisfaction.

5 days of aching knees, restless legs, churning mind, it was all worth it.   

I'm trying to find words to say how my beliefs are reforming, but its not quite
yet.  All I can say is being that deeply centered is the calmest, most certain I've ever
felt. Its like everything fell into place. As soon as more words appear I'll be writing,
trying to describe more...

So anyone who'd like to share any insightful thoughts on core beliefs they find
helpful or challenging I'd love to see your comments!

Much love today, Wendy.
         

The gift of meaning

"Christmas table" - Photo - Wendy Bradtke (C) 05

Finally arriving at the other side of the holidays, in the beautiful quiet of January,
has me reflecting on the meaning of this Season. I tend to feel Christmas is a time
the modern world has stripped of worthwhile meaning, and I like to spend time trying
to contemplate what the real meaning might be.

This year my Christmas and New Year revolved simply around the idea of what would
bring a sense of real meaning to my celebrations. How I approached that was enriched
by the thoughts of Cheryl Richardson at hayhouse radio - Cheryl is a life coach who has
been a major inspirer for me this year. I listened carefully because in the past I've
always experienced a sense of emptiness at Christmas and New Year.

Now like a Christmas miracle I'm seeing it differently, and I'm feeling this may
carry over into the whole of my life, not only the holidays!

What I did was to look at the emptiness from the other end of the telescope.
Christmas is a time of rituals, traditional and personal, and I examined mine in
detail. Rituals are meant to evoke feeling, and mine were evoking emptiness. During
the holidays I spend nearly all my time socializing in my workplace, even at other
colleagues workplaces. I spend a lot of time with nice people, but I share only work
with them. Then there's my "catch up with once a year" people. I suspect I only keep
in contact with some of them through guilt. In the whirl-wind of this I lose the connections
that mean the most - my close family and my close friends. I need to find some balance.

As a result my holidays become filled with conversations about shared emptiness. Too
many conversations about how crappy the year was, how stressful the holidays are, too
much shared complaining about work. I was daring enough to change the topic over one
lunch with colleagues, instead we talked about the best book we'd read during the year.
It wasn't geeky, it was fascinating. We all deepened our understanding of each other.
It did not feel empty, it felt great!

Years ago, I stopped attending large New Year parties, I'm not party person. I compensate
by sitting up late viewing the fireworks. After the clock chimes midnight, I switch off
the TV and suddenly the New Year becomes a blank TV screen, a sort of void. That's not
a good way to begin anything! As a ritual its about as empty as it gets. Next year I'm   
approaching New Year very differently, not sure how yet, but I'm really thinking it through! 

All of this has shown me great deal about how I live life generally - a new layer of
conditioning has been revealed. Marvelous! Its given me a key to enriching and deepening
my experience. It was the real gift that the holidays brought. The gift of meaning.

Much love on this day, Wendy.    
 

Set Phasers to ANALYZE!

"The Thinker" - Auguste Rodin - photo Wendy Bradtke (C) 2004

If ever there was an aficionado of Big Brother from George Orwell's 1984,
it would be mish mash mind. Our Orwellian propensity to pry is one of
mish-mash's favorite occupations, it fulfills its need to list, categorize,
sort and draw conclusions. Mish-mash is momentarily satisfied by these
pursuits, until its natural curiosity over-writes its previous accomplishments
heading it off busily to figure out more stuff. 

Mish-mash in its own sweet way fuels our discontent and dissatisfaction.

Just as many of us find our selves drowning in the clutter of our homes and
work places, mish-mash too can be a cluttered place. Its full of "to-do's",
"what ifs", things once said and done, past compliments like shiny toys and
bitter words that can't be taken back. Our homes often reflect this and our
attempts to declutter tend to involve only resorting and re categorizing,
rather than the actual letting go we really need.

Deep within mish-mash's churning, is our search for security, for mish mash
is only giving expression to our need to know motive, purpose and meaning.
The contradiction is, as we attempt to figure it out in others, we're also
attempting to understand those things within ourselves.

The Internet is a prime example. Whilst it gives the most amazing opportunities
to share, know and discover, it can also feed our underlying craving for approval
and security in subtle ways. Never before has big brother ism been so pervasive.
Millions of users, webmasters, bloggers et AL, scrutinize web data, pages, links,
page reads and times spent on pages, in an effort to know. And, from what we
know, we begin reshaping to suit the data.

We can easily lose the satisfying texture of authenticity. Lists, categories
and conclusions satisfy mish mash mind, but can also create an imprint of
shallowness in the deeper mind. Like the princess and the pea, subtly we
register that, and it makes a ripple that flows to the edge of our being. 
By dealing too constantly in the flotsam and jetsam mish mash mind loves,
how deeply are we honoring solving the riddle of our own authenticity?

Pondering today...

Much love, Wendy x.

 
      

Beloved...the verse and the riddle.

"New Mexico storm" Photo - Wendy Bradtke 06 (C)

You are my beloved,
my friend.
You are my father,
my mother.
You are my husband,
my wife.
You are my daughter,
my son.
You are my child
and my sibling.
You are without
and within.
I kiss my fingertips
and you are the kiss,
my fingers and
my prayer.
Beloved, you are
there.

Much love today, Wendy xxx

To dogma or not to dogma, that is the question!

"On Trail Ridge Road, CO" photo - Wendy Bradtke 2007 (C)

Learning about what Meditation is, has always been as much part of
the journey as the practice itself. That's because I'm aware of its two
schools, eastern and western respectively. I'll admit its not always been
easy for me as a western person to bridge both ways, in fact its
downright confusing. The eastern way is focused upon breaking down the
personal, whereas the western way is about developing the individual.

One school views physical living as a sphere of suffering to be escaped by
ending the cycle of incarnation. The other welcomes physical life by believing
that divinity can only be truly experienced by living fully. Its hard for
mish mash mind to reconcile these two seeming opposites, and mine tussles
with them frequently. Mish mash likes everything easily cataloged and pat.
It can then loll around with a smug look, thinking yes, I have it all figured!

But the universe itself is a great confounder.

The riddle-maker-who-lives-in-the-sky deals in ambiguity and contradiction,
subtle things that don't fit into neat mish mash pleasing boxes. It can make
a meditator tear at their hair deciding which road, east or west, to skip down.
Its timely to remember as you try to make sense of "meditational rules" that
rules don't define the creator. Its the creation rather that does the defining.

The creator can be observed in its creation.

So the universe can show us our own way of moving through its labyrinth.
We can do it without subscribing to any dogmas', east or west. Its good to note
that the worlds larger religions do not own the skinny on the "right" way to meditate.
Its so worth reminding yourself that minor and lesser know philosophies also have
made major contributions. Its wise to study widely, with a very questioning
mind before investing in any belief system no matter how venerable
it may seem. Too often have I watched people try to pour their lives into set
molds to find none of them fit with great relevance.

What we need to have foremost in our minds is that the universe is paradoxical
by nature. It confounds us to question our conditioned responses, to help us change
our realities in ways that support its own, and our own, evolution. Too often dogma
invites us to repeat the past.

Our aim in meditation should be to flesh out the tools to help us climb our own personal
mountain. That may be to curl up in the bosom of the Divine, or infinitely expand our beings.

Either, or any way we practice, it should support us in finding choice.

Much love, Wendy.

What if Pandora's box is empty?

The Shiprock, New Mexico - Wendy Bradtke 07 (C)

I keep an ornate silver sugar caddy that belonged to my grandmother on my desk.
She always dispensed some wisdom or wry new angle when I got stuck. So I methodically
fill the caddy with tiny slips of writing that come into my mind when I'm involved on
other tasks. The caddy is part oracle - part sweet memory - of the sugar cubes it once
contained - my personal magic 8 ball.

Two days ago I drew from my oracle a slip of paper that said -

"Clinging to what defines us, also limits us."

 
Some oracular messages fly like darts...loud bells rang in my mish mash mind. I've
pushed the note around my desk 30 odd times and still its staring at me sphinx-like.
Sigh, back to my love hate relationship with riddles. What if this riddle is a major clue?
Maybe it answers one of my personal conundrums? Why does it scream its a whole
damn key!

You know the "chat" that little voice in your head sometimes has while you're on vacation
- for me recently in the desert - its goes "when I get back home I'm gonna..."

Well I'm home. I'm here. And I'm now staring at this damn riddle.

My train of thought reminds me of an occult term The Ring Pass Not  meaning -
"The limit in spiritual, intellectual, or psychological power or consciousness, beyond which
an individual is unable to pass until he evokes from within the strength and vision to carry
him forwards and over the circumscribing limits set by that individual's own karma."

It's a mouthful, but WOW I can see it's a piece of the puzzle. Karma really defines us, plus
there are some other quite tricky ideas there, like the other not so obvious landmine evokes
- they're huge keys within themselves. But I'm thinking the main key is strength and vision.
I'm amazed mish mash mind managed to get this far, my note is looking less inscrutable.

Strength...oy vey...images of herculean efforts, shovelling shit up a steep slope, throwing
myself to the ground looking sweaty, like being stressed! Its way to energy sapping for this
homebody, it ain't my style, its ain't useful. Nope, let strength be something more subtle,
like steadiness. There's more ease in that, it could work!

Suddenly mish mash mind completely shifts gear and delivers me this -

- The top of the pass over the Chuska mountains brings a full view of the desert from
the Shiprock to Farmington, New Mexico. Driving across the plain there seems nowhere
the monolith of the Shiprock, Tse' Bit'Ai, the rock with wings, can't be seen. Countless
eyes, inner and outer, have beheld the rock, so much energy poured into its mysterious
vaulted forms. The rock is so charged its like an apparition enfolded in ectoplasm - one
moment it may be there - the next it may disappear -

Mish mash mind fights back by answering one riddle with another, or so it seems, m-m-mind
is very tricky, I need to be watchful. However the riddle seems to be solved, at least for now.
So I will hold to my vision, keeping that steady will carry me to where I long to be - simple.

Did I say simple? On my.

For today, much love, Wendy.

After the desert musings

After many weeks traveling in the desert, returning to the normal world
isn't easy. Its hard for my mind to fit back into the way of things.
You see, I have been awhile in the deserts of the American South West.
Now these deserts are not new to me, I have traveled them many times,
and I'll travel them again, but familiarity does not cease my
wonder. I am still enthralled.

   I am a prisoner of their colours and their endless open skies. I cannot
drive through them enough, there is no horizon that hints of an ending.
There, I am a finite being mesmerized by the infinite space of the desert.
There is no black ribbon of road, stretching in a unswerving line, over countless
rises and falls that does not make me crave to go further. Inwardly I get
absorbed into the emptiness. The return to the daily world of relationships,
work and media from the pristine world of the desert is always jarring.
This time it was mayhem.

   To climb to the top of the mountain is a metaphor often used in
meditation. It denotes our ability to find detachment and to view our
consciousness from a distance. The desert is similar. Its the uninterrupted
view of the vast landscape, it frees the mind and imprints it with
stillness, a stillness so soothing.    
   
   I returned home, to find my thoughts of a month residing in a hour
of my companions, such was their busy-ness. Their constant focus on
fleeting turmoils seemed to have imprisoned their awareness into a space
as tiny as matchbox - so it seemed to me - my focus still on the endless
horizon. They looked at me uncomprehending, I felt like an alien just
landed. How could they know my inner gaze was still with the billowing
clouds across that sky, and deep shadows crossing the sage and ochre
hues? These folks forgotten to look into the sky!       

   A few days have passed and I find myself more at home, and
a new awareness occupies my being. Its a sense that inside I have
changed forever, the old me cannot return, because a new me is here.
I am not entirely of my old homeland, I have let a new land transform me.
I feel like I have "grown up", but to what? The river of acceptance is
flowing inside me, carrying me where I'm not sure, except it feels
so right. 

Time for thoughts on the road

The Citadel is traveling through the USA at the moment, or should I say the part of the US I love best, that is out of large cities. Outside the cities is the America that everyone should visit sometime, to really know the place. Beyond the rush of the traffic, the countryside of this continent is glorious, and larger than life. If this is the New World, then as an Australian traveling, thinking back on the landscape of my homeland, things there seem so geographically worn down.

I'm in the Rocky mountains today, soon to travel deeper into these amazing peaks. Its revealing how I expected to find these mountains forbidding in size and energy, yet I find them warm, cosy and safe. The deep green meadows, the herds of lazy Elk, wildflowers and the everpresent aroma of butterscotch from the Ponderosa pines.

I am struggling at times with the lack of air. But that is well made up by the air around the pristine streams and waterfalls. It seems as if two landscapes exist. The real one, and another that belongs to a mythic world, where nature can only express perfection. It exists in my head, and I am seeing it all around, breathing it in, and making it part of me. I am wondering which storybooks of my childhood told me these places, this wildness really exists. Yet I can't think of one book, painting or even film that mirrors those duel images.

But today a whole mountainside covered with golden Aspen, shimmered in the mist. It was glorious.

Blessings, Wendy xx