Impact

I suspect that many of us, as we go about our lives, are oblivious to the impacts we have on other people simply by being ourselves. A stray comment, a random compliment, a kind word of encouragement, all of these might alter the course of someone's day, week or even life. And yet if we try too hard to have an impact on others, by preaching, recommending, urging, insisting, we might actually push people away, unintentionally creating distance or damage. The examples we set can be more powerful than our desire to make waves and generate certain results.

I learned today that a woman who had inspired me by her example was recently murdered in New York City. I met S T Woolf when we lived in Somerville, MA and we were both active in our local arts community. She was in her mid-40s at the time and was just finding her wings as a sculptor and artist. Shortly thereafter she boldly decided to leave Massachusetts, her home for many years, and move to New York City to pursue her artwork full time in a place where she might gain more exposure. As I learned through her occasional e-mails, she quickly made friends and got involved in local arts groups; her work was getting seen and she seemed to be thriving in her new home. Observing her successful mid-life relocation gave me the courage to pack up and move to greener pastures which, for me, was the mountains.

Although I did not know her well, she still had a large influence on me. In addition to leaving behind her art, she left me with the awareness of how each of us, even if we are but tiny pebbles in this vast universe, can potentially create large ripples just by being who we are.

May S T Woolf rest in peace.

Intense Itinerary

Travel brings out the maniac in me.

I just returned from a few days in Santa Fe, New Mexico one of the more laid-back cities in the United States and where, with the exception of my first afternoon, I hardly sat still. I wasn't prepared for the high altitude, the dry heat and the constant sun, and I spent Friday afternoon, after I arrived, recovering from the journey and hydrating with water I had picked up at Trader Joe's which, unlike its New England brethren, was amply stocked with foods and snacks boasting habanero and chipotle. Still a bit disoriented that evening, I put on some fresh clothes to attend services at Temple Beth Shalom, a reform congregation in Santa Fe. The prayers and singing grounded me and I received a warm welcome from congregants, many of whom were transplanted East coasters. None of them regretted their decision to move to the southwest.

There are endless shops, galleries, restaurants, cafes and museums in Santa Fe, but I wanted very little of it. I had a tremendous and surprising urge to hit the open road, to drive and drive and drive, to soak up the scenery and to experience the stillness of the desert and the mountains, to be embraced by the very big sky. In the next three days I put more than 500 miles on my rental car. My first trip was up the High Road to Taos, stopping at the Sanctuario de Chimayo and the art villages of Cordova and Truchas along the way. Truchas is home to many fine artists and their distinctive galleries that occupy old churches, adobe homes and other spaces. Truchas has a general store, most of its shelves empty save a few cans of Dinty Moore stew, and no gas station. One artist couple has created a tea room, where I sat outside and had lunch, but other than that the village does not have much of a gathering place. The air was so clean, the mountain vistas so serene, the quiet so intense, that I fantasized about one day joining this intrepid group of dreamers who support themselves through their art, selling it to visitors who journey up from Santa Fe. In winter time, when the tourists stop coming, this community gets together to ski.

Truchas felt authentic whereas Taos - filled with more galleries, shops and cafes - felt too touristy. I didn't have the patience to look and linger, preferring to head back to Santa Fe along Route 68, which took me past mountains and the roaring Rio Grande. A man was selling roasted pinon nuts out of the back of his bright red pickup truck; tempted, I pulled over. He gave me some to sample and then told me that the small bag was $10, the larger bag $20. Ten dollars? I thanked him but decided to move on. He was amiable and relaxed about it, no hard feelings, no attempt at a hard sell.

That evening - Saturday - I returned to Santa Fe and to the adobe casita I rented just a few blocks from the center of town. Coming from the northeast, where I depend on skylights and large windows to let as much light as possible into my dwelling space, it was strange to stay in a building designed to keep the light and heat out. Inside it was cool and dark, offering cavelike protection from the sun, which shone intensely from the time it rose, probably before 6a.m., up until it set, at around 8:30pm. It seemed as if a single day of Santa Fa sunshine was the lumen equivalent of a month's worth of Boston rays. My brain felt supercharged.

It was time for an evening stroll in town. A co-ed mariachi band trumpeted and strummed in the plaza. A few of the musicians had blonde hair. This was clearly New Mexico, not Mexico. I poked my head into a few restaurants before coming across The Shed, a bustling restaurant with one of my favorite dishes, fish tacos, on the menu. There was an hour wait for a table so I took a seat at the bar. The food was tasty but not as heavenly, nor as inexpensive, as the fish tacos I discovered in Oakland, CA last August, served from a truck near one of the freeways. But the atmosphere was hip and happening and from my perch at the bar I could observe the flow of cocktails, food and people. A taciturn biker sat next to me at the bar and ordered without looking at the menu; clearly the place was a favorite among locals. Then a very blonde Canadian woman, navigating the tight seating, mounted a bar stool as if she were getting on a horse. She landed next to the biker. Her arrival animated him, and he told us about Gabriel's, another good restaurant, just outside of town. I finished my meal and bid my farewell to this

Sunday morning was cowgirl time. I drove south to Cerrillos, home of Broken Saddle Ranch, where I joined a small group horseback ride in the dusty state park in former mining country. I told the organizer my riding abilities included cantering, which I hoped was still the case. A bit nervous at first, I failed to convince my horse, Zane, that I really did want to canter, and so while the other horses sped on ahead he trotted a bit before slowing to a walk, testing my resolve. The leader moved us into the middle of the pack and gave me some pointers, and with my newfound decisiveness we were soon cantering up a storm, just like in Bonanza.

After the ride it was off to Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid), an artist colony and biker mecca a few miles south of Cerrillos. Woodstock in the desert is one way of describing the vibe of this place, a hodgepodge of shops, restaurants and galleries featuring offbeat art. One of my fellow riders had recommended a restaurant called Mama Lisa's, a small cafe in the middle of this small town. I sat on the patio and chatted with Rick, a friendly blonde and bearded native New Mexican who lives up in the hills, gets by with occasional repair work and doesn't have a credit card. Doesn't believe in them. He doesn't like banks much, either, although he told me he does have an ATM card and a one year old grandchild who, like his own son, was born on father's day. And he had recently taken a 6,000 mile road trip in a car bought especially for that purpose, driving from New Mexico to West Point and back again. Then an acquaintance of his sat down and, while I devoured a barbeque brisket sandwich, I overheard them chatting about their friends...a very matter of fact conversation about who is sobering up and who has outstanding DWI offenses. I got the impression that both men have had their own struggles with substance abuse; fairly common in that part of the country.

In a bit of a stupor from the heat and my lunch of red meat, I drove back to Santa Fe to visit the Museum of International Folk Art, which houses an astonishingly large collection of colorful handmade objects from around the world. There were too many things to see. Suffering from circuit overload, I abandoned the museum and headed into the center of town to check out Canyon Road, a street filled with high end art galleries and boutiques. After New York, it is the second most important art market in the United States. Wandering up the street, the sounds of live music lured me into Gallery Esteban, the eponymous space of Esteban the guitarist. Apparently he is quite well known and he was performing free of charge to a mostly local audience in the graveled courtyard behind his gallery, offering refreshments to all. I sat down, soaking up the sounds and enjoying a few moments of stillness.

By the time the concert ended most of the other galleries had closed, a situation for which I was glad. There was simply too much to look at and having fewer choices made my life easier. One gallery I ventured into featured the bold graphic work of Carole LaRoche, a woman who moved to Santa Fe from Boston in her mid-40s and began creating art full time. Twenty-five years later she has her own thriving gallery in a hot location. Her website doesn't really do her work justice - I was particular taken with her large pastel drawings of wolves.

That night I went to sleep early, planning to get up the next day and go hiking in a nearby forest. Nearby as in 10-15 minutes by car. Such proximity felt like a luxury. On Monday I started out before 9am and tried to find a trail that was labeled as "moderate", a 4-mile route down to a creek and back. Although I missed the trailhead, a fox crossed the road just a few feet in front of my car. Spotting wildlife always feels somewhat magical. And I ended up at another trail, which wound its way through a pine forest. At a trail juncture, a map was posted on a wooden sign, and an arrow pointing to the location said, "You are here. Breathe deeply". I did. The crisp pine-scented air was pure peace.

A quick shower and I was off to see the Georgia O'Keeffe museum, which had an exhibit, Natural Affinities, on her work and that of Ansel Adams. It was smaller than I had expected, both the museum and the exhibit, and before long I was in my car again, heading to Gabriel's for lunch. It was supposed to be one of the better restaurants in the area, boasting of a Zagat rating from 2001, and I figured I would give it a try. I ordered steak tacos which were well prepared but didn't launch me into tastebud heaven. Perhaps my time in Mexico spoiled me. A couple at another table were using an electronic pipette to mix two wines in different percentages, savoring the resulting blends. Note to self: Buy a pipette and try this at home.

After lunch I headed off to Abiquiu, home to Georgia O'Keeffe and the source of her inspiration. Unlike the mountainous road to Taos and the dusty hills of Cerrillos, the highway to Abiquiu is flanked by red and striped cliffs and rock formations on one side, green pastures on the other. Several times I stopped my car to take photographs and to revel in the stillness and the silence of these majestic open and somewhat empty spaces. For a moment I envied Rick, the man I met in Madrid, and his 6,000 mile cross country adventure. The highway beckoned.

Somewhat sadly, I turned around and headed back to Santa Fe for my final evening there. It was Monday, and the town was essentially shuttered, most restaurants and shops closed. I was in bed by 9pm and got up early Tuesday morning to go hiking again before returning home. I found the trail I missed the first time and was rewarded by the sight of a stag emerging from the woods.

En route to the airport, I stopped at the Kakawa Chocolate Company for a tastebud tingling Aztec brownie, a potent creation featuring generous amounts of chili pepper, cinnamon and dark chocolate. At Trader Joe's I popped in to buy a sandwich for the plane trip then sped the final 55 miles to Albuquerque, watching both the speedometer and the clock and returning my rental car two minutes before the 12pm deadline.

I did say that travel brings out the maniac in me, didn't I?

Inward Bound

It's been awhile since my last post. Thanks to those of you who are still with me, still checking this blog for signs of life. Part of the time I was in California, at a retreat designed to help people reconnect with themselves. And before that I was fighting a cold and a fever, which almost made me consider cancelling my trip. And after the retreat I have been letting my experience sink in, pondering how to write about it. I felt that I had to address it first before scribing about other things.

Inward Bound is the best way for me to characterize this retreat, called the Hoffman Process and organized by the Hoffman Institute. In my class were 39 other people, from across the country and the world, of all shapes, sizes and hairstyles, with a variety personalities that defied Myers Briggs categorization, ranging in age from 20s to early 60s. What we shared was a common determination to free ourselves from, in many cases, lifetimes of emotional pain and suffering that was interfering with the quality of our lives. Many of us were veterans of different therapies and therapists, myriad medications and spiritual practices, as well as practitioners of strict diets and exercise regimes to render medication unnecessary. The collective healing expertise of our group was impressive, even if - as our presence at Hoffman indicated - these complex formulae and heartfelt efforts have not consistently eased our distress. And most of us had learned about the Hoffman Process from other people who had done it and who had experienced meaningful if not lasting results, many of which have been documented in research studies. It was the combination of scientific proof, and the fact that the person who referred me is a Harvard educated CEO, that persuaded my highly skeptical intellect to invest time and a not trivial amount of money in this experience. At the same time, my ego was convinced that it was so special that the process wouldn't work on me, and so there I was, deeply wanting to put an end to my existential and emotional angst yet concerned that I would simply get in my own way, that I would be one of the people for whom this didn't "work".

As we were told early on in the retreat, there is no way to "fail" the Process. True enough. Simply by showing up one has demonstrated a commitment to heal. But many of us were hoping and wanting to achieve an enormous transformation. Fast. And forever.

Although we didn't scale sheer walls, navigate a rope course or leap blindfolded off of a platform into a safety net of interlinking outstretched arms, the process was probably more intense than what I imagine an Outward Bound course would be like. On several days we did exert our bodies to an exhilaratingly and sometimes painfully sweaty degree, stretching ourselves beyond previously established limits, but we did this indoors, not outside. And the exertion was designed to physically, and ultimately mentally, disconnect ourselves from many of the unproductive or negative thoughts and behaviors that we had picked up when we were children and have clung to us like life-force sucking leeches ever since. Hoffman refers to these as "patterns". Sometimes I've thought of them as programming, or conditioning. Whatever metaphor works is the one to use. Disassociating from the patterns was actually liberating and fun, and most of us looked markedly stronger and more powerful after that emotional and highly physical exercise than we had just a few hours before. In fact, a few of us were ready to pack our bags and go home at that point, having accomplished what we thought we had come for: a psychic purging of negative and self-defeating inner voices, voices that had once protected us but no longer serve us.

But we were only on day three of an eight-day retreat. There was more to come, said the teachers, a group of people of a variety of backgrounds who are trained specifically to deliver this process. I preferred to think of them as guides or shepherds, steering our group of sometimes unruly and resistant sheep from one session or activity to another and keeping track of the handful of sheep who'd inevitably wander off, either mentally or physically. Come to think of it, we were more like cats than sheep. Our large class was divided into smaller groups of eight, which periodically met for more intimate processing and discussion, and each group had its own catherd (if it isn't already a word, it is now).

One reason I had a hard time thinking of the facilitators as teachers is that much of the material they presented was not completely new to me, and sometimes I experienced their delivery as uninspired. Having attended retreats, personal growth seminars and dozens of yoga classes, many of them led by emotionally open and enthusiastic people who willingly shared elements of their own spiritual journeys, I was occasionally disappointed by what and how the person at the front of the room was trying to "teach" us. And at times my intellect would protest, "What are you doing here? You know this stuff already. What a waste of money!"

But then it occurred to me that my broad exposure to all kinds of healing modalities and spiritual writings meant that maybe I was a personal growth junkie who could talk the talk, perhaps even more effectively than these teachers, but, let's face it, still wasn't able to walk the walk. My resistance, thicker than a coconut shell and spikier than a porcupine, had gotten in the way of translating intellectual understanding of spirituality and healing into new ways of being and behaving. And at the times that my intellect was trying to invalidate what it was hearing, I reminded myself that I came for the group energy, which I believed I needed to complete some of the healing work I had started in individual therapy, and because the time had come to just do it. I decided I was not going to let my reactions to the teachers get in the way.

The only way out is through.

I had found that it was quite difficult for me to go through some of the less pleasant emotions in a 50-minute hour. It often would take me until minute 40 to soften and relax enough to let my feelings out. And by then it would be too late, because my ego - eager to protect my appearance at all costs - didn't want me to leave the therapist's office while I was a blubbering, vulnerable mess. And if I did manage to release some deep emotion, it was very difficult for me to sustain a more open and yielding emotional quality between sessions. I'd return the following week, feeling as if not much had happened. And so on. I would stay stuck, out of a powerfully toxic combination of stubbornness and fear, both unable and at times unwilling to free myself from some rather heavy baggage.

The Hoffman Process and the group helped me through, and I was able to tap into, feel and release grief that I didn't even know I was carrying with me as well as reach deeper levels of some more familiar sorrows. How did this happen? The Process is neither magical nor manipulative, but it does creatively utilize and sequence some time-tested tools - guided visualization, meditation, expressive writing, music and physical movement - to allow suppressed feelings to surface and be released, to give voice to parts of ourselves that have been shut down for decades. Equally important is that each person came to this retreat with a strong intention and motivation to allow this work to happen. And the setting - a resort in Napa Valley with gourmet catered meals from a Bay Area restaurant - nourished our spirits and bodies. The food in particular gave me something to look forward to each day after a few hours of riding an emotional roller coaster or two; between my cold and the tears, I probably consumed a full box of tissues each day.

The release of so much negative emotion and energy was palpable, with many people literally blooming, growing taller and sparkling before our eyes. And because each of us was feeling comfortable enough with ourselves to remove our social masks, we could now finally see each other as individual people, rather than as the projections of our fears, hopes and judgments. Many people told me to look in the mirror. I did. I recognized myself again, after years of seeing the reflection of a stranger.

Inversions and Inspiration

In yoga we practice inversions, postures where our bodies move into upside down positions. Inversions include headstands, handstands and shoulder stands, the common theme being that the head is below the heart.

The point of standing on our heads is to invert our view of the world and, with that, to get a handle on how the way we normally view things might not be the most effective or productive. Being upside down does give you an entirely different perspective and headstands in particular leave me with a biochemical high that allows me to view the world through slightly rosier lenses.

But the practice of yoga itself is an inversion, a turning upside down of many of our assumptions about how life works and how to experience fulfillment. On Saturday morning, in an intensely heated studio, our teacher urged us to tune into our bodies and our breath, allowing what we discover inside to inspire us to action in the world, rather than having our behavior be motivated by external stimuli or expectations, as mine as been for much of my life. Another inversion is the idea that if you relax into pain or difficulty, rather than resisting, it will cease to be painful or difficult. "Pain" is the label that our mind gives to strong sensations, and once we identify something as "pain", rather than curiously exploring what the sensation actually feels like (is it a dull thudding? sharp tingles? a burning feeling?), we are likely to intensify that sensation, rather than ease it. Ditto for strong sensations caused by difficult emotions; do we repress our fear and anger or do we go into it, and see what is really going on? Easier said than done, but worth attempting all the same.

This particular instructor, a dark haired man in his 30s, has a strong regional Boston accent and occasionally mixes up words, but he is one of the more inspirational and passionate teachers I've encountered. He is not there to strike a pose, wow us with medically accurate descriptions of our anatomical workings, or lecture about the eight limbs of yogic philosophy while strutting his yoga butt. He's a very real person, with real problems, and he brings all of himself to the class, exhorting us to do the same. It is refreshing to have an instructor like him in the exceedingly cerebral Boston area, where intellectualism and accuracy rule.

Had I taken this person's class six years ago, I probably would have dismissed much of what he had to say because he's a regular guy wearing baggy shorts and a crucifix around his neck, not an impeccably attired and well spoken expert. I'm glad to observe that, since beginning my practice six years ago, my attitudes have inverted enough to allow me to not only appreciate people like him, but to seek them out.