12.18.09 Details…
Maxwelton Journal|Today we learned, a bit too late, that we were supposed to have some sort of a permit to clear the site for the house. Someone from the county stopped by and talked to a neighbor. We had been told by what we thought was a reliable source that if we were using the trees and not selling them, we didn’t need to get a permit. But I guess that was not accurate information. I am appreciating Christopher’s equanimity about this–he treats it as just another thing we have to do and isn’t at all upset by it. For me it brings up an assorted set of feelings, some of them conflicted and angry. And it’s another opportunity to look at how my mind goes toward making up stories to make sense out of what is happening. And another opportunity to go meditate and let go of those stories, assumptions, and just relate to things as they are.
I noticed today after watching more of the trees drop, that I was becoming inured to their deaths. Keeping my heart open to the pain was too difficult for such a prolonged period. This is how we survive undesirable situations. I wonder if it is possible to stay open and sensitive all of the time. I know that it would take someone stronger than myself to sustain such openness.
Being constantly subjected to traumatic experience in our environment must be in part what blinds us to the deeper and more ongoing devastations occurring in our world. Christopher and I both talked about our very first memory of witnessing clearcuts, and how effected we were. The areas where loggers had come in and skidded trees down slope were utterly decimated. I take comfort in how our little pile of trees looks nothing like this. Still, as I helped load limbs into the chipper, I smelled fresh sap and wondered if the tree could sense our good intentions–if it could somehow know that we are behaving differently from the ones who come in and wipe out both the trees and land without seeing or feeling what they are doing.
That’s why it feels so important to me to see this, to feel it, and to document it honestly. In some way we are lucky that we can’t just afford to have someone come in and do everything. I want this to be real. I don’t want to sit home, uninvolved, just hearing about the abstraction that will be our home. I am glad I have dirt under my fingernails, and the smell of sap on my hands. I’m glad for the zen training I’ve had so much of in recent years involving hands on labor. I’ve learned to value the work, and to embrace it as part of the meditation practice. Everything is practice, even these very difficult parts. Even these questions and doubts about taking the lives of trees.
And so keeping my heart open to the pain of it is also part of what I’m doing. And I won’t do it perfectly. Sometimes I’ll need to shut down and not feel, and that’s okay, as long as I’m conscious of it, and not trying to excuse my behavior somehow. I’m realizing that every piece of this process is important. All of it helps me deepen my commitment as a Dharma practitioner, as one who is alive and in the real life situations, dealing with the real questions that emerge for everyday people. I’m part of this human equation, not sequestered off somewhere in an unreal environment. Nothing is as real as my hands and heart shaping this place on the earth, running into complex personalities, coming up against unexpected problems. To wish life was somehow easier or different, that I didn’t have a herniated disc in my back, had more energy, more time, a more focused brain, is sort of pointless. This body and this mind is what I have, and these problems. There’s depth and richness here, if I can allow it in. And I have to say, it’s damn interesting, watching others, watching myself, and noticing our habits and whether or not we are truly free to act. There’s a lot more to think about this, to say about this, when I’m less tired. When I’ve had my epsom salts bath…
