HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – Tip #24

Say goodbye or hello to a cloud.
Surely you've met all the characters living in the clouds—the faces and forms that inhabit this age-old community of imagination. You know they morph and merge all the time, but did you know they also come and go, magically appearing out of—and disappearing into—thin air?

Some scattered-cumulus day pick a smaller, wispy cloud or a patch of clear blue. Then watch and wait. 

FOLLOW A SWALLOW

I’d watched barn swallows many times before, mostly around my family’s summer home on the St. Croix River. Each spring they’d build their mud nests under the eaves of our back porch. If we even tried going in that door, they’d fearlessly dive-bomb us, trying, I’m sure, to make us think twice about getting that close to their chicks. All those times, I guess I was too busy ducking and dodging to really appreciate these handsome birds.

Years later I was standing on a dock at St. Paul’s Lake Como unloading my canoe after an afternoon of fishing. People were gathering on shore for a concert in the nearby pavilion. Five or six barn swallows traced broad, interwoven circles just off the end of the dock, occasionally dipping nearly to the water. What elegant creatures, I thought, remembering my previous experiences with swallows and appreciating that, this time, they seemed to be minding their own business.

                    Suddenly, the feathered missile 
            came barreling right at my head.

I stopped and just observed the sleek, blue-black and chestnut-colored birds. How perfectly sculpted for speed and the sudden swerves necessary to catch flying insects. It was fun just watching their acrobatics, but I also was curious. Where do they live? Do they have chicks? Are they consuming their prey on the fly or taking it home to feed the family?

To find the answers, I changed my focus a little. Instead of taking in the whole group’s complex, swirling dance, I decided to follow just one bird and see what it would do. Fortunately, with only a few birds in the area, this wasn't hard to do. As my subject plied the air, veering, climbing, swooping to skim the surface of the water, I wondered how many insects it tried for and missed before catching one.

Suddenly, the feathered missile veered out of its orbit and came barreling right at my head. In the split second before I reflexively ducked, I spotted a large fly—or maybe it was a flying ant—hanging out of its beak. Then, just as I went down, the bird swooped and flew directly under my feet—in fact, under the dock. Wow, that’s a stunt, I thought, wheeling around to see it come out the other side. It didn’t.

Ta-dah! All three questions answered: The swallow’s nest was under the dock, it had chicks and, yes, it brought insects home for them.

            What interesting things have you learned 
            about swallows? Tell us about your experiences!

MY DARK CLOUD – Clearing My Dread

I had a fairly normal childhood. I went to school. I played with my friends. I fought with my brother. My parents, while far from doting, were always there for me. They expected the best from me and I think, for the most part, I met those expectations.

Illustration: Katy Farina

But sometime during my adolescence, that carefree little boy developed a dark side. Nothing sinister, just some negative thoughts, self doubts, perhaps a tinge of fatalism. Part of the problem was simply being a teenager. I was experiencing feelings typical of this difficult stage: worries about fitting in, embarrassment over everything my parents did, or didn’t do, frustration that I was neither a child any more nor quite yet an adult. But somewhere in the mix there was also something a bit more sinister, an element of dread—of what, I wasn't sure.

               It seemed everyone I knew 
               was perfectly sure of what they 
               wanted and how they felt.

Those vague, menacing thoughts lurked in a corner of my disposition well into my adult life. I was troubled by a sense of not knowing myself and, whenever I felt I might have an inkling, not trusting even that. It seemed everyone I knew was perfectly sure of what they wanted and how they felt. And, because I wasn’t, I often ended up letting others make decisions that deeply affected my life, and then wondered, “Why's this happening to me?” Sometimes I felt imprisoned by my situation, shackled by a gloomy defeatism.

I wasn’t really even conscious of most of these feelings at a level I could have described, much less that I felt anyone else could possibly have noticed. Still, I knew that, somehow, it stood between me and the full happiness I imagined was possible.

AN ENLIGHTENING QUESTION
In 1979 I and three of my friends formed a men’s group. We met every other week at a different member’s home to share our feelings, brainstorm personal problems, support each other and encourage one another’s personal, professional and spiritual growth.

    I realized that, despite my efforts to minimize 
    it, everyone else could see my affliction.

Over the next few years membership grew to six. We were lucky to have members who not only were unusually sensitive, articulate men, but also had professional experience with group dynamics. A few had gone through personal or relationship counseling. As a result, there was no shortage of activities we could call on to help us better understand and support each other. We even took the iconic Myers Briggs Personality Inventory together.

One exercise we tried was simply called “feedback.” Each of us got a handful of three-by-five cards. We were to write down, for each of the other men, an observation we’d made about him. No judgments, no criticisms, just an observation. We could either sign our cards or remain anonymous.
One of the cards handed to me—signed by Peter, a man I admired very much for his courage and insight—said, “Jeff, why do you always have that dark cloud over your head?”

   I’d managed to keep it stuffed into that uneasy 
   little corner of my psyche, rationalizing 
   that that’s just the way life is.

FINDING, TRUSTING MY LIGHT
The consequences of that question have proven life-changing for me. The immediate impact was a sense of relief, perhaps like that felt by a patient finally getting clarity after suffering for years with an undiagnosed illness. Finding out that it has a name, that it’s not all in your head, finally lets you address the problem and begin treating it. The difference here, though, was that I hadn’t even known I was “sick.” All this time, I’d managed to keep it stuffed into that uneasy little corner of my psyche, rationalizing that that’s just the way life is.

Even more significant than my relief was the realization that, despite my efforts to minimize it, everyone else could see my affliction.

Our men’s group continues to this day (now 33 years old). Peter left the group many years ago, but I see him now and then. I always thank him for having been a mirror to me, for that telling reflection of a burden I’d not fully realized I was bearing. Knowing it was real has allowed me to all but vanquish that self-victimization, that heaviness of heart. Every so often, the dark cloud tries to revisit me, but I’m eventually able to clear the skies by summoning and shining the inner light I’ve come to trust as my one true spirit.

"The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity." – ERICH FROMM

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Little Tips

 TIP #48

Experience life with all your senses.

Can one ever savor enough the wonders of this achingly beautiful world? When you're drawn to one of them by a certain sense, see if you can enlist your other senses too. Let them play with each other: smell colors; feel tastes; see smells. 

What else can you experience with all your senses?

                     Might the storied sixth sense be simply
                     the common sense to use the other five?

ARE YOU ON SOMETHING? – Coming Home To the Here and Now

MOM, CAN I GO INSIDE AND PLAY?
Ask kids where's their favorite place to play, and you may be as troubled as I am by the answer. More and more, they're saying that place is indoors. Say what? With the astounding variety of places to go, things to discover and adventures to be had in Nature, why on this precious earth would a child prefer to play inside? The kids' answer: because that's where the electrical chargers are.

  Depriving a child of a close relationship with 
  Nature is as unthinkable as depriving that child 
  of proper nutrition.

It was a conversation like this with a young boy that motivated Richard Louv to write his best-selling Last Child in the Woods – Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. The book makes a compelling case: that depriving a child of a close relationship with Nature is as unthinkable as depriving that child of proper nutrition.

I'm so grateful that I grew up when being outdoors was more fun than anything else, when "social media" meant playing, sharing real-life adventures and talking face to face. My "friends" were really friends, because we actually did stuff together; they were my classmates, my teammates, perhaps my co-conspirators in some kind of prank.

We knew fresh air, water, sun and soil first-hand. We were aware that we shared our world with lots of other growing, breathing organisms. Hell, we even loved being outside in the winter!

These experiences shaped my friendships, and they also made me friends with Nature. I watched her, waited for her, suffered at her whim, but more than anything, I learned from her. She taught me patience, resourcefulness and creativity. She introduced me to awe.

YOU'RE EITHER ON, OR YOU'RE OUT OF IT!
These days it seems everyone's on something—on line, on Twitter or Facebook,
on their iPad or iPhone. And, since these indulgences barely require one to lift a finger, this means we spend way too much time on something else: our asses.

              

It's not just about separation from Nature, though that's certainly a key symptom of this "on" addiction. It's also the loss of real, first-hand interaction with other human beings. Getting "together" through social media, despite the allure of its sheer ease, is like knowing someone solely on the basis of your conversation through a thick wall. Other than knowing each other is paying attention, not much gets through.

          Am I the only one who senses a 
          kind of lonely desperation here?

Now, I'm not living in a cave; I realize that much of value happens through social media. (Think the $29 million in texted donations the American Red Cross raised in short order a few years back for Haiti earthquake relief, or the occasional bloodless overthrow of a corporate or political tyrant powered by the social media.) Still, kids in general aren't involved in such causes; the vast majority of them are "on something" for far less weighty reasons.

For hundreds of millions of Facebook and Twitter users, it's not about helping; it's not about information; it's not even about anything seriously resembling communication. No, nowadays its about connection, not as in sharing something of meaning, but as in connection for connection's sake, connection worn like a badge. Hey, look, I have so many "friends" or "likers." For what? Is anything of consequence actually being done? Am I the only one who senses a kind of lonely desperation in trading the wonders of (real) Nature for this?

A LITTLE CONSPIRACY
It's not that the technology and media are unhealthy in and of themselves; it's the degree of their use, the sheer volume of time the average devotee spends every day on utterly meaningless pursuits.

Parents know, somewhere in their gut, that too much texting, Snap-Chatting and playing Star Wars or Grand Theft Auto – version umpteen—not to mention exposure to the cesspool of reality television—is not good for their kids. But, as with junk food, there's a little conspiracy at work. This time, the connivance involves the parents, who convince themselves that Jill and Jimmy derive some social or educational benefit, or, truth be told, simply welcome the distraction; teachers, who let kids convince them they can multi-task; the media, with its slick marketing machine; highly-cultivated peer pressure; and, of course, the sheer sexiness of the technology.

I figure there are some people out here who still enjoy reading more than 140 characters at a time.

Of course, all of this is happening on the watch of parents, who are not only failing to set limits, but are, themselves, becoming addicted to the same pastimes.

You must have known the disclaimer would come: I can't rail against all this technology and the social media revolution without admitting my own hypocrisy. The "on" generation epitomizes the sped-up, dumbed-down world I decry. Yet, to spread my message, I find myself using the very machines and media I so despise. I'm on just about everything. Okay, I admit, it's fun. It really is.

In feeble defense I can say, first of all, that I think many blogs, including my own, have substance. What's more, I've not yet fallen for the "sound bite" approach to my message. I figure there have to be some people out here who still enjoy more than looking at a picture or two, or reading more than 140 characters at a time.

Let's resolve to nudge a child outdoors and introduce
her or him to curiosity, discovery and wonder. These companions, with no agenda except just being, will
never "unfriend" them.

HARD EVIDENCE – Do You Dig Geology?

Massachusetts’s Pioneer Valley is a beautiful area. Here the Connecticut River meanders between rolling hills, college campuses, asparagus farms and tobacco fields. (Yes, tobacco in Massachusetts; it seems the kind grown for cigar wrappers loves it here.) Towns nestle cozily into the folds of the landscape. Hardwood forests ignite with color each October only to be doused in sticky snow come late November.

Living in the Pioneer Valley for four years was one of the best perks of attending Amherst College. Even though school was challenging, the obvious beauty all around was not lost on me. Nonetheless, it took me until junior year to realize how much more there was to this lovely place than meets the eye.

   What are your most memorable discoveries of 
   the scoured, sculpted face of Mother Earth?

In those days, Amherst had a very strong geology department. Among the courses offered was Geology 11, affectionately known among students as Rocks for Jocks—supposedly because it took some doing to come out of the course with anything less than a C. (To understand the ironic humor of this, you should know that, at Amherst, the term “athletic scholarship” was about as familiar as the bastard uncle you never met.)

Actually, the course was more rigorous than most gave it credit for. In fact, it was, without a doubt, the most interesting class of my 18-year formal education. Among other things, I learned that the hill on which Amherst sits used to be an island in the middle of a huge glacial lake, Lake Hadley. Drive up or down any of the one-time banks of the lake, and you can clearly see the stair-step contours of the several distinct shoreline levels that existed during its lifetime.

Roches moutonnées, seen from Amherst College

Dinosaur tracks in Holyoke

We learned how the glaciers scoured away the surface of great rock ridges and then plucked away massive blocks as they passed, leaving the distinctive roche moutonnee—or sheep’s back—shapes that characterize some of the region’s small mountain ranges. We saw hundreds of dinosaur tracks, preserved in sedimentary rock from the late Triassic and early Jurassic periods; veins of quartz injected igneously into cracks in metamorphic gneiss; erratics (mammoth boulders of rock varieties normally found nowhere near here, carried down by the glaciers); eskers (meandering humps, like 20-foot-tall veins nestled in the earth’s skin, built up of the deposits of sub-glacial rivers).

Glaciers scoured away the surface of great rock ridges and then plucked away massive blocks as they passed.

Rocks for Jocks made me realize what an apt, grand-scale metaphor the earth itself is for all the lesser-scale wonders it comprises—and for discovery itself. With geology, you want to find something interesting, you dig. You want a gem, you wait a long, long time…and then you dig. You don’t see it right away, you look in creative ways or from a different perspective.

Isn't this how one discovers just about any of the hidden wonders, large and small, that surround us all the time? What are your most memorable discoveries of the scoured, sculpted face of Mother Earth? How have you had to dig for that understanding?

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Little Tips

 TIP #74

Celebrate your own footsteps.

Feet ... those poor, thankless servants, ever first to shoulder the load, ever last to see the sun. Yet, above the quiet toil, they proclaim their joy—if only we allow them, and listen.

    Let your steps whisper through dry autumn leaves. Encourage their earnest crunch on dried acorns, their squeals of delight compressing dry snow. Indulge their mischievous cracking of ice edges undercut by melt water. Abide the thin chatter of a kicked pebble. 
    Celebrate their joy and yours, not just in getting somewhere, but in the going.