October was a crazy month for me. I wrote and assisted writing two grants that were due mid month. At the same time, I was promoting and organizing a morning of artist workshops and demos to happen the following week. Then I was supposed to start teaching a meditation course at the end of the month, but it was cancelled due to low participation. I figured that was the universe telling me to take a break! There were also a couple of medical appointments, rehab, and really trying to prioritize my mobility and health. Fatigue, brain fog, and mood swings played in there as well due to the drug tamoxifen. The most intense moments were leading up to the art day. I experienced a kind of performance anxiety that ran all kinds of stories about letting people down, not having done enough, poor attendance, forgetting something important, and so on. In the end, the day was great and most importantly everyone seemed happy and many wanted another day of art.

This cancer treatment, hormone therapy, tamoxifen, has me feeling kind of flat. A steady meditation practice can have the same effect, but this feels more like depression than equanimity. It’s no fun feeling uninspired, unmotivated, and sad and irritable. Certain things help. Meditation helps. Connecting with people for any reason. Helping someone. Someone helping me. The PSW was just here. She is so kind and blows through the house like a gentle breeze taking care of things that for me are a struggle. They pile up otherwise. Such a blessing to be grateful for.

Deeper than that, the song is about the undercurrents of addiction that are hard to escape. What I hear though is a spiritual meaning in the song. Having for several years been immersed in the dharma, its teaching appears everywhere. I often say the dharma has his own curriculum; usually that means revealing Buddhist or spiritual teachings at the right time. Seems it’s also finding them in what seem like unlikely places.

“One step at a time” has been my mantra for some time. When walking the trails on our property had become increasingly difficult, a friend of mine shared a mantra that had worked for her in similar circumstances: “this is what I can do right now.” That was helpful as well. But my feeling then was that my ability to walk was only going to decline. That proved to be the case, but now I have less certainty that we ever really know what’s going to happen next. And, in actuality, my ability does fluctuate from hour to hour.

After 13 years of meditation and mindful living, I’m pretty familiar with my mind and its tricks to get me stressed out, irritated, or sad. So, for the most part, life unfolds for me on an even keel. Even extreme challenges can be met with calm and kindness, with equanimity. The most recent challenge is very stubborn: mood swings from hormone therapy.

It was interesting to see the variety of psychological responses to the different elements. Some people found earth to be claustrophobic whereas others found it to be grounding. While water gave some people a sense of drowning, others felt a sense of flow and integration. Fire, of course, could bring on heat and desire/rage for some and for others, the warmth of loving kindness and compassion. Air, again could be suffocating for some folks whereas for others it brought ease of movement. Space, well, that's pretty intangible and gets into the real mystery of spiritual practice and our true nature…

As I recall from my university days in English studies, William Wordsworth, by "recollected in tranquility" meant that experience can be fruitfully mulled over and contemplated and written about while one has the time and leisure to do so. Also that when there is a little distance from the experience, emotions that might have been too intense at the time can then be processed. Distillation takes time.

Up until now, I thought chaos described our bodies and behaviour, and it does in part. But, as complexity theory shows, life is actually more complex than that. It is more variable, more uncertain, and therefore has more possibility. I make no claim to understand these things, I just enjoy reading about them and the feeling that they get at something inexplicable. Years ago, I wrote a poem that touches on this very intuition. The whole poem is below for poetry lovers; in it I surmise that human activity resembles an algorithm. Further to that, we don't step out of the algorithm to observe the particular beauties of the day especially when caught up in the societal conditioning of go, get, and do.

I loved being isolated in wilderness, canoeing, backpacking, finding the perfect camping spot to watch the sun go down. To wake early just to enjoy a paddle on the flat lake, to sip coffee at the water’s edge, or to have earned a deep sleep and fall into it under the stars. Algonquin Park is only two kilometres from my home now. Since I can’t paddle or hike into it these days, I figured living close by was the next best thing. It seemed to make sense to Kelly. As I told this story for the nth time, it rang even more true. I’ll move to town eventually and that will be fine too, but for now, as I become even less able-bodied, living in the refuge of nature is a gift.

A few things came up, and surprisingly, the one that fit was breath. It was so interesting and exciting to explore how the breath might get through a solid wall of aversion. Picture the big bad wolf who could blow walls down with his breath. Mind you, brick stopped him from blowing down the third house of three little pigs. The unconscious is notoriously illogical with its imagery (cue any recent dream). Our collective unconscious is rich in symbolism involving wolves and breath. Anyway, say the instructions, trust what the depth sends up.