ORGANIZING THE HEART

Ah, this is the hard one, but it must be done, one's jumble of feelings parsed down, looked at (one can do this excellently when gets into the habit of keeping an honest journal and not be ashamed/afraid/reluctant about them) unflinchingly, and putting them in their place. Believe me, all feelings have their place and unless they are in them, they can wreck havoc and chaos in your life.

Oh, something comes before doing all this, and that is letting ourselves feel them first. How will would we know what it is we have to organize?

ORGANIZING THE MIND AND HEART

I have been half-hearted about the blog for several reasons but the most relevant here has to do about my mind set when I don't organize.  Organization -- I have been talking about organizing one's space so far -- applies to the mind, too, and to the heart. In both these place everything is all jumbled up together causing a deep confusion (clutter will cause that) if not despair. And the reason why I don't organize these latter spaces is because of some limiting and narrow IDEA I have about what should be happening. For example, I have not been able to get into writing since my return from India, it simply isn't happening. What has been happening is a knowledge and a half-hearted desire (again, because I thought it was second best, not worth doing, etc, why aren't I writing) to organize my files. I have been doing some, unhappily, feeling bad that SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT (like brilliant ideas, or new compositions for my songs) weren't happening. I have been a junkie of sorts: wanting new ideas daily, new compositions, something new and exciting all the time. First, I had to become okay with this IMPORTANT thing not happening, not thinking it was my fault somehow, not giving myself a hard time about it. Second I had to get into what was happening NOW, and that was: clean your fucking mess up!

Take my compositions for example: I have at least 20 that I haven't worked out the rhythm or the fingerings or the interludes, or the beginnings and endings for. All I want to do when I sit down at the synthesizer is sing like a bird soaring to heaven. NOT HAPPENING. YOUR VOICE IS STUCK IN YOUR THROAT BECAUSE YOU AREN'T EVEN CONSCIOUS IT IS STUCK; your wings are weighed down by the oil spill of your messes. I have been sitting on a lot of such half-chewed stuff because I haven't been ready for the hard work and patience and acceptance that cleaning up entails. I have been more interested in writing than doing something about it, and then moaning that nothing was happening with it.

Recognizing how fucked up one is, is Grace (though the conscious choice of being okay with what is, accepting it, moving with it, even being grateful for it, prepares the ground for it). Chopping wood and carrying water applies to this as well as to all else. Gird your loins, go to it, and pick up your goddamn loads!

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS: The Beatles

While Payson was away for five days for the memorial for his sister, I had several friends stop by and visit: Liz, Diane, and Phyllis. Nirmala was supposed to come by, too, but couldn't, and that was okay too, since the connection was renewed. And my friend, Jori, from 30 years ago, connected via email and the blog. And Susan Schenk, returned from her many wandering in Ecuador, connected, too. Thank you, friends. Sisters. Thank you for being in my life. Your presence enriches it, makes me feel connected, loved.

It seems to me that friendships have to be cultivated like food -- once the meeting has happened, like the sowing of a seed, it has to be watered, nurtured, fertilized, the weeds and knots removed periodically. Even when we wander far and wide, it is important to maintain the connections with a thread. The thread has to be in your consciousness and heart, and then it vibrates and lives. And the responsibility for the maintenance is always ours alone. We have to reach out, and find it there. It is like stretching the arm to reach for a fruit.

AMERICANS ARE VERY LOATH TO GET HELP

Last year our neighbor, Larry, who nobody knew because he was so solitary and reclusive, died. Nobody knew for days that he had passed away, since the only sign of his existence was a crate full of empty vodka bottles every garbage day. I had a glimpse of him one day, climbing the steps through his overgrown garden to his home after having deposited the empty bottles -- tall, lanky, slow, all awkward limbs in a pair of boxer shorts. He left his house and money, all 15 million of it, to the Zoo.

I also know many other wealthy Americans who don't even think about getting help with the kitchen, for example. One of them has cancer and needs to eat healthy foods and drink fresh juice, but the wife, in addition to care taking, has to do it all. There is no tradition of getting help. It is the old puritanical ethic of doing it all yourself -- this post is to balance the last one -- to the point of making yourself sick and unwell. Larry's house, infested with rats and other vermin, could have hired help, or even a companion to visit him for a couple of hours a day. The second example can employ someone in the kitchen so the wife can spend quality time with her husband.

I am eternally grateful to our cleaning ladies -- I could kiss their feet! It is a symbiotic relationship. I enjoy their presence in the house when they come, and I enjoy inhabiting the house that they have cleaned so well.

CHOPPING WOOD, CARRYING WATER: FOR PAYSON

A man asked a Zen Master how to get enlightened: the answer, Chop wood, carry water. This is one of Payson's favorite saying and he embodies this wisdom. I have never seen him shirk any sort of work that needs doing, whether it is washing the dishes, doing the laundry, or sweeping and cleaning the floors. He is my guru in this. I have always thought certain tasks are best done by others, that some tasks were more worth doing and had more intrinsic value: writing, for instance, or making music, exercising. Coming from India, where we always had 'servants' (who are now, politely called 'help' in educated circles, but whose tasks have remained unchanged) I have been stuck, rather whiningly, in this hierarchy. But I have learned from Payson the necessity of doing all that needs doing -- not only because they are necessary for one's physical existence -- but more, for one's mental survival as well. One can never get depressed or lonely if one pays attention to all that needs to be done to keep one's immediate environment -- in this case, one's house, which is a second skin -- clean, and in order.

Which doesn't mean I don't have days -- tired days when I haven't got enough sleep -- when I don't wish someone else would do it for me! When I wish I could import my India staff just for that day, beam them here to help me.

And here is another reason this post is for Payson, who has made our India life possible, for consenting, happily, to live half his life there with me; for making it physically possible by building our home in a place where there were no architects and engineers; for taking care of it financially; for providing a lovely home here in Del Mar where the ocean is just a glance away.

ORGANIZING OPENS DOORS AND MAKES SPACE

Didn't realize there is so much I own that I have outgrown -- and not just clothes. Things I saved and hoarded for God alone knows what purpose need to be pitched and/or given away. Every stage of life has its own needs and that makes hoarding so very redundant. I used to like to own things -- still do! But the difference now is that I love owning empty space. An empty shelf or drawer thrills me! How easy it is to clean and organize! How it reminds me of the beauty of emptiness! A door leads to it, and it is called, organizing for relevance, pitching, or giving away.

Don't get me wrong -- I am still a very material being. I am still buying according to my new needs. But a new space opens up now, like a flower about to bloom.

BEING ALONE, DOING THE NECESSARY, AND MORE ABOUT ORGANIZING

Dropped off P at the airport -- he was going for the family get together for his sister's memorial. I didn't go -- it would have been more energy than I have right now. When you are used to being with someone it takes some getting used to to be alone. I am at a loss the entire morning, wondering if I should go to the Cathedral (The Mall) and buy things I don't need, till the words surface: DO THE NECESSARY. Marvelous words, really. It got me out of the house for a walk, into the kitchen to make myself some healthy food, rice and steamed vegetables, and into the study and the piles of work that need to be done. Organizing, mainly. This morning, my music, which is piles of my Sikh music, Kirtan, which I adore, listen to all the time, and cannot live without. Not organizing it means not having a direction to the listening, or listening to the same things over and over (most of the time, when the music is good, and it is, terribly good, especially Bhai Balbir Singh's series, Dhan So Raag Sorangrhe, I can). I didn't know till I started organizing that I have many more of his CD's that I haven't listened to, so I am quite stoked with the pile of music to look forward to. This was a serious thing not to have organized.

Organizing opens doors!