The cabin, the lake and Alan Watts

2011-11-11T23:42:00.001-08:00

One day in lateNovember 1967, I woke up in a rustic but cozy little cabin on Lake Lanier inNorthern Georgia. The bedding was piled with quilts and chenillebedspreads and the chilly air in the room smelled musty, woody and delicious tome. I was 17 and had just given birth the week before. A few daysin the cabin with my boyfriend, who I was living with in Atlanta, was arecovery gift from a young artist friend of ours.

Eventhough I was giving the baby up for adoption, the birth experience had given meanother glimpse into the perspective I had slipped into at age 13 when I wroteabout the “glorious feeling” of the “unknowing nothingness."

I was still in theaftermath of that spacious state when I stumbled on to The Book by Alan Watts. I rememberfinding it that day in November, the cover already slightly yellow andwater-stained, among some other paperbacks on a dusty shelf near the Franklinstove. Sitting in an old rocker and drinking cups of instant coffee, Iread it cover to cover.

Now, I imaginemy 17-year-old self, having survived the veiled neurosis of 1950’ssouthern suburbia and the disintegration of my own family, reading his words:

This feelingof being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flatcontradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) inthe sciences. We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, asleaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe"peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm ofnature, a unique action of the total universe.

And it must have been a revelation to read his description of my own experiences of a vivid and almost sensorily concrete experience—the “unitive” experience of the mystic and the transformed sense of self.

Reading it now,forty-four years later, the 1950’s and 60’s jargon Watts’ uses and all of hisyouthful bravado make me chuckle. But it’s remarkable to read and remember that The Book contains the underpinnings of thespiritual and philosophical concepts I’m still exploring today. It’s almost startling now to recall how completely new these kinds of ideas were to almost allof us prior to his (and others like Aldous Huxley's) writing.

Watts' thoughtsare nolonger revolutionary but they are nonetheless subversive in terms of theconsensus reality that we still operate by. And still funny. In the introduction he describes how the “farce”, the illusion of aseparate self has …

created a growing apprehension that existence isa rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubeswhich put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keepsthem doing it and in the long run wears them out. So to keep the farce going,the tubes find ways of making new tubes, which also put things in at one endand let them out at the other. At the input end they even develop ganglia ofnerves called brains, with eyes and ears, so that they can more easily scroungearound for things to swallow As and when they get enough to eat, they use uptheir surplus energy by wiggling in complicated patterns, making all sorts ofnoises by blowing air in and out of the input hole, and gathering together ingroups to fight with other groups. In time, the tubes grow such an abundance ofattached appliances that they are hardly recognizable as mere tubes, and theymanage to do this in a staggering variety of forms. There is a vague rule notto eat tubes of your own form, but in general there is serious competition asto who is going to be the top type of tube. All this seems marvelously futile,and yet, when you begin to think about it, it begins to be more marvelous thanfutile. Indeed, it seems extremely odd.

"The farce”is the same truth that Buddha pointed to over 2500 years ago - the truth thatour sense of a separate self is illusory.

For me that day the cabin, the lake, and The Book all felt like home.

Being human

2011-10-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

It's hard being human. We spend so much ofour lives trying to figure out the rules, the formula for achieving thehappiness we think we see in others, on our iPhones, televisions, movies, inall the images we're bombarded with, in diet and fitness programs, in plasticsurgery, and in self-help books and therapy, only to discover that even themost admired and celebrated among us suffers illness, loss, confusion,disappointment and death. What the hell?

This whole consciousness thingis complicated. I have a few vivid memories of moments when Iunderstood. When I was 13 staring out the window in class (I can smellpencil lead and crisp fall air), I went into a reverie and wrote thispoem. Bear in mind that this was Decatur, Georgia in 1963 during the LeaveIt To Beaver era.

Before the beginning and after the end,

Perhaps right in between,

Before dreams

But after sleep,

A state of sleeplessness

But a sound restfulness of heart describes this place offeeling.

The imaginative becomes real

And the real becomes imaginative,

No secure facts or thoughts or certain emotions arethere,

Though security takes the place of mind.

You know not fear or pain,

But subtle happiness fills your soul,

Though your body is not there,

Or matter at all,

The feeling of beauty is all about,

You run for something that is endless and you cannottouch,

But you have the glorious feeling of nothingness

As you chase it,

Love, hate and jealousy are unknown but a strangefriendship

Of all creatures and matter,

Of cloud and star and grass and tree,

A warmth of knowingness between all

Warms the air you breathe.

No words are spoken

For the unknowing nothingness express only glad feelings

And thoughts are not needed.


The Green House, Atlanta, 1968

Another of those moments was when I was 18and living in "The Green House", a big old four-story house filled with a bunch of hippie musicians. One day my friend Cathy Council and Iwere walking around to the back yard when we stopped and looked at each other(I can picture where we were standing) and one of us said, "Let's alwaysremind each other the stay on The Path". And we still do.

I personally need constant reminders to keepme on that Path. I can't name the Path or locate it on some kind of spiritual GPS, but I know when I'mon it. And apparently, falling off and getting lost is part of thatpath. But Something tells me to keep turning myself around and moving inthe direction of the moon that the finger can only point to.

So I begin this blog with the intention of sharing with youthe reminders I stumble upon on my Path.

Into the Breathless

The cabin, the lake and Alan Watts

Being human