Hello to Bonifacio

Hi Bonifacio! I hope you made the journey through cyberspace to my blog. Grab a seat and make yourself comfortable. As you can see I have not made any entries lately but you can roam around and look at "older posts" to see where I began. This is a very easy blog to set up and Free! So, if you like it, I can walk you through the steps to your very own blog for your exciting new "non-business".

Khen Rinpoche in Maine

Finished
Dan Brown's "Lost Symbol". Not giving away any of the secrets but some
things I will take away: Thoughts have mass; multiple minds working in
unison magnify a thoughts effect - exponentially; focusing the mind has
power. My teacher is here from India this week. His teachings say the
same. Check out his site and schedule. http://www.siddharthaschool.org

Spiritual Considerations at End of Life

On September 30, 2009 I will represent the Buddhist perspective on a panel at Maine Hospice Education Day in Waterville, Maine. We hope the panel discussion will stimulate thoughts and ideas about various beliefs and tenets of the major spiritual traditions: Roman Catholic; Protestant; Buddhist; Jewish and Islam.
There will be workshops addressing issues such as dementia care, ALS, masculine grief, pediatric end of life, and Dr Thomas Keating's workshop on preparing for approaching death. Dr Keating is the Director of Palliative Care at the Maine Center for Cancer Medicine in Brunswick, Maine.
For more information and to register please go to: http://hvwa.org/hospiceday/course-description.pdf.

Hospice Retreat at Sugarloaf

The Maine Hospice Council and End of Life Care Retreat will be held at Sugarloaf USA on October30, 31 and November 1, 2009. The theme this year is Behind the Veil: Shining Light on Sensitive Matters. I will be presenting a workshop on Childrens Grief on Saturday in the morning and in the afternoon. Please go to http://www.mainehospicecouncil.org for further information and for registration. The retreat is appropriate for all health care professionals, hospice volunteers and social workers.

New Dream Group Forming

New Dream Group forming in Sopo

Third Monday evening of each month.

6:00 to 8:00

Beginning September 21, 2009

Facilitated by Deborah Pfeffer. Dreamwork will be based on the methods of Jeremy Taylor with whom Deborah has studied and also on the work of Carl Jung. If interested, we may look at the nature of the mind itself using Tibetan Dream Yoga and the phenomenology of imagination.

For more information email pipersails@gwi.net

Return of the Red Dragon

Five or so years ago I had a business with my friend Allison. It was called Bliss. I built this wooden garden sculpture and wrote a story to accompany it. It never sold and for that I am today grateful. It has returned home to me and to my garden.
I called it the Temple of the Red Dragon and here is the story I wrote for it.

Zen tradition tells us there are dragon veins, deep invisible energies, running through all objects in the material world. In the very center of the earth lived Crimson Dragon breathing fires of destruction all about. His energy was reaching all the 10,000 things and causing havoc, chaos and change. On the day of the 9th sun, White Tiger arrived to admonish Dragon, "Crimson Dragon you have been given power to transform energy. You have been given terrifying beauty and your color is a spectacle for all living creatures to worship. Yet you choose only to destroy. What do you say of this?"
"I am Dragon. It is my nature to breathe fire. I am being as I was created to be. How can you, White Tiger, question my natural force?"
And Tiger replied," It is my nature to be the equalizer. I am given the task of bringing the 10,000 things to harmony. So for now, I ordain that your power and beauty will remain unseen in the world. Your energy will remain hidden and appear only as solid stone. You will stand in mere existence, removed from thinking or feeling any sense of self. But anyone who, sensing your power, responds to a desire to honor the stone will be given the gift of knowing. They will understand you and the value of silence. The will know you and the way of compassion made through suffering and loss. They will understand your essential nature to burn and destroy but will also have knowledge of what your visible sign, the stone, symbolizes. They will have knowledge that even though unseen, some things can never be lost or dissolved. The fire of the Dragon is the energy of the stone. Harmony requires balance.

Now I must wonder why it is back and just what I have to learn from it.

Maine oranges

Testing the new camera. It is good to have five oranges growing inside while just outside snow resists melting.

Meaning

"We had the experience but missed the meaning." T S Eliot



Here at Temple Four at Tikal we sat high above the canopy, looked west and watched the sun set. Just at twilight, the jungle came alive, howler monkeys began to call, many species of bird composing on the spot. We watched in silence and tried to imagine the Mayan people and their lives here.

Writing

Spending so much time alone and writing it sometimes occurs to me that this writing life is too full of ego. But then I listen to Sam Keen: " You have got to own your days and name them, every one of them or the years go right by and none of them belong to you." I want to belong to my days.And, for me, belonging means taking notes.

How much does it cost?

Today I am relishing friendships. This summer I traveled to San Francisco with my dear friend, Janet. She was graduating from CIIS and receiving the hood of PhD in Philosophy of Religion. It is uncanny to me how our adult lives have run along along such a parallel course. We were together as undergrads in Philosophy, sharing friendships and late night discussions. We are together today as writers and students of Buddhism. As I watched her accept her degree after all these years of studying and writing I was elated and impressed. Elated to share the joy and impressed with the stamina, determination and patience of a woman willing to sacrifice for "a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything" as T.S. Eliot wrote in Little Gidding. Today I am relishing friendship. I am particularly delighting in my times with Janet. She has shared my accomplishments by adding her own joy and she has taken me in when my heart was breaking. She may be a Doctor of Philosophy but to me she is a healer of hearts.

What is real?

An old friend came to visit this summer. She is not old but the friendship has aged, is deep and has stood the test of time. We met in college. I was a poly-sci major and this was my first Philosophy course, The Phenomenology of Dreams and the Imagination She was the Professor. After learning from her in this class I changed my major to Philosophy, she became my advisor and we became friends.

This summer her visit took us back to a beach we have often walked, she laid out her blanket and I was mesmerized. The blanket was so worn, so tattered. She told me she has had this blanket since her college days many years ago and that it carries memories. As I looked at this treasure of Cecile's my mind flashed to the story of the Velveteen Rabbit and the image of the loved up Rabbit. It takes many years to become real and a lot of loving. And you cannot tell just by looking if the thing is valuable or if it has become "real" because "that which is essential is invisible to the eye." I saw this whole principle in the tattered beach blanket, I knew this about Cecile already, that she a real friend who sees me and knows me as I am. So I took a picture of the blanket which, I now know, is the most lovely photo of Cecile I could ever have.

Garden Gate

This little fence and gate have been such a joy to create and install. Thanks Allison! It reminds me of bubbles! I found the hand forged latch at a renovators supply in Kennebunk and it adds just the right bit of charm. Lots of time spent in the garden now that I am no longer officially working. Bliss. With all that is happening with my writing and poetry I am feeling a renewal of freedom.

Tonight I am off to San Francisco to witness the long awaited hooding ceremony of my dear friend, Janet. Staying at a friend's home in the canyon, driving down the coast to Carmel and Monterey. Of course there will be the trip to City Lights Book Store ... just because...

Rangeley Book Group

The book group gathered in Rangeley for the weekend. We had two feet of new snow to add to all that was already piled up! Lots of good exercise - snowshoeing, x-country skiing, yoga and mini massage. Did I mention food? At one point "someone stood before the big window looking out at the snow, trees and frozen lake, all spattered with the flight of various birds. She said,"How does this nature thing work anyway?" All the philosophy in the world can't answer that one.
I would like to offer A poem I wrote about a moving experience we had while sitting by the fire. It's called

STUNNED

The thunk at the window
Alarmed us,
Left remnants...
A few soft feathers
Clinging like a notice
To the pane.
Soft warning, as if to say,
“Time to wake up.”



The chickadee, we found
Nestled on the snowy deck.
A well carved appearance of itself,
Acrobatics abandoned,
Now contracted to pin-point focus,
Fierce will of fire,
Radiating a
New nest in the snow.


Sometimes you just
Don’t see it coming.
And can we call it ignorance
When a winter day is shining safely,
Trees drooping beauty,
And we are gliding blithely,
No thought of faith or future,
Flying full force into the unseen
Window of stunned awakening?

Bouquet, Panama

Vulcan Baru in Boquet tops out at 12,000'. I never made the climb although those I met did it and said it was difficult. I enjoyed time at Mi Jardin es tu Jardin. The photo with the hanging lanterns shows the plantation owner being wheeled by his caregivers. He has a magnificent place which he opens to the public free of charge. It must be wonderful to see people from many countries coming to enjoy your gardens. The house with pool is where I stayed - lovely.

The is one of only 500 of it's kind. I met this parrot at a wildlife refuge in the mountains. I will be writing more about this unique place soon. Just wanted to get the photos up.

Casa de Carmen Panama

Can you believe we were greeted by a green parrot on arrival_ Her name is Lola and she lives here. Then I met a young woman who is here in the Peace Corps who knows Lex´s brother Richard. He is a PC volunteer here also. Tonight we are going to hear some jazz and tomorrow taking a train through the jungle to Colon. WE have a flight for early Saturday mornu¡ing to Bocas. Staying at a place called Lulu´s. I have a photo of Lola to upload tomorrow.

Love to all and B / J thanks for caring for Oliver.

Deb-Mum

A wall of reverence

This is the mani wall right across the dirt road from my inn. The monks carve they words "ohm mani padmi ohm" into stones, then pile the stones into a wall that extends to a stupa. It seems that the daily lives of all the people here, not just the monks, are imbued with a sense of beauty and the sacredness of life. Their religion is not separate from their lives. With color, with stone, with fire, with right speech they make their way from one day to another, intentionally.

Do you hear what I hear?

At the first teaching of the Dalai Lama, I was sitting beside a man who was taking notes in Sanskrit. I was listening to an English translation through my radio and taking notes also. When we "compared notes" we found that what each of us had decided was most important to remember was "Respect for all beliefs." It is the desire to change people , to not accept difference that causes suffering. In a strange land, far from my home I found a man who believes as I do. A man who believes in respect and tolerance.

Women of Stok, Ladakh

This was the scene at graduation at Siddhartha School in Stok. These beautiful women were sitting just across the aisle from me. This was my first day in Ladakh and I was still acclimating at 12,500 feet. The people here are quiet, simple and non-attached.

Goodby to india

Today is our last day here. The others are sitting outside having breakfast of yummy chai and toast. The monsoons are not too bad and for the moment it is clear, bright and hot, hot, hot. We don't fly out until 11:00 pm and the time in the States is 11 hours behind. WE plan to go to the center of Delhi to a fabric shop for a few last minute kalmar chemise. we have been wearing the local dress and some have been having them made. You choose the fabric, they measure you and in 2 hours you come back and Voila! We will also go to Dilli-hat, a local crafters alliance for the do-dads. (I know you don't want do-dads but these are pretty good ones.)

Here in Delhi we travel mostly by rickshaw and it is an act of faith to go out into the streets. Yesterday Sonja, Gregg and I went to a Siek ashram. SOnja teaches World Religions in Maine and the woman who wrote the text she teaches from "runs" the ashram. It was beautiful (and strange to me) All faiths are recognized there. There were many Russians and we had the best borsht I have ever tasted. We had a milk drink with cardamon and almond and "some herbs" that produce an "interesting" almost hallucinatory effect. We were the only westerners. There is a place where a fire is tended 24 hours a day. The huge fire is dedicated to world peace.

I will post photos when I get home that will not come close to the reality. I keep speaking of learning so much. One thing that is reinforced every time I travel is how blessed my life is, how much I love our country and its freedom, and of course how much love there is in my life.

Deb

In Leh

I have returned from the crossing of the Himalayas. We were at 18.500 feet at the highest. It was something! I made it without getting sick but I took a woman from Australia into my car and we got her oxygen. She was pretty sick but made it. The time in Nubra was amazing we took Bodisattava vows at a monestery from the Dalai Lama. Now I have to be kind!! We had to sleep in a tent as all the rooms! were full. No toilets not running water for a couple of days. I had to get a permit from the Indian Gvmt to get that close to Pakistan and China and we could not photo the army camps or and of the convoys.

There is no one here in the internet palce because they are swarming outside. The Dalai ALma is here cutting a ribbon for the opening of a mosque!!!! MAny muslims and sieks.

Last night we had dinner at the home of Khen Rinpoche. His family home. Tonight we go to his place of residence next to the Siddhartha School. Our last night before flying back to Delhi. In Delhi Sonja and I are goiing to an ashram in the south. Through in a little Hinduism while we are at it.

Beth, referrals? I love you!!!!!

Tom How is Oliver? I miss him like crazy and of course you too!

Thanks for all the email. I cry for home just a wee bit.

Rode up a mntn on top of the Sidd. school bus yesterday. Ouchie! MAny pujas with monks and we keep picking them up by the side of the road and giving them rides.

Crowd behind me wanting the computer.

Love to all. I'll post again from Delhi. Jeff is out buying an Indian parachute!!! For his yard. This place is heaven. And the people share everything they have. I have learned so much!

Love, love,

Deb