snailpath

Planning a Funeral: Professionally Speaking

2007-01-31T10:15:00.000-05:00

In my work, I used to plan, preside, and assist at quite a few funerals and memorial services. Sometimes, relatives simply said, "Do whatever you think is right." When I knew about their lives and beliefs, this was not difficult. But if we met for the first time, my operating question was not "What can we (including the Church, whom I represented) do well?" but, "How can we least offend?"

One day, when I was serving in a Roman Catholic Church, a well-dressed, well-spoken woman, perhaps in her early 60s, arrived in my office. She was carrying a package, approximately the size of a generous box of chocolates, wrapped in brown paper.

"This is my mother," she said.

Ah, her ashes, I immediately grasped. No, don't put her on the floor -- here, use this chair.

Then, the woman spoke. She had been living abroad for most of the past 25 years, and when her mother died a year ago she didn't know what to do. She was living in a Muslim country where no Roman Catholic churches or clergy existed, and although she personally wasn't religious, her mother had made many pilgrimages...

And so the story went. What could she do to honor her mother's faith, while keeping true to her own knowledge? We had time, and so I allowed her to answer the questions. It did not happen in this visit -- really, there was no rush -- and over the next two months she grew into what was needed. In the end, a private Mass was celebrated, just for the family; she and her husband and children participated in a from-the-heart eulogy, and the ashes were committed to the ground at a nearby Roman Catholic cemetery.

With time and patience, we get it right.

But did I at my father-in-law's funeral? More next time.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

Preparing a Funeral

2007-01-26T11:40:00.000-05:00

On the first day of January, Rich's father died. This was a bit more than a week after his 84th birthday, and about a decade after he gave up on life. For most of that time, he never left his bed except to eat the three meals provided by the assisted living facility. A combination of medications kept him from further suicide attempts, but nothing stopped his mind from churning up images of a past that terrified and of a punishment that awaited. No assurance, psychological or spiritual, could convince him that he was wrong.

By the time a stroke took him, with speed and mercy, his once strong body which served him as a truck driver and football player and machinist, was no more than a thin canvas over bones, reduced not by betrayal of the body but by destruction of the mind.

But once, there was more. In preparing for the funeral, Rich gathered up photos of his Dad, beginning with his years as a sailor during World War II. No doubt, these years, for all of their horror, were an unsurpassed adventure for a coal miner's son who never could have dreamed of travel to islands in the Pacific or the ports of Russia.

There he is on his motorcycle, and in his football uniform, and his arms around a young woman. Smiling, and eyes bright. Ah, life is so good! Then the wedding photos, and then holding the hand of his young son.

It is said in many traditions that the soul/spirit/consciousness hangs around for a while before moving on to the next world/life. Naturally, the recently-departed body is curious, and listens in on the conversations at the funeral. What did they, really, think of me?

In this case, it was this: "I always remember him smiling," many visitors said. Most, of course, had not seen him in ten years.

But, now free from his thoughts and his body, did he realize, "Ah, that life was, after all, so good."

Let's move slowly through it. Smiling.

Candace

Moving On

2006-12-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

Who looks outside, dreams;
Who looks inside, awakes.
--Carl Jung

I am walking on the bridle path at Central Park when a young woman approaches. She is obviously lost.

"Can I ever get out of here?" she asks, half-laughing, half desperate. "I'm going round and round, and there's no exit."

I say, as seriously as I can, that no, there is no exit.

"Then I guess I just have to jump the fence," she says, laughing again.

I then admit there is a way out, and she just passed it. Follow me, I say, I'm going that way. You can get to Fifth Avenue from here.

How do I know this? I'm not smarter, it is only because I passed this way once before, and I'm grateful to share my minimal knowledge of park geography (New Yorkers: 'Fess up. Everyone, at some time, gets lost in Central Park).

Everyone goes in circles, and everyone gets lost. Admit it. Understanding begins when we know where to get out, and if we can't find a way at first -- laugh. And keep walking.

I will be taking a brief break from Snailpath as the hibernation season deepens, and will return in early January. At that time, I also hope to have another blog up-and-running about a specific and, I believe, foundational Snailpath practice.

For now, thank you for reading this. Those who track such matters estimate 13 million blogs are now circulating, and I am honored to have your time; and, as always, comments are welcomed.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

Do Humans Make it Better?

2006-12-05T11:15:00.000-05:00

My morning meditation began with an outside hum that progressed to inner anger and ended with an exploding thought, "Do humans improve upon anything, or will our only legacy be destruction?" We are, after all, a people who believe that war brings peace, and there exists an "Us" and "Them," and that this precious life is best used watching television (or reading -- writing! -- blogs).

Such are the thoughts provoked by the hum of a chainsaw across the road, now in its second week, cutting the trees. For what? More houses? A "neater" backyard for the farmer (he's done this before).

When humans leave a place, is it better?

I did not have these thoughts in Manhattan. I can easily meditate while horns honk and car alarms wail because cities belong to us, it is where we become the best of who we are: Artists and actors and writers and musicians and idea-addicts, all living for the question: How do I interpret and transform life?

I need the City to show me who I can become.

But I need the trees to remember who I always will be.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

Unchain My Heart

2006-11-28T12:06:00.000-05:00

In a former profession, I thought a lot about "resurrection" and "rebirth" and other such philosophical conundrums which, when embedded in a religion, become thoroughly theoretical and ultimately meaningless as a path of healing, growth, and freedom.

I thought about this on my return to New York, too, along with the equally puzzling concept of "reincarnation." Then, I stopped thinking, and once more understood.

I ate at the same restaurants that I did a year ago, with the exact same meals. I met some of the same people. I shopped at the same bakery, and bought the same sort of loaf I had dozens of times before.

But, it is obvious, I was not the same person physically, and neither were those with whom I shared time. The food was not the food I ate and long ago digested, nor was that food even alive a year ago.

So why was I still stuck, partly, in the same emotions, if everything else had truly died and been reborn many, many times? Why was my heart still in chains?

Because death and rebirth, I perhaps hoped, was something in the future, when "something" would change and "someone" would do this something to me, and all I need do was wait and suffer.

Silly, no? So I went to New York to find those hungry ghosts who love to chortle, "I'm You!"

And I found -- no, they're not.

I am alive -- again.

And they are not.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

A Good Day

2006-11-24T11:30:00.000-05:00

I recently returned from a brief trip to New York City, my birthplace and home for almost half my life. A questionable fact that writers (at least those living in New York) accept as true is that 80 percent of the country's writers live in this place where, it is also true, enough stories are generated in 24 hours to keep a writer busy for as many years. So, a few will follow as I digest and chew them through.

But first, the novel that accompanied me on the bus trip. It is a classic, and one I have read before: Alexander Solzhenistsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." Briefly, the plot is this. The scene is a gulag in Siberia where, during Stalin's reign, millions suffered and millions died for crimes never committed. The "zeks," the prisoners, live in frozen huts, work on mindless projects, wear rags, eat watery gruel, and at any time can be beaten or thrown "in the hole" at a guard's whim. And their sentence is virtually endless: When the ten years are over, they are given ten years more.

At the end of the day, we are with Shukhov, an ordinary zek who shows us that humans can, even in most brutal of institutions, take pride in their work (even if without purpose), and in humor (even if without laughter), and in caring for one another (even if risking punishment).

He is in his straw bunk, looking forward to five hours of sleep before beginning the next workday on the tundra, where the temperature is thirty below zero.

Solzhenitsyn writes: "Shukhov felt pleased with life as he went to sleep. A lot of good things had happened that day." Among them was an extra bowl of oat gruel at dinner, an extra chunk of bread, some tobacco bought from another inmate, a slice of sausage and two biscuits (one of which he gave away) bestowed by a "wealthy" zek who received a parcel from home, and he really enjoyed the day's work, building a wall as good as it could be.

"The end of an unclouded day. Almost a happy one."

Happy Thanks-giving,
Candace

Buddha Bread

2006-11-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

At a jail in San Francisco, women are learning about food. Specifically, they are learning that food matters, and that they have a choice. They are participants in a substance abuse treatment program where they will learn about cooking organic food, nurturing themselves and others, and, to their amazement, realizing that how they feed themselves can change who they are. As one inmate said, "When you eat this food...you can feel it in every cell of your body." Another said simply, "I am trying to save my life." And they are taught that they can have all of this for the cost of a fast food meal.

Does this program "work"? Thus far, participants in the program have an overall recidivism rate of 39%, in contrast with 60-70% for those who were not selected.

How do we save our lives? Do we know that we can walk free from our self-built prisons? We escape not with a bomb or a blowtorch, but by invoking three Snail Principles: Start Small. Go Slow. Eat the antidote.

If, for example, our prison is miserliness, if our compassion, kindness, generosity and respect is doled out to this-person and not-that, then we need to start small. How small? From the Buddha (the reason for the first half of today's title): Start practicing by giving a carrot from your left hand to your right. Slowly. Then, reverse. Generosity is the antidote that frees our minds.

Such are my thoughts while eating a hot slice of bread (the reason for the second half of today's title) just removed from the oven, a loaf filled with history and memory and the work of farmers and beekeepers and millers, some of them neighbors.

Bread is such a fine snail food. It starts small, just a seed of grain, just tiny yeasties. It rises slowly. I feel it in every cell of my body. How can I not be changed?

Have a slow journey,
Candace

Motivation

2006-11-08T16:31:00.000-05:00

I am a happy Snail today. It is Election Day + 1 in the United States, and my party is on the rise.

For a time, I was an "Independent." Then, my genetic heritage kicked in and I filled out the proper form and checked off "Democrat." My ancestry in this country is not deep, going back only to grandparents, not all of whom were citizens. But growing up, I was taught this: Republicans are rich. Democrats are everyone else. This conclusion was not the product of political, economic, or social analysis. After all, the two heroes -- gods, really -- of my childhood were Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, who really weren't "everyone else." When, as a wise history major in college I announced to my mother that I was writing a revisionist essay on Roosevelt's response to the Holocaust, she was appalled that I question anything he had done.

"He saved this country," she said. "He took us out of the Depression, we had no jobs --"

But, I say, it was the war that ended the Depression, that set the economy on fire --

"You don't understand. He helped us."

"He helped us." That, at the heart, was the motivation for my family's political loyalty. The local Democratic Party pulled strings to get jobs for my mother and uncle and grandfather, they helped neighbors find apartments, they ran interference in legal entanglements. They came to the side of people who needed help, and in exchange my family worked to get out the vote for the Party.

When I suggested that, well, they had corruption too --

"So what? They were on our side."

Does motivation matter? How much of what we do is for "everyone else," and how much for ambition, wealth, prestige, revenge, or just because we are too scared to do anything else? Do we use others to fulfill "my" needs, or need others to fulfill "our" interdependent lives?

Candace

2006-11-04T12:21:00.000-05:00

First, a housekeeping matter, and apology. I discovered yesterday a backlog of "Comments" that have not been posted, that I cannot open and read (all I have are tantalizing pieces of a first sentence), and cannot post. I have since tinkered with some of my preferences, and so I do hope future comments will appear. They are much appreciated, and this space is richer with wisdom shared (as example, see Heather Snail Hofmeister's posting on 10/24/06).

Second, a tidbit of Snail food. Interested in keeping weight under control? Sleep more, of course. Two recent studies have shown that a healthy dose of sleep regulates appetite and body weight, and reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. One survey, in Canada, focused on children, and found that those who slept 8-10 hours a night instead of 12-13 hours increased their risk 3.5 times of being obese and developing diabetes. A German study of 8,000 adults produced similar results, although the emphasis was less on total hours than "sleeping difficulties."

A good rest to all,
Candace

2006-11-01T11:10:00.000-05:00

In June of this year, a few weeks after my eyes opened, I went to the optometrist for an exam. While my vision remained "good" -- that is, I can function in most areas of life without glasses -- a discovery was made that really opened my eyes: I am in the early stage of macular degeneration which, if it progresses, will result in blindness. Further, I had rather advanced binocular dysfunction, which I have known about since my teens but did not know that this can treated. In this condition, the eyes are not working together, and so it is difficult to see objects in three dimensions, and spatial relationships in general are somewhat fuzzy. No wonder I struggled with geometry, and jigsaw puzzles, and trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

You must be very tired of compensating, it takes a lot more effort to make sense of the world, the doctor said.

But there's a plan to get out of this. First, build up my vision (and depleted body) with minerals and vitamins. Second, daily exercises to be done at home. And third, twice-weekly vision therapy sessions for the past four months.

During the first few in-office visits, I tested off-the-charts. What circle? That's 3-D? Colors? They all look black to me! And, frankly, this was giving me a headache.

Then, the circles began to expand, others came together -- and, of course, that's red, and that's green! I felt an earthquake in my brain. Something was working!

You really are developing new muscles in your eyes, building new synapses in your brain, the therapist says. This is unusual, isn't it, I say; she says, well, yes; most patients with similiar difficulties have had trauma to the brain, such as a head accident, or a stroke.

Or emotional? I ask.

Yes, that's possible, too.

Of seeing, but afraid of "putting it together." And having only the blind to guide me ---

Five months out, the progress has been remarkable, but this, I know, is just the beginning.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-10-24T14:30:00.000-04:00

"We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn't one I've been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will start for real." (Tom Hennen, Poet).

This approaching Sunday, the 29th of October, is a day of great celebration for Snails. It is the time when, in my part of the country, clocks move back one hour. This is even better than time standing still, because while asleep, we gain one hour!

It is only very recently among humans that we wait for something "better" to happen, some "improvement" to kick in. Life was very real for our ancestors -- and still is for much of the world's people -- when each day the real deal was going to bed with full belly, adequate shelter, clean water, and arising in a peaceful land with no other humans grabbing their homes or their food or their lives.

We want more, don't we? Try this. Tell friends, family, even strangers: This Sunday, I am celebrating Snail Day. Not only do I have no plans for this day except to rest (an extra hour!); eat and drink and love deeply, and care for this wonderful temporal body and eternal mind -- I am going to make a habit of this. Even on days when external life demands more (and, alas, that might be every day), my inside self will know: This is the day I have been wanting. It's here.

Celebrate!
Candace

2006-10-16T10:47:00.000-04:00

Time to move forward, beginning with a quote from Buddhist scholar and writer Robert Thurman:

"If you don't know exactly who you are all the time, you're not sick, you're actually in luck, because you're more realistic, more free, and more awake!...'knowing who you are' is the trap -- an impossible self-objectification."

Institutions demanding exclusive loyalty cannot survive if individuals have this attitude. Freedom from the certainty of "self" laughs at dogma, shreds doctrine, and even makes wars rather silly. How can I say I am "me" today, if tomorrow I might be "you"?

So, then, where to move? One answer, for myself and Rich, has been exploring life in an intentional community; specifically, a modern entity that calls itself an "ecological village." We are slowly becoming part of a community called White Hawk, where a group of strangers are coming together to build energy-frugal homes, develop a sustainable farm, and make decisions by consensus. Over time -- measured in years, not weeks or months -- we will make an effort to become a porous people, living in and through one another.

This model takes work, constantly challenging the self to exchange "what would be best for me?" to "what would be best for us?" and, in the process, uncovering the selfless knowing of, "So! This is who I am!"

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-10-11T15:05:00.000-04:00

I once knew a man who traveled to many countries and several continents. The primary limitation was this: Wherever he went, he had to stay in a Hilton Hotel. There, he could begin his day with an American breakfast, and thus fortified he would scrape his travelling toe along the land's surface, avoiding its people and customs -- who could predict what one might find! -- by patronizing museums and concerts and hopeful signs of Western culture, particularly churches.

And so, the person who left home, was the person who came home.

I'm aware of this danger as I, too, have returned to the safety and predictability of my home. But I am not the person who left. I know this by observing nothing more than how I sleep, where I eat, and what I eliminate.

And so, I am now ready to move on.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-10-06T12:12:00.001-04:00

On May 29, I made the decision to burn my life. Watching with patience and excitement, what would grow in this clean space?

But, of course, the space wasn't "clean." Memory had made a home in me for too long, the files she carried were thick and many, and with each step moving forward into the present Memory would block the way, waving a folder and saying, "Remember this? And this?"

Sometimes, it was easy to take the papers from Memory's hand and quickly burn them. She didn't care, much; Memory could easily produce another. But others files were asbestos-coated. Fire only licked their surface, and they were, in any case, too toxic to be destroyed without care and time.

And so, I settled into the Snailpath Way. Last night, I heard a story that confirmed the age and unoriginality of this path, giving me even greater trust in its wisdom.

The subject is a Buddhist monk who lived in the eighth century, told to me and a group of others by one of his spiritual heirs.

This monk lived in one of India's largest monasteries, known for its great scholars. He, however, was considered by his peers as something of a simpleton. When asked what he did each day, he would reply: "I sleep. I eat. I eliminate."

Some monks suggested that he be booted out; others argued this was an improper way to behave towards a fellow monk, even if he appeared far less brilliant than they. So they agreed on this course: He would be given an opportunity to preach to the many visitors who came to the monastery. Then, the monks anticipated, this simple monk would realize he had nothing to say, and choose to leave.

When the day came, the simple monk began by apologizing to the large audience that they knew as much about the Buddha as he did, and then he began to speak. And speak. And the other monks began taking notes, and his words became a classic text, still in use today, on the art and science of meditation.

"I sleep. I eat. I eliminate."

Slowly, with care and time, the poisons are becoming ash.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-10-06T12:12:00.000-04:00

2006-09-25T19:41:00.000-04:00

This story can be found in some form across the spiritual traditions. Here is a Snailpath interpretation.

One day a group of elders and leaders, hearing that a wise woman lived in the next village, invited her to come and speak to them so that they, too, might become wise. Although she did not leave her quiet room very often, she agreed to come.

Sitting in their midst, she asked the gathering, "Do you know what I am going to say?"

"No, we do not know," they said in one voice

"If you do not know, then of what can I speak?"

And she went home.

A bit hurt, the deputation from the village visited her again, and asked her to come and enlighten them. She agreed.

Once more, she asked, "Do you know what I am going to say?"

Ready this time, the group answered, "Yes, we know."

"Then there is nothing I can teach you," she said.

And she went home.

After some discussion among themselves, the deputation now was quite sure what was expected of them, and invited the wise woman to, please, come again.

And a third time, she began by asking, "Do you know what I am going to say?"

The villagers, excited they finally would have the proper response, said, "Some of us do, and some of us do not."

"Excellent!" she said. "Let those who know teach those who do not."

And she went home.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-09-21T12:01:00.000-04:00

"The fire in the flint shows not till it be struck."

This is the motto of the Arvon Foundation, begun in 1968 by two English poets, Johns Fairfax and John Moat. Starting with one center in Devon, the Foundation now works out of four houses throughout England, teaching many genres of creative writing across the age and passion spectrum, from semi-disinterested (at first) school groups to published professionals.

Fairfax's and Moat's initial goals were simple and, at the time, radical. First: "The only person who can teach the technique of writing reliably is an experienced writer." And second: Writers need other writers. It is a lonely path.

"The fire in the flint shows not till it be struck."

The Snailpath is taught by illuminated crawlers. And snails need other snails. It is a lonely path. But the fire that is waiting...

Next time: Finding a teacher. And other snails.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-09-17T18:06:00.000-04:00

This is a fable. It is not true.

Once there was a tribe who could only walk backwards. Obviously, this was awkward, and not at all efficient. Because they couldn't see where they were going, they bumped into one another, fell into ditches, and occasionally one or the other would wonder, "Haven't we been here before?" Their leaders, however, assured them that this tribe had always walked backwards, this was the revered way of the ancestors, and it even was prescribed in their laws and books.

Still, accidents happened. People, not surprisingly, became irritable with this constant bumping and falling, especially when pushed aside by the more ambitious members of the tribe who wanted to be at the head of the pack (though, we all can see, if they were moving in the natural way they would in fact be rushing to be at the tail end).

Then, one day, three of the tribe felt twitches in their legs. They told their leaders, "Our feet want to move forward."

They were assured that these were merely growing pains, and they would adjust.

"Trust and follow us," the leaders said, even as they were falling and tripping and -- dare I report -- hitting one another in frustration.

As days and months and years passed, The Three began falling further and further away from the tribe, as on some days, they couldn't help it, their legs took a few steps forward before taking two steps back.

It was on one of these days that they all saw The Voice. It surrounded them, it touched their skin and mind and heart, and then they heard it.

"Stop," The Voice said.

Trembling, First asked, "But we want to move forward."

Second added, "How can we move forward if we stop?"

And Third, shaking even more than First, said, "We're in the middle of the road! We will be run over if we stop here."

Then, The Voice vanished.

The Three looked at one another, and agreed. Yes, they would do as they heard. If they continued going backwards, they would survive, but they would not live.

There they stayed, unmoving, for days and months and years.

Then, one day, they heard only silence.

"Our tribe has left us," First said.

"No, I think we left them," Second said.

"Does it matter?" asked Third. "Look how far we have come!"

This is a fable. It is possible.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-09-14T12:49:00.000-04:00

Years ago, when we grew lots of veg, tomatoes were always the jewel of the season. This is not to belittle the underground treasures of carrots and beets and potatoes and onions, or even the muscular winter squashes, all of whom would sustain us through the winter.

The tomatoes we raised were not keepers. They were not chosen for making sauce or slicing into a salad or turning into paste. Mostly, they appeared for six weeks and then were gone. Their names were Black Krim and Brandywine and German Yellow Stripe and Prudden's Purple. Lumpy, scarred of face, humble from every angle, and so very delicate -- the five-minute trip from garden to kitchen was as much high adventure for them as for humans to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen. Would their soft innards survive the bounce of the basket, or the pressure of my fingers? After so many months of leafing and blossoming and growing into fruit, would they disintegrate into mush before they fulfilled their reason for sprouting?

But when they made it to the plate, taste and smell perceived what sight could not. Filling their rich pulpy innards were soil and sun, and they softly said (yes, tomatoes are articulate, too): "Eat me and taste life."

Contrast these gems with their distant cousins, perfect plasticky orbs availabe every week of the year in supermarkets throughout this country. Where are they from? Do we know their names, the soil that grew them, the hands that harvested them?

But these toms shout at us: "I'm tough. I've travelled a long way to be here. Eat me, and survive."

When we awaken, which do we choose?

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-09-08T10:53:00.000-04:00

One more story from archeaology boot camp. About halfway through the field season, perhaps the Fourth of July weekend, the director gathered us together before breakfast. Usually, this meant a preview of the day's work and individual assignments -- who would prepare the peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, fill the water coolers; who would be on the interview, survey, or excavation teams; what our responsibilities would be in the evening lab. This morning, there was one more unexpected announcement: All of us, including the crew chiefs and field director, were furloughed from Friday night through Tuesday morning.

Such relief! She knew, I think, that we were stretched out emotionally and physically, and knew that if we were to continue learning and growing we would need down time. And so those with cars and not too far from home took off, leaving about ten of us on Saturday morning.

We slept late. Sprawled on the grass while we ate our peanut butter and fluff sandwiches. Drove into town and did our laundry. Mixed with the locals at a nearby bar.

On Sunday morning, we gathered over breakfast -- cold cereal and the week's leftover bread, we were on a $5-a-week food budget -- and became excited over a site that had not been excavated, and because of time constraints would probably never get a thorough survey. Perhaps, we wondered, we could do this today and tomorrow...we knocked on the door of the director's trailer, and using lots of enthusiasm and imprecise analysis, we explained our plan. She smiled, and said have fun.

So, neophytes all, we assembled ourselves into a crew. We packed the truck with coolers and sandwiches -- no surprise what they would be -- and surveying tools and shovels and notebooks and maps. For the next two days, we were a happy crew, planning and digging, knowing that by this doing we were becoming who we hoped to be.

When we finished late Monday afternoon, we reported our results to the director. Nothing, really; no lab work necessary. She smiled once more, said we did good work. Now, why don't you take the van and go out to dinner?

First stopping at the state park for a (cold) shower, we drove to the nearest big city, to a "real" restaurant, where we combined our finances for hot pizza! cold beer! and a night of pure laughter and joy.

What, really, were we celebrating? Our mini-project was not a "success." Our hunch that significant finds were lying beneath the surface was wrong. But we knew that we found nothing because nothing was to be found, and this knowing of "nothing" would be have its place in the final project report.

One more memory of this night. The past weeks of learning new skills, of creating a community of 30 people living and working and sleeping together, of getting through the pain of leaving those we loved, of adjusting to heat and bugs and lots of dirt, of required obedience that chafed and bit -- all of this, forgotten.

"We are alive. We are clean. Our bellies are full and our thirst is gone. We have good work. We have each other." This moment was overflowing, and we knew it.

But somewhere along the way just about everyone I have ever met falls into a coma, a sleep so deep we forget who and where we are, that we forget that every blessed moment is overflowing. This sleep, sadly, doesn't restore and refresh us. It only whittles away at our bodies and chews up our mind.

Someday, we will awaken.

Then -- what?

A slow journey to all,
Candace

2006-09-05T13:00:00.000-04:00

Many years ago, I was an archaelogist. My first field experience was an intensive three-month training directed by a former Marine who admitted that the purpose of the program was more than learning research methodology and acquiring proper field technique.

"We are here to weed out the weak," she -- yes, she -- would say.

In those days, and probably still today, archaeologists boasted that we were not mere "academics," dull head people who did nothing more than write papers and publish dreary articles and rarely strayed from the comforts of hearth and home.

No! Archaeologists forsook homely comforts in exchange for months of digging dirt, living in tents, drinking beer, contracting diseases social and tropical. Only in the off season did we write papers and publish dreary articles.

The rest of the year we exercised our "machismo," especially the women. Each day, it seemed, we needed to prove that we could dig our holes faster and finer than the men, carry 50 pounds at a run, and cheerfully survive without bathrooms or beds.

Full of young energy and limitless attitude, I thrived in this environment. Our director expected us to work in heat and rain, nine-ten hours in the field, limiting our food to two peanut butter-and-fluff sandwiches and our drink to 12 ounces of water. Then, it was two hours free time before several more hours of either lab work or a class.

Once in a while, we had a day off, when we clambered into the trucks for an hour's drive to a public park where -- how good it felt! -- we indulged in the cold-water-only showers. Usually, we stopped for ice cream cones on the way back to camp. This was as close to a heavenly experience as I ever had.

Then there was Sharon, the antidote.

We met on the first day, and friendship was immediate. Which was odd, since others on the project noticed how opposite our personalities. What we had in common was joyous amazement at the other's approach to life.

Just about everyone arrived for the field school with backpacks and functional clothing -- jeans, shorts, boots, trowels and knives, most of which we carried in our backpacks and duffel bags. Sharon came by car, equipped for a cruise. She arrived with a trunkful of matching luggage, filled with dresses and skirts, hose and heels, make-up, hair dryer (we had no source of electricity) -- and a Great Snail Attitude.

An example: During our back-from-the-field, two-hour free time, I would round up a few others for a late afternoon run, just to get some "real exercise." Others hiked to a pond for swimming, or got a jump on their field notes.

Sharon took a nap.

While most of us pretended to be excited or challenged by the director's command to walk waist-high through a creek "looking for artefacts," Sharon's expression clearly said, "Are you all crazy?" Ditto reaction when we slogged through mud, or worked days hauling dirt from pits that produced nothing. Mice in our sleeping bags and days of group diarrhea inspired similar expressions.

It was at moments such as these, and they did seem to occur more frequently as the months passed, that Sharon came forth with her brilliant summary of our situation:

"Humans are not meant to go backwards!"

She said this softly -- I never heard her voice raised, that would waste too much energy -- but with great moral force.

Soon, whenever this mantra was heard, the rest of us would harmonize with a litany of what, to us, represented the finest aspects of civilization, and what we missed the most.

Soft beds! Hot showers! Cold beer! Pizza! Dry socks! Dry underwear! Any underwear! (about this point, the subject moved in another direction...)

All of these are what I now think of as the "Snail Pleasures," the primary joys that move us forward.

And I write all of this today because I have come to the place in this story where I am ready to write a letter to the bishop. I will use formal language, one sentence only.

"I am removing myself from the process for Holy Orders."

But underneath the words, what I do not write, is the Great Snail Attitude shouting, "Are you crazy? Humans are not meant to go backwards!"

I have found the antidote for faith and belief, for proper behavior and ritual devotion, for obedience and obsequience.

It is soft beds, hot showers, cold beer...it is life, at snail speed.

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-09-04T17:15:00.000-04:00

James Joyce, one of the great writers of the past century, is remembered as a very, very slow writer. One of the more famous stories concerning his pace:

Friend, visiting Joyce: "Well, James, how many words have your written today?"

Joyce, holding his head in misery: "Seven."

Friend: "Seven! That's wonderful! Why, then, so sad?"

Joyce: "They're in the wrong order."

How to fix this jumble? By re-writing, over and over -- sometimes. And other times, after every possible order has been tried and the brain is incapable of conjuring one more iteration, the writer throws it all away, and starts over. She knows that this mess cannot be fixed, and it is with a bit of regret (so much time with no result!) but with excitement that she begins again with new words, another story.

Rich and I are halfway home, back at the same restaurant we discovered two nights before. The other restaurant, our "usual" place, has re-opened, but after a quick look we decide we have seen something better. Linen v. paper napkins? Fresh flowers v. none? Truffles v. white mushrooms?

How can we go back?

This time we choose the dining room, not the bar, and I examine the whole menu, not the few vegetarian options.

"Do you know where the chicken is from?" I ask the waitress. She doesn't, but promises to ask the chef. She does, returns quickly, I am satisfied. I know that place from my farming days. If they say "organic and free-ranging," I believe.

Rich orders fish, the wine, the salads.

"Chicken?" he says, shocked.

"Chicken."

"What will you do next?"

Write a letter to the bishop, this is I now know, using a fresh batch of words. The old ones are of no sense, not any more, and the menu I'm holding is filled with so many untried delights.

I have seen something better.

How can I go back?

2006-08-31T12:26:00.000-04:00

I awake slowly. Briefly, perhaps for no more than one second, I am engorged with no past, no future, no place. This is the magnificence of travel. Wherever it is, it is an empty, perfect room.

But fast, very fast the senses penetrate with their questions. What are you seeing, hearing, smelling? Where are we? What is the date, the time, the name of this place? What will we do today?

And the frightened summary of this whimpering chorus is: "We're in a tomb! Get up, get out!"

Ah, dear senses, relax. You don't live in a theologian's body any more. This is only an inn across the street from the hospital where Rich will soon have a one-year follow-up with his radiation oncologist. But, I admit, you did a good job naming the tomb. It is dark in here, isn't it? I'm not sure if it's dawn or noon. Our room is in the basement of the inn, and I hope it's not noon. I would hate to miss breakfast.

Rich is already gone for an early morning test. Today's agenda: Eat. Pack. Visit the oncologist. Receive the good news. Walk along the river. Eat. Travel halfway home, check in at the same bed-and-breakfast we came from yesterday. Eat.

"That's it?" the chorus wails. "What are you going to really do? What about our future plans? In whose body do we live?"

My future plan is to put some clothes on and check out the breakfast buffet before it's gone. Good! Still bagels left, I take two, pick up the free morning newspaper and a local newsletter promoting the city's adult education program.

Downstairs, back in the room, I turn on all of the lights, toss the newspaper into my pack for, perhaps, later reading, fill our traveling electric kettle with water for morning tea, and settle in with the bagels and butter and the adult education catalog.

Learn how to sail! Repair a bicycle! Make sushi! Create a website! Study the world's great religions! (Done this).

So many possibilities! The answer, dear senses, is this: We're traveling, and get ready to live in an empty, perfect room.

Candace

2006-08-28T10:25:00.000-04:00

"No Expectations"

Today I am moving slowly. As is true for many of us, it is not by choice. My back seized up yesterday, and so I am once more given an opportunity to develop awareness (ouch, that hurts!) and stillness (not much choice here) and gratitude (ah, it doesn't hurt as much).

But it is the potential for more that excites. Years ago, during one of the earlier and more prolonged pain episodes, I told someone what a rush it was to be able to drive again, and dress myself without too many contortions.

"You have low expectations, don't you?" she said.

I was crushed. Given where I had been, I thought these were pretty impressive achievements. If anything, from the perspective of months of immobility, these were sky-high expectations.

Looking back, I realize we were both wrong. The ideal snail position for growth, life, and transformation is the state of "no expectation." "High" or "low" really are the same, because they are "one" or the "other." Two choices, a rather sparse diet when in the realm of no expectation we can feast on the unknown, the unpredictable, and the unimaginable.

Such became my state of being while traveling with Rich into our future. When we left home, my "high expectation" was that I would be ordained as a priest while controlling my anger and disgust; the "low expectation" was that I would be ordained as a priest without controlling my anger and disgust.

Two choices, and both wrong.

The man at the bar, happily munching his steak and drinking his martini,
was gleeful not only because he had unexpectedly found what he was craving, but that he had escaped the "disgust," that is, the place that was not to his taste.

If I kept traveling to unknown places, with no expectation, what would I find?

Candace

2006-08-25T12:17:00.000-04:00

Vocation is the stuff we do with the daily of our lives. For many of us it is the answer to the let's-open-the-box-and-cram-you-in question, "What do you do?" All of us are too big to fit into this small space. For myself over the past decade or so, "vocation" became a mantra magically repeated when reason and insight and intutitive wisdom failed. It is shorthand for: "Priesthood is a calling from God. This is your vocation." But what if... Can't argue! The God shield repels all doubts.

But there is a deeper summons. It is to live life as a vacation. Vacation's Latin root is "vacare," to leave empty. Only in this emptiness, when we unplug all that we have been told to believe, and how to behave, and who we are -- and let this flow out, each day, will we hear not only what we should do, but who we are.

In this spirit, I leave the Bishop's letter sprawled on the kitchen counter as Rich and I head east. We stop halfway at a country inn. We have been here before, and have always gone to the same restaurant for dinner. We walk by: Closed for renovations!

What next?

At the end of the street is a much more elegant place with linen tablecloths and silverware and fresh flowers on each table.

Why not?

"Bar or dining room? The menu's the same," the hostess says.

The bar area looks more hip, more people are dressed in black, the music jazzier.

We choose the bar where we are soon filling up with wine and fish and pasta, and I'm still not sure from what, exactly, I am gone. Or am I? I still speak of how I can fulfill the Bishop's requirements, of how I can make this madness work.

Then another guest arrives and sits, alone, at the bar. He has the look of an urban refugee finding himself in a small town where, at this moment, he realizes all will be well.

Martini! And steak! Such primal comforts, done dry and rare, loosen him up. He tells the bartender he has come for a few days rest and relaxation at a nearby retreat center, but the quiet and all-veggie diet is driving him crazy. What a relief that he can escape to real drink, real food! This will be, he decides, a great vacation.

I listen, and slowly the box is opening.

More next week -- a slow journey to all,
Candace

2006-08-23T10:37:00.000-04:00

The letter has been long expected, and the contents are not a surprise. I have been recommended, the bishop writes, for ordination to the diaconate. This is one step closer to the realization of my vocation as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

But I also know what will follow in the next paragraphs, and rage is grinning and taunting me: "What's taking you so long? Get out now!" My eyes skim over the additional "requirements;" random bullets shot to remind me that this vocation is not about change, growth, and life, but about survival and suck-it-up. Who am I, and what have I become?

Rich and I are almost out the door, beginning a two-day, eight-hour trip for his annual cancer check-up.

"Look at this," I say.

He just shrugs and shakes his head. My lover and deepest friend for over half of our lives, he knows.

He has watched this vocation eat away my body and spirit, leaving me gaunt of face and empty of heart. Although there are days I can go fork to fork with a professional football player (proportionate to my size, anyway) keeping on a healthy amount of flesh is a struggle. It's all burning off.

Once, he was looking at a photograph of a refugee -- so many possibilities, I don't remember where -- and he turned to me, then looked back at the photo, then back to me.

"You look worse than a refugee," he said in conclusion.

I couldn't argue. He was right. I was nothing more than a slug.

Refugees, enduring far more than I ever have, know where their home is; they carry it on their backs and in their hearts. They are the enduring snails of society. But somewhere along the way my self separated, and all that I carried was a coat of slime that wouldn't come off, and followed me wherever I went.

"I'm gone," I tell Rich as we load the car.

"Gone?"

"Gone."

Forget about vocation. It's vacation time.

Candace

2006-08-22T10:57:00.000-04:00

There are no snails in my neighborhood, at least none matching the three-fisted girth of my Pacific Island friend. But there are plenty of slugs. While a snail is defined as "a slow-moving mollusc with a spiral shell into which it can withdraw its whole body," the slug is, my dictionary says, merely "a small mollusc like a snail without a shell."

In other words, the poor slug is missing a home, a shelter, a safe place for its whole self. No wonder, if caught out in the midday heat, it shrivels and dies. No wonder, too, that something in me reacts with revulsion when I find one crawling between my toes. All I can think of in that moment is to rid myself of this slime as quickly as possible.

A snail path is a metaphor for a journey to wholeness, enlightenment, sanctification. In Tibet, it is said that when someone embarks on a trip they are sent off with the prayer, "Have a slow journey." Only then can the right choices be made at each step. Go too fast, and all we have left at the end are feelings of relief or regret or I-think-I-missed something...

Going "slowly," however, is not enough. No matter how measured its motion, a slug will always be homeless. Because the purpose of a journey is not to "find" a home separate from our self, but to know that the home and the self are one.

Almost to the day, three months ago, I left slugdom behind. More next time --

Have a slow journey,
Candace

2006-08-21T11:12:00.000-04:00

For one week, I had a snail companion. We shared an island in the Pacific Ocean, where I would run in the morning, swim in the afternoon, and then go off to hike on a volcano. By nine at night I fell into bed, my body used up by all of this motion and an irritable one-note mind saying, "Do you know what time zone you're in? We're five days apart!"

My snail friend? Each day, I would find her in approximately the same spot, slowly moving along the same path, effortlessly carrying her rainbow home. With her good looks, languid gait, and photograph-me-I'm gorgeous-attitude, she seemed so "at home" in this resort of tropical flowers and palm trees and posturing tourists.

In fact, I learned, neither she nor the flowers nor the trees were "at home." All were tourists, imported to improve the local economy. Unlike the temporary human visitors, though, these guests had no desire to impress. They didn't have to. Even though their daddy wasn't born in this place, it didn't matter. They were home.

Everyone needs a snail friend, and it is the belief of this blog that we can all be snail friends. This doesn't eliminate the marathon runners, but it does bring to task the runners who don't know they're running.

I look forward in the coming days to the consideration of all that matters in living a snail life -- and of coming home.

Go slow,
Candace