Growing Up Walden

One of my father’s favorite books was Walden by Henry David Thoreau. He loved Thoreau’s immersion in the natural world and his emphasis on a simple life. Recently, when I was watching a PBS documentary on Thoreau and his time living alone in the woods at Walden Pond, I remembered my childhood in Illinois and how my dad had created his own version of Walden on the five acres where my parents built a house nine years before I was born. The land had a number of old oak trees and a couple of streams running through it but was otherwise mainly open fields. By the time I was a young child playing there, my dad and mom had planted shade trees, evergreens, bushes, vegetable and flower gardens, a fruit orchard, and berry patches. The vibrant beauty of Nature surrounded me every day. Without realizing it, I was growing up immersed in Walden consciousness.

“Simplify, simplify, simplify,” my dad would often quote Thoreau. No wonder I inherited an aversion to complications and clutter—and a love of Nature’s beautiful simplicity. When I read Walden in college, it all came together for me. Thoreau’s writing, as well as that of other Transcendentalists like Emerson, aligned with my heart and soul. Thoreau’s small wooden cabin in the forest by Walden Pond seemed to call to me. A number of years later, I moved to Massachusetts, and Walden became a special sanctuary for me where I often walked the trails and gazed at the trees, water, and sky. In any season, it radiated peace and tranquility. It was as if Thoreau’s solitary spirit watched over and protected it.

When my parents flew from Chicago to Boston to visit me, two dear friends drove us out to Walden so that my dad could see it in person. It was a special moment for all of us because we knew how greatly he admired Thoreau and his philosophy. My father continued to plant mini-Waldens in other Illinois locations where my parents lived in later years. And I too have created “Waldens” in the various backyards (or porches) of houses where I have had an apartment.

Currently, my partner Anne and I live in a condo which faces a woods thick with deciduous trees and evergreens. Bird song fills the air when I open our deck doors at sunrise, and we hear spring peepers or summer crickets trilling after dark. Walden once again synchronistically surrounds me, the perfect circle of a lifetime. Early in my life, I learned that the wonders of the Earth are ever-present; every day I see them wherever I live. I am deeply grateful to Thoreau, my dad, and all those magical years of “growing up Walden.”
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Artwork above: “Thoreau’s View,” by Anne Katzeff

On My Way Through…

“Maybe all we really are is spirit, the spark that draws people to us, the trail we leave behind.”
—Steve Thomas, Spirits Passing Through

In the past couple of years, several friends of mine have passed to the other side, the inevitable destination we call death. In grieving their loss and in contemplating my own future transition, I’ve felt myself coming into a different awareness of living and dying: less specific, more undefined and free-flowing, without parameters. We know so little of what life and death actually are. We think of them as a beginning and an end, but that’s a mental construct. What if there is only Presence, which never begins or ends; it just is? What if humanity itself is one Spirit, made up of sparks that together constitute life on Earth?

I remember my deceased friends as the spirit they embodied in their human forms: dancer/poet, musician/painter, sculptor, political activist. Yet now, they feel greater than those particular creative expressions, more inclusive of all consciousness, within and beyond their individual lifetimes. The longer I live, on my way through the human experience, the more I too feel greater than my physical form and its expressions. I am a writer, but what I write comes through me not from me. And the love I feel for my friends and for my life has no beginning or end. There is an infinite Presence that permeates everything and everyone and stretches to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, and beyond.

I guess what I’m trying to describe is soul, which is at the core of all human beingness and makes itself known through the heart. When I love my life partner, a close friend, a beautiful poem, or a bird singing at dawn, my soul’s presence moves through me into the world. It becomes one with all I see and hear. Soul defies description, yet it fills the world with light endlessly. Our souls came to Earth to be embodied light, to individuate oneness for a lifespan and then flow back into the One.

Perhaps the longer we live, the more we touch on moments of awareness that stretch beyond habitual parameters and open us completely to the universe. Actually, we are the universe, all of it. The universe lives as our souls throughout life, death, and eternity. We know this fully when we die, but that wisdom is within us now. And our life experiences bring it forth. As my life unfolds, the door to infinity opens wider and becomes more welcoming, less frightening. I can see myself and every one of us as infinite spirits of Presence, on our way through, together….
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Note: Thank you to my good friend Steve Thomas for the wonderful quote from his CD Spirits Passing Through.


Musical Voices: Poetry and Song

My parents took me to my first live musicals in Chicago (My Fair Lady and The Music Man) when I was 10. Around the same time, my aunt and uncle gave me my first book of poems, by e.e. cummings. I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to musical theater and poetry. Over the years, the voices of countless singers and poets have filled my life with so much joy and inspiration. Recently, I’ve been listening nonstop to two extraordinary artists: spoken-word, nonbinary poet Andrea Gibson and Broadway actor/singer Jonathan Groff. My heart gives a standing ovation every time I hear one of them.

Last summer Anne and I rode the train from Boston to New York to see the biomusical Just in Time, with Jonathan Groff in the title role as singer Bobby Darin. The show was so spectacular that we went again in January! I keep playing the studio recordings, reliving the music and the sweetness and power of Jonathan’s vocals. In December, I came across the film Come See Me in the Good Light, the story of Andrea Gibson’s life and recent death from cancer. I also discovered numerous live poetry performances on their website. Andrea’s melodic speaking voice and wise words about life and death are mesmerizing.

There is something both human and heavenly flowing through these two; I feel their voices vibrating within me (goosebumps!), and I want to hear them again and again. In so much of Andrea’s writing, there are reminders to see each moment as ecstatic, what the soul came here to experience on Earth. My eyes and my heart are wide open as I listen, feeling wonder and awe. I experience something similar when I hear Jonathan, his voice a dynamic magical bridge into the heart of each song he sings.

What rises within me is a deep desire to, as Andrea says, hold each second, each person, sacred. To open every cell in my body to astonishment, awe at being alive, the wonder I was born with, as was every child. We can so easily lose it, or just forget. The poets and musicians are here to remind us to wake up, to remember. Each morning’s sun will never come again; it all goes by so quickly. Yet it is also eternal.

Awareness of mortality/eternity reminded Andrea to see the absolute blessing in being alive—the laughter and tears, the poignancy as well as the peace. All vividly expressed in beautiful poems. In Just in Time, Bobby Darin’s musical life is cut short at 37 by a chronic heart condition. He was driven to live every moment as “once in a lifetime,” and Jonathan Groff, playing that role, movingly reminds audiences to fully appreciate each remarkable moment of their own lives.

That message is relevant for so many of us now, at the deepest level, as we try to find balance living through difficult times. So whenever you hear a poem that moves your soul or a song that brings tears to your eyes, pause and completely receive that gift. Fill your heart with the wonder that surrounds you in each second of your life. Remember to find it everywhere. Just outside the door, the birds are singing musical sonnets; a street artist may be performing an original song or poem. Every single one of them is a unique, unrepeatable voice in this world.

Andrea Gibson, “Tincture”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyglHx86Kvk

Jonathan Groff and Broadway cast, recording Just in Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPn41fmt8s.

There Is No “Other”

Humans have invented all kinds of concepts and labels to distance themselves from one another and convince themselves they are somehow special or better. We view the world through artificial lenses such as race, religion, species, gender, sexual preference, age, nationality, politics; we see “other” everywhere we look. And, historically, not others to be accepted and embraced, but others to be avoided or ostracized, often to the point of war and genocide. Underneath it all is fear: fear of survival, fear that we, and our belief systems, will die while others survive. Ultimately, it’s denial of the impermanence of life. 

Throughout the decades, people have built statues, monuments, roads, bridges, and starred sidewalks, all with human names, to create the illusion of permanence, immortality. We get lost in identification with our own physical form and attachment to all the transitory forms that surround us. The human mind wants to believe it can make a permanent impression on the world and somehow survive the life/death trajectory. Everything seen as “other” becomes a threat to that desperate survival need.  Yet, we are all going to die eventually. No exceptions. Neither fame, wealth, nor power will keep the door from closing. Mother Earth herself may not survive in her present form. The universe is eternally fluid, and at the soul level so are we.

Sooner or later, we all return to the same infinite energy source from which we emerged. This Source goes by many names: Spirit, Soul, God, Light, Infinite Consciousness. Within it, there is no “other.” There is nothing but seamless Presence, Oneness. And actually, that Oneness is what exists here on Earth as well, behind the veil of form. Perhaps we came here, in these particular lifetimes, to realize that and fully live it now, as all differences become obviously insubstantial and dissolve everywhere around us. We begin to see that we will leave this life without any part of our physical form, including opinions, beliefs, likes/dislikes. In that awareness, there is no separation or polarity. When the illusion of “other” falls away, compassion and love emerge, and the full light of Source energy shines through us all.

This is the journey for every one of us alive at this time. To stop looking at others as wrong or right, better or less, likable or unlikable, but instead just another human version of ourselves, trying to understand life and mortality. To be fully human is to accept it all and let it all go—into the infinite Presence that makes up all things. There is no “other”; there is only each and all of us, together as One.

Deep Dive or Distraction?

More and more these days, I find myself seeking empty space, deeper stillness within me and outside me. There are so many distractions in our lives now: news updates, emails, texts, apps, ads, online videos and articles, mental lists, busy streets, crowded stores. It can be a real challenge to find a place of silence and solitude where the mind and heart can be at rest. A sanctuary for the spirit.

Perhaps the key is to carry that sanctuary within. I don’t have to “seek” if it’s always inside me. And the more awareness I have of my own inner stillness, the more I experience it everywhere. Every sound can be a meditation bell calling me to quiet Presence. Every breath a softening into silence.

So my spiritual “practice” now involves asking the inner questions: “Does this take me deeper?” “Does it touch my heart and soul?” If not, it’s probably a distraction that it’s best to acknowledge and then let go of. Perhaps a hundred times a day. But with every letting go, I release with greater ease and go deeper. Deeper into nothing…

What is there to say about nothingness, within which eternity lies? We were there before we were born, and we’ll be there again after death. Actually we are there now too, but we are not fully aware of it. On a spiritual path, we gradually open our consciousness to the fullness of nothing, the depth and sacredness of it. As we grow older, we may realize there really is no separation, and in doing so feel a desire to consciously experience it completely within our lifetime: Emptiness and fullness as One. Oneness as all.

The poet William Blake expressed this seeming dichotomy perfectly: “To see the world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower/To hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour.” Maybe the poets and sages are the wayshowers here. In addition to the small children and wise elders who see oneness without a word spoken.

 All this is within each of us, in this present moment. Empty your hands and your mind, and stand alone with nothing but silent spirit surrounding you and within you. On the other side of distraction is the deepest experience possible of All That Is. This is heaven on Earth; this is everything, everywhere; before, during, and after life. Nothing in all its fullness.