Here’s a joiku, in honor of a moment at the Blue Hole last week with my small twin great-nieces… seems only yesterday I was feeling my own legs learning how to kick forward exactly like that.

two little fishes:
one outstrips the other
legs kicking just so.

[more joiku here]

Her eyes opened, and opened all the way, and stayed open. I said, “this is your daughter, this is Kye” and she nodded once, decisively: “I know that,” said her nod. “Would you like me to tell you the news, or sit quietly with you?” No response. I considered. What was there to lose? I started talking.

Her eyes stayed on mine with total attention. When the news was the kind she likes (“I’m going to go up to see M. this week.”) her face would melt into a quiet little beam. When it was said news (“there’s been a terrible oil spill in the Gulf,” and “the economy is not good”) her forehead creased in distress. She was awake; she knew me; she was there.

Forty-five minutes later? an hour? I asked, “have I worn out your brain?” A rusty little “No” came in response–the first speech I’ve heard in a couple of months. So I told her about what I’m writing (the Tao Te Ching commentary), and her mouth made an ‘oh!’ shape, and she she smiled.

There’s no telling what I’ll find next time I go, but what a miracle and a gift that time was!

I found mangoes on a street corner a little while ago, on my way back from seeing my mother–a whole box of them, sold to me off the back of a pickup truck up from the Rio Grande Valley.

They were sold to me by what looked to be a couple of brothers. They were in their early twenties. One of them was holding an enormous exuberant sign that said ‘MANGOES’. I saw the sign, thought about stopping but the corner was busy. But I found a quieter place to park and walked back along a patch of sidewalk walled with enormous weeds, then through the archway of an abandoned pear tree covered with half-ripe pears.

The box was mine for $5. As I left, one of the brothers smiled and said ‘God bless.’

At the next corner were a man and woman sitting at a bus stop. The man was holding up a tiny sign that said ‘hungry’. I had a box full of mangoes! Unexpected ones! I was going to give them to my son and his girlfriend, but that little tiny sign and that young patient couple sitting there–of course I had to stop again.

I asked “do you like mangoes?” They nodded. I said I’d just found them at the last corner. I told them to take as many as they wanted. They each took two, which still left lots. And I had the pleasure of seeing them grinning at each other, as I left.

Later, I wondered whether either of them had a pocket knife–or did they use their teeth to open up the fruit? Maybe I should start carrying a pocket knife again!

Since my post yesterday I’ve run across a few more organizations who are crucially involved with the Gulf oil spill in several different ways:

• American Bird Conservancy is mapping the locations of important bird areas in relation to the oil spill, among other contributions.  They have a detailed page about birds and the spill, including links for volunteer opportunities in each state.  They also are accepting donations on that page.
• The Center for Biological Diversity has a LOT of pertinent and accurate information about the oil spill; they are accepting donations to their Gulf disaster fund to fight future drilling and also have a page with other opportunities to take action, including links to petitions
• The Greater New Orleans Foundation is accepting donations to a fund to help affected fishermen and their families.

All three of these organizations have been awarded 4 stars by Charity Navigator, which means they are very very good at using donations effectively.

Also, I’m thinking through how we might hook up the volunteers with people who could help sponsor their travel expenses.  Do you have ideas about how to do this, or resources that might help it happen?  Please contribute your ideas in the comments below…

This is a listing of a variety of specific ways you can help with the Gulf oil spill.

In compiling this list, my starting place was the article Heroes needed: how to help the victims of the Gulf Coast oil spill. I’ve added more specific information and live links, to make it easier to get involved.  If you can’t help in person, there are still several one-click opportunities to donate to the organizations who are on the ground and helping with wildlife rescue and cleanup.  No donation is too small.

· The National Wildlife Federation is working with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana; to get involved with these organizations you could donate to the NWF oil spill fund to help fund wildlife protection and cleanup in affected areas, or volunteer as a spotter for distressed wildlife, or volunteer to help with cleanup
· The International Bird Rescue and Research Center has sent a team of specialists to the region to help with oiled wildlife. If you spot oiled wildlife, call the Wildlife Reporting Hotline at 866-557-1401. Please note that oiled birds (or any other oiled wildlife) should not be captured, but reported to the hotline.  A couple of good ways to get involved with IBRRC are to adopt a bird, or set up a monthly donation.
· The National Audubon Society is recruiting volunteers to be trained to help wash oiled birds. They are also encouraging members of the public to contact the Interior Department and encourage them to halt the expansion of offshore oil drilling in the eastern United States.  The Audubon Society is asking that people NOT call them–please contact them online, as their phone lines are inundated.
· Alabama residents are asked to contact the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program at 251-431-6409; or contact the Mobile Baykeeper at 251- 433-4229 to volunteer anywhere along the Gulf Coast, or volunteer online at the Safe the Gulf website; you can also donate to the Coastal Estuary Restoration Fund (there is a field in the form where you can designate that your donation be used to help with the oil spill).
· Save Our Seabirds is a Florida bird rescue group that is looking for volunteers as its response team prepares to help oiled wildlife. To help, call 941-388-3010.  They also welcome donations.  Their volunteer coordinator has posted a list of sister organizations you could contact, as well.
· The Barataria Terrebonne National Estuary’s G.R.I.T. (Gulf Response Involvement Team) is looking for donations of life vests and other supplies as needed (their webpage says they will keep updating current needs).

The following suggestions were contributed by Clairee, a volunteer, in the comments field of the ‘Heroes’ article cited above:

MOST IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Just because you might not be able to get there in person doesn’t mean you can’t help in a very direct way. Volunteer to help in your local wildlife shelter to help take up the slack of those trained individuals who are about to leave for the gulf, or want to go but can’t find anyone to help cover their duties at home. Plus, you’ll start getting that wildlife experience in doing so. Win/win.

Sponsor a volunteer. If you know someone who is about to go to the gulf, sponsor them. Travel expenses add up. A gift certificate to a gas station might be just the thing to ease the financial burden on a volunteer. Or if you have a coworker who needs to get off of work to go volunteer, cover shifts for them. Do whatever you can to help that trained volunteer get to the site and do their job.

A joiku for the Gulf’s creatures, great and small…

Teeming water world,
Our carelessness has touched you.
Please don’t die. No. Please live!

Last night I saw video footage of the BP oil spill here and here.  I had already been deeply concerned about it; seeing the footage, I was grief-stricken.

At first, I was focused on the horror of it.  I saw that the thing had already happened. I felt the death of all that life very very keenly.  My heart hurt.

Fortunately, I’ve spent enough time with grief to know a few things about how to navigate the territory.  I shifted modes, and prayed: “how is one to relate to this?”

The answer was a shift in how I was carrying the disaster.  Instead of something that I couldn’t do anything about, it became something I could help with.  I didn’t yet know how I could help, but I did know that there would be a way of lending my particular strengths.

This morning as I woke I saw those images again in my mind’s eye.  But today I saw the images peacefully, as a thinker and troubleshooter.  (This is a big part of what I do for a living.)

Looking at the whole thing from this new perspective, I saw an instance of something I see all the time at a smaller scale: people frantically continuing to do what isn’t working because they are caught in a particular interpretation of the situation.

I noticed that the word carrying the heaviest load in the oil spill disaster is ‘containment’.  Thousands of people are trying very very hard to surround that oil.  The thinking goes, “it should have been prevented, but now that it’s happened, we’ve got to contain it.”

But it’s becoming apparent that it’s too big to contain.  The last words I heard on one of the videos last night were, “for the first time, I’m seeing that it’s hopeless.”

Right here, I see something crucial: the speaker was equating ‘uncontainable’ with ‘hopeless’.  But that’s an error in thought.  Containment isn’t working, but that doesn’t mean that the situation is hopeless.  What it does mean, is that we have to think differently here.

The second video I watched showed the leak itself.  This is the root of the problem.  When BP tried to cap it (a form of containment) it didn’t work because inside the container, the leak itself was still a leak.

What we need is not to contain the leak, but to stop it:  to mend that wound.  Now I begin to think of a gushing artery, and to wonder what would happen if we were to bring skilled surgeons together in the same room with the kind of engineers who mend enormous leaks that happen under pressure.  I think ‘tourniquet’: take the pressure off enough to be able to work at the site.

These thoughts are very unskilled of course; I don’t actually know enough here to think the next thoughts.  But it’s a possible direction.

But this particular possible direction is not my real message here.  My real message is the meta-direction, and I want to say something to Obama in particular, here:

You won the election because you never allowed yourself to get caught in a defensive position.  You didn’t let your opponent define your next moves.  You took in reality very accurately, and then you thought three steps ahead of it.  This is your strength.  We need it here.

The oil that’s already spilled, is spilled.  We can’t contain it, but we can work to mend. Obama, your job as our leader in this moment is to cast the nets widely for thinkers who know a lot, from their day in day out work of mending this kind of  thing.  Let ‘this kind of thing’ be generous enough to hold a variety of kinds of thinking.

Bring these thinkers together, face to face.  Don’t let BP try to handle this alone.  They’re in panic mode, they’re stuck merely responding.

And when the flow has been staunched, the next task will be to find how to think about this new ground zero: not as a dead zone, but as … what?  That question, I’ll leave open.  But let’s not leave it just to the ‘experts’, okay?

I want to tell you about how I relax and also get things done.

Last week I found myself saying, ‘I wish I could get away for a couple of weeks!’ A couple of weeks off when I’m ready, might be ideal –but sometimes, for a million good reasons, now really isn’t the time. And yet, those million good reasons have started to feel heavy… life has become stressful… I really need the break.

Instinctively, I begin to reach for what it is I need. I sink into the feeling of the need to relax. I focus on the exact feeling of what it’s like to get away from it all: that tranquil, spacious, no-pressure, spontaneous, at-ease feeling.

And then, all of a sudden, I find myself remembering that I can have this right now! It happens as I say to myself’ yes, that’s what I need–but…’ and the next moment the ‘yes… but’ flips, and becomes ‘but… yes!’: and I’m back on permanent vacation.

And there are just two things I need to do, to stay on vacation and also do my day:

First, I thin out what I put on my plan for the day–mostly just my appointments stay (and I’m always careful not to overbook those).
I’ll also keep one or two other things that have to do with something I care about. What I’m doing is making lots of room for responding spontaneously, in the moment.

Second, about the things that could turn into a ‘gotta’ on my list, I ask myself–’what’s a relaxing way to handle this?’

Answering that question this morning, I found myself walking to the bank with my deposits.

On the way there I enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air after last night’s rain; as I made the deposit I chatted with the teller who also likes to walk in the morning; and on the way back, I sank deep into feeling my body in motion.

And right now, I’m feeling how much I like the people whose checks I deposited. There’s a glow around the whole experience–
instead of a job, it’s turned into a nourishing, relaxing, high point of the day.

This is a sort of double joiku, written for the ravishing wind I just came in from:

my lover the wind
tickles me on this hill top
constant if unseen
faithful in early summer
by August you’ll be gone

Catching up on posts to the focusing discussion list this morning, I was delighted to come across a poem that meant a lot to me a decade ago: “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

I was particularly struck by this:

Because I was reading it freshly after a long absence–and reading it within the context of focusing–I took it as an invitation  to ‘source my own life from the presence of beauty’ right at this moment.  As I accepted that invitation, this is what happened:

I began by asking myself: am I sensing the presence of beauty right now?

… yes!

So for a long minute I simply sat with the palpable presence of beauty, before any words or thoughts about it…

And then, looking out the window, I saw a bird soar up to clear the building.

…yes! that’s an instance of this presence!

‘Sourcing myself from‘ this presence… now what does that phrase invite, in this moment?

I sat quietly with the feeling of the invitation, with the palpablility of the invitation, just waiting…

…Ah, the pace!  It wants the exact pace that has room for the soaring bird.  Sitting here planning my day, it wants me to make room for the bird!

I felt a little mist of tears–gratitude for the bird, and for the gift of this poem, and for being reminded of it:  for the invitation to shift my day into a softer slower key.