Music and Mindfulness

By Karen Beetle

More than anything else, mindfulness is the practice of paying attention, of noticing what moves in our inner and outer worlds. Being alive is deeply fluid and to be in touch with this fluidity is to know this quality as a powerful human resource. To lose touch with our essential fluidity is often the beginning of physical and emotional problems. Often in therapy, movement of any kind is a sign that change and growth is underway – even if it is not visible on the surface. Judi England writes in her recent post about the power of music to enrich our lives and to support this dance of aliveness within.

Earlier this summer, I was having a conversation with one of my daughter’s high school friends about her upcoming college plans. After a rocky start last fall, she had come to claim her intention to major in music therapy and was switching colleges to begin a new program. And as I walked away from her I was delighted and full of happiness for this new opportunity in her world and the claiming of this new direction. I was also thinking – below the surface – I don’t really have any experience with music therapy and its benefits. At least not in my own life.

Over the next weeks, memories of my high school piano teacher came drifting back to me. I began playing clarinet in fourth grade. Band was fun and music lessons provided a very welcome break in the school day, but I was not in love with the clarinet. In ninth grade, I convinced my mother to get a piano and began taking piano lessons. As the emotional waters in my own life became more and more turbulent over the next months, silence and loneliness moved into my world. Every week, my piano teacher came into my home, sat with me on the bench and created with me a world of movement and life.

Duets were our favorite. Old time spirituals and light melodies rocked the emotion that I needed to move in my world. We switched parts often and I loved the challenge and the power of playing together. I also loved her presence next to me on the bench - sure and steady and kind. She never chided me for not practicing when my high school life got busier - and was more focused on what we created together than what I had or hadn’t done. Her visits in my home during these years brought warmth and care into my world at a very painful time. Her companionship ultimately helped me to find my way back to myself. As I write these words, my gratitude for her care and presence is immeasurable.

It was the joy and power of music that formed our bond – that allowed us to find each other and to build a relationship that celebrated presence, aliveness, and expression. The power of music therapy was closer than I knew. In a subtle yet profound way, it walked with my through the darkness and helped me find my way.

Karen Beetle is a therapist and mindfulness teacher in Albany, N.Y. This piece appeared first on the Albany Times Union's Holistic Health blog.

Dreaming Big

By Kellie Meisl

I have been dreaming big all summer. I had a particularly wonderful dream in July:

A childhood friend from whom I have been estranged invites me to a theme party at her home. All of my friends from past and present will be in attendance. I accept the invitation.

When I arrive at the home of my former friend, I must navigate her steep driveway to get to her house; it is made of crushed pink glass seemingly melted together, making a very beautiful path, albeit a slightly slippery slope, to climb. I do so with care and focus, placing my feet just so as to make it carefully up the incline without slipping.

This dream encourages me. I am awed by the fact that I accepted the invitation to attend this party that will contain so many personal facets (past and present friends) of my life. The party is themed and the theme seems to be me facing my past and present in its entirety...

Driveways have been a dream theme this summer and a friend pointed out those driveways are entryways as well as places to exit from. Perhaps I am being shown that I can come and go as I please.

I associate the pink crushed glass with the heart. It is a heart that has been crushed, yet nonetheless mended back together into a work of beauty, a path I enter deliberately, placing my soles (soul) with care as I navigate. The climb is steep and seems symbolic of what it takes to heal sometimes. It isn't always easy, but if I focus and move forward on this heart path I will arrive.

I like that all my allies await me too.

This dream inspires me to create my art, more goddess collages that contain shattered pieces of my great grandmother's heirloom china, gifted to me from my mother, prior to the collapse that crushed them.

About a month after my dream I went on a trip out west with my husband and son to visit the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park. We also toured three deserts, the Sonoran Desert, the Painted Desert and the Mojave Desert.

It was an amazing journey and I found myself climbing many a steep pink, pebbled path in heat close to 100 degrees at times and to heights of 8500 miles above sea level. Perhaps the theme of the party in my dream was this journey.

Yet, I did not recall the dream until I returned and began to write about my experience of traveling the thousand mile excursion to these awe inspiring locations.

My encounter with these distinctive landforms brought a bevy of emotions. I wrote a poem about my feelings that surfaced as I met up with the glorious landforms, this was the only way I could put into words what I had encountered. The excursion truly was a dream, quite visceral and almost beyond words.

Painted land…scarlet, crimson, pink and rosy… salmon, peach…golden…emerald, teal…azure, purple, white…

Navajo land, simple life, Spirit life, honor Mother Earth, Father Sky…healing land, wounded people, healing people, Diné …

One thousand miles, hours on the road to reflect, memories surface provoked by faces in the rock…

I am a child, full of wonder…seeing this world for the first time…

I feel this land, I rejoice, I laugh, I sing…

Nestled with those I love…I remember…

My mind wanders to struggles, less severe than those of the humankind whose land I travel, but as many layers…
I feel this land, I am angry, I mourn, I grieve…

Descending with baby steps into the gaping hole, I am swathed by Mother, as Father calls out stern warnings to pay attention…
I feel this land, I cry, I gasp, I am afraid but I move forward…

Spiraling upward I sweat, I huff, I clamber, exerting to ascend, I soar with the condor for just a brief moment… my confidence builds…

I feel this land, , I am unsure, I am unsteady; I take leap of faith…

Encircled within deep red rock, I pause to reflect, wade into the baptismal waters, a new beginning…

I feel this land and I am overcome; I am humbled, I am resuscitated…

I seek, I observe, I move with intention, I excavate artifacts within the stratum, I breathe and embrace the present moment…lost soul parts are returned to me, I am a child of forty-eight…

I feel this land, I say one prayer: Thank you.

A week after returning home I have this dream:

I am at an art venue, it is large and open, filled with recycled materials. There are windows all around me. Others are there and we have come to make art projects. We are free to choose whatever materials we want. A female picks a piece of clay that is lumpy and when worked on, reveals a face. I like this material. The face catches my attention. I choose to work with the clay. I take it and mold it into a heart, pushing on it with my palm and working it hard to keep it in shape; its consistency is like putty in my hand…


Writer Kellie Meisl is a visual artist in Pittsfield, Massachusetts who often works out of waking and night dreams. This piece appeared first on her blog, called WALK. Her website is at KellieMeislDreamArt.

Memories of Hurricane Andrew!

By Judith England


Well, the wind is still howling outside, but it looks as if our “Irene Encounter” is about to end as quickly as an ill-fated romance.

I know there’s been lots of talk about over-preparedness, and hurricane hysteria, and much-ado-about-nothing in general, but allow me to post a brief counterpoint here.

Erring on the side of caution, particularly when it comes to the enormity of disaster that might have happened in New York City, isn’t a mistake. It’s always nice to say after the fact – “So OK, A little wind a little rain, so what!” So now we all have a little extra bottled water, a few extra batteries, and some tins of tuna that will keep into the next millennia. So what.

August 24th, 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit Homestead Florida.

They called it “The Big One” -- it was Category Five -- and so it was. I arrived at the Miami Airport on August 27th intending to stay as long as needed to help my family, and then, to join in Red Cross Relief efforts.

No matter what the reports said, no matter what images came across on the television, nothing could prepare me for what I saw.

Heading south from the airport, familiar terrain became less and less so. Landmarks flattened. No street signs. Foliage stripped as if by napalm. Buildings reduced to rubble.

My brother’s house was heavily damaged.

For the next week and a half we worked in 90-plus degree heats trying to cover the gaps in his roof. We woke early to try to get in a good solid three hours before the heat and humidity became intolerable. Afternoon thunderstorms came like clockwork.

There was no power, no mail, and no safe drinking water for almost 3 weeks. We shared what we had with neighbors. I had brought a propane stove and knew how to use it from camping days. We fed anyone who was around.

The tale of my work with the Red Cross is another story unto itself. The homeless, the terrified children, the injured, those we went in search of and never found in trailer parks that now resembled an angry giant’s playground.

Now I knew that Irene wasn’t going to pack the wallop of Andrew. A Tropical storm vs. a Category 5 Hurricane is no contest.

But still, preparedness is a good idea. And it’s wise not to let this storm make us cynical about predictions.

How did I spend my day today? I made a number of calls to friends, particularly women living by themselves with a single question, “Do you feel safe?” I kept in touch with my family, managed to have a nap, and generally just give myself permission to do nothing other than ride our the storm.

I take Irene too, as an exercise in surrender. She would have her way with us regardless of how prepared we were. But, no matter the outcome mindful is always better than manic.

During the height of the storm I noticed that birds, even the tiniest hummingbird were still taking advantage of our feeders. I took my cue from them. No matter what, life has to go on.

Writer Judith England, a registered nurse, yoga instructor and massage therapist, writes the Holistic Health blog on the Albany Times Union. She is a frequent contributor to MyStoryLives.

Drama and Disaster -- How Do We React?

Note to readers: The following post appeared at about 11 a.m. on Sunday, August 28, when Hurricane Irene's full wrath had not been visited on upstate New York and New England. In the aftermath of the destruction, this post appears rather cavalier and insensitive, and for that I am deeply sorry. I would certainly not have written this post this way on Monday, August 29th. To see the devastation and destruction visited on so many communities is heartbreaking. The point I was trying to make here, however, is that it feels like we are forever landing in CNN's war room with Wolf Blitzer, witnessing another tragedy. To me, the worry and anxiety set up by what often feels like media frenzy and hype have itself damaging consequences for our collective psyche. In light of what's happened with Irene, difficult questions arise: how should we prepare for emergencies? How much preparation is enough? Probably everyone would agree that we should take every possible precaution; if even one life is saved by being prepared, then our efforts have paid off. But can we have preparation without hysteria? Should we be in the war room every day for each and every event? That to me seems like overkill. I suspect this subject, and its attendant controversy, will come up again. Meanwhile, my sincere prayers are with the victims of this weekend's tragic episode and all the people who continue to suffer. The devastating circumstances inflicted by Hurricane Irene certainly will not quickly go away. -- Claudia Ricci


This piece also appears today on the Huffington Post.

By Claudia Ricci

Call me a skeptic, but is it possible that we've all gone over the top with our anxiety over Irene? I'm not saying we don't have a serious storm here. It's a tragedy that has already killed at least eight people. And I'm all for preparedness in the face of disaster, but for heaven's sake, the news and social media hurricane that have escorted Irene's arrival has set my anxiety into a tornado spin.

Do I have enough candles? Should I board the windows? Shall I fill all three bathtubs? Will we have enough food to eat?

One gas station in town here actually ran out of gas yesterday as panic-stricken people stockpiled for their home generators. When I heard that, I got this fluttery feeling in my stomach -- how quickly people react. And perhaps, over-react. What happens if and when there is a true national emergency?

God help us.

More and more lately Americans seem poised for Armageddon. We all seem braced for the worst possible disaster imaginable. I suppose that's not surprising considering the shadows that have descended. Our world seems so full of danger and destruction and despair. There is terrorism and extremism everywhere. Car bombs are so common we hardly pay attention to them anymore. Economic disaster and political gridlock and dysfunction loom so large that they now seem to be seriously endangering our own democracy (i.e., consider the debt crisis debacle of a few weeks back.) Meanwhile, millions of regular Americans have lost their jobs and homes over the last few years, while more and more worry about the long-term erosion of the middle class and American dream.

With all this crazy scary news, is it any wonder that we are jumpy as electrons? We are a nation living in constant PTSD. And this week, we East Coasters have weathered an earthquake AND a hurricane. No wonder we're enduring what my son Noah is calling "Hurricane Hysteria."

It doesn't help of course that we are so finely and furiously wired up. Our social media keep us skittish. Incessant Twitter and Facebook feeds act like steady adrenaline pumps. And the regular media, as always, thrive on our insatiable hunger for drama. We slurp up reality TV. We sit glued to our screens for moment-by-moment updates on anything that constitutes reason for a Wolf Blitzer war room. We are, I'm afraid, addicted to disaster.

A few minutes ago, my son was reading the NY Times on-line, and he called my attention to a photo out of storm-torn Manhattan: a giant tree limb had crashed into an awning at First Ave. near 13th Street. Since my sister Holly lives at First and 14th, I got on the horn and phoned her.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

Holly laughed. "I think the sun is coming out," she yawned. "I hate the sun." (My sister has never been a morning person.) She said she had pots and pans filled with water stored all over her apartment. And plenty of batteries.

Sure, it was raining hard, and the wind was blowing, but she was still waiting for whatever it was that was going to happen.

Meanwhile, she was going back to sleep.

Irene, you Drama Queen. You know we are suckers for pulse-popping reality shows. No wonder you took the stage, and the East Coast, by storm.

All of this has got me thinking: wouldn't it be fascinating if some social scientist types tried to measure how much psychological "damage" to the public psyche was caused by anxiety-provoking pre-publicity devoted to these events?

Of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty -- one can't be sure what's going to be a non-event and what's going to turn out to be a first-class tragedy. But it's interesting to think that these bad/sad/scary news stories give lots of people lots of anxiety and stress, both of which are bad for our health, both individual and collective (public health)!

Meanwhile, here is the view out my backyard. Yeah, it's raining hard, and the pond is filling up fast -- it's higher at this point in the year than it's ever been in 26 years of living in this old farmhouse. And sure, we will probably lose power today. But some people might say that was a good thing, because it would shut me up and get me off my computer and doing something useful.

Maybe we should all reach for the off switch more often. Maybe we would all do well to step back more frequently from the frenzy that is fed up by our computers, phones, televisions and radios and just stare out the window, and breathe.

Pond Rising Fast Today!!

level In 26 years of living here, I've never seen the pond this high at this point in the year. And I swear the level has risen several inches since last night.

NEW MARTIN LUTHER KING MEMORIAL -- Celebrated in spite of the Weather!!!

Funny how things work out sometimes. Because of the threat of Hurricane Irene, the national dedication of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C. was indefinitely postponed.

But that didn't stop Dr. King's old fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, from going ahead with their private tribute on Friday. Alpha Phi Alpha is the nation's oldest Greek-letter fraternity for African Americans. Thousands of fraternity brothers, wearing black-and-gold, gathered and locked arms to sing their celebration of the new monument.

The irony is that because of the bad weather, Alpha Phi Alpha was the only group holding an official tribute to Dr. King's monument on Friday. But that makes a kind of cosmic sense, because Alpha Phi was a guiding force pushing for the monument. After Dr. King's assassination in 1968, the fraternity set up a foundation to help promote the idea that a monument should be built in his honor in Washington, D.C.

And what a monument it is! A glorious and gigantic block of marble carrying a likeness of Dr. King now sits on the Tidal Basin along with the Jefferson Memorial and the memorial to FDR (another stunning monument!) Chiseled into the side of Dr. King's memorial are these words: "OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN OF DESPAIR, A STONE OF HOPE."

Among Thousands and Thousands of Rejected Pages, Here is "The Coffin I'm About to Open"

Note to readers: In writing a novel, an author often discards hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages of material. In writing my book Sister Mysteries, I probably have discarded at least five thousand pages. Why I know this is that I've thrown out thousands of pages, and I STILL have a large crate overflowing with all kinds of rejected pages from the novel. What happens to these rejected pages? Well, some of them are gone forever, and some of them sit in the turquoise blue crate, and some of them are stored electronically in a file on my computer, a file I call "Short Fiction." Now and then I go into that file and reread the rejected pages. Tonight when I went into that file I discovered this section from the novel and I decided that even though it doesn't belong in the book anymore, I really like this chapter, a chapter called "The Coffin I Am About to Open." I hope you enjoy it. And maybe I will find a way to turn it into a free-standing story.

By Claudia Ricci

The coffin arrived on Monday, a very cold rainy day. It came by UPS. It came sometime in the afternoon. It came packed within a larger cardboard box.

When I first saw the coffin, when I could finally take in what I was staring at, I felt like I would choke. My hands flew up to my face and I had to sit down.

You see, it looked to me to be child-sized. But actually, I am staring at it right now, right here next to my desk, and now I realize that it is barely big enough for a child. It would be barely big enough for a….newborn baby.

Maybe I should start over.

OK, so what happened Monday afternoon is this: I came home from a long afternoon of teaching. I was exhausted. It was dark. The October afternoon had a jagged edge. As I walked up the back path, carrying a heavy bookbag full of my student’s composition journals, a raw wind cut into my face and infiltrated the crevice around my neck. The same wind whipped the dry maple leaves off the lawn. Scooped them up and scooted them into the house ahead of me when I opened the back door.

There, right inside the door, was that gigantic box. Thankfully, the UPS man had dragged the box in through the back door. He knows me, the UPS man, he knows me quite well, so he knows that I keep my doors unlocked. I always tell him to leave packages just inside the mudroom door. So he brought the box in and I saw it sitting there, and instantly, I smiled. I’ll never forget thinking oh my God; my mother-in-law finally sent me those dishes from Italy. You know the kind: those thick, hand made ceramic dishes painted in wild Italian colors. Full of flowers. I have been wild about those dishes for two decades or more. Ever since my husband and I got married I have wanted them. And haven’t been able to afford them.

Just a few weeks back, I mentioned them to Alice, Rick’s mother. My mother-in-law. It was September, the night before she and Ben, my father-in-law, were leaving on a cruise headed for Positano on the Amalfi Coast, near Naples.

“What can I send you honey?” My mother-in-law asked when she called to say good bye. I wanted to say, just send me and Rick two tickets to join you for a week. But I knew that was out of the question, and that she wouldn’t appreciate that request. So I decided to ask for the next best thing.

“Well, Al, if you see those dishes, you know the kind I want, send a few of those to me. Would you?”

After two decades of marriage, I felt comfortable asking. I figured, why not? And so naturally, when I saw the box, I thought, oh my God, here they are. “Dishes from Italy,” I whispered aloud.

As soon as I got into the house I dropped the bookbag and hurried into the kitchen for a steak knife. I came back to the giant box and slit the clear plastic mailing tape. I split the box top open. I clawed at the wood excelsior, my heart beating. A little smile was forming on my lips. I could see myself cooking up some Alfredo for dinner and serving it to my husband and kids on the new plates. I could see myself scooping the Alfredo --mushrooms and onions coated with cream and Parmesan-- into the bowls.

What I saw instead was a plain wooden surface. Perhaps the dishes were inside a wooden box. I kept digging. Soon I had exposed the cover of a plain wooden box. A box within the bigger box. Oh, but I was still so very certain that my wish had come true. That my dishes from Italy had finally arrived. I tore more wood excelsior away. I exposed more of the surface of the wooden box within.

At first, I couldn’t take in the next thing I saw. What was this crucifix? Why would dishes from Italy come in a box decorated in a crucifix?

I sat for a moment on the bench in the mudroom. The wind was so strong it was whipping under the door.

I decided that maybe Alice had bought the dishes at some religious company. Maybe she and Ben had wandered into the mountains. Maybe they had visited a mountain monastery in the rugged hills on the west coast of Italy. Or maybe they’d taken a side trip to Assisi. That must be it. Or…maybe the dish company was operated by a religious order. Maybe the dishes were painted by monks or by priests or perhaps, even by nuns.

I kept tearing the excelsior away. I kept pulling and clawing handfuls of the shredded wood out of the bigger box.

And then, I saw the shape. The slightly wider top end. The box. The wooden box. The coffin.

There was only one person who could send this box.

My sister. My crazy sister Lucy. Lucy who is insane. Lucy who thinks she is a nun. Not just any nun. But a nun named Renata who lived back in 1883. A nun who is in prison for murdering her cousin.

I covered my mouth with both hands. Then I opened my mouth and no sound came out.

Then I saw the note, taped to the narrow end of the coffin. I took a big breath before I read it.

“Dear Christina, You are hereby entrusted with. All of this. Bless you. Your loving sister, Lucy.”

That’s when I screeched. That’s when I shouted out her name as loud as my voice permitted.

“Luceeeeeeeeeeee.” I sat there and the tears started up and soon I was crying so hard I felt like I might choke.

I wiped my eyes. I closed the larger box back up and dragged it into a corner of the mudroom. I tried to ignore it. When my husband arrived home, he asked what had arrived and I said it was just a large order of flower bulbs. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the coffin. About Lucy’s crazy note.

A few days went by and then one morning when the family wasn’t around, I dragged the box into my study. That night, I took my husband into the study, after the children were asleep.

“Will you help me lift this goddamn thing out of the box please, honey?”

“What goddamn thing Chris?”

“This…thing." I sighed. "Lucy sent me. This…coffin.” He studied me. He knows Lucy. He knows how disturbed she is. He knows how unpredictable she is. What a wild imagination she has.

He started to ask a follow-up question but I held up one hand. I told him that I didn’t want to go into it.

Together we lifted the coffin out of the wood excelsior and laid it next to my desk. Right beside my swiveling office chair. And there it has sat, covered in a blanket for many many weeks.

I tried emailing my sister. Nothing. I tried calling her. Nothing. All I get is a ringing phone and no one answering and no voice mail. All I know is that I have this goddamn coffin. And I haven’t opened it all these weeks.

I am incapable of opening this thing.

But I know I have to.

Two weeks ago, I read my husband the note Lucy enclosed, and he just shook his head.

“She is a worry.” That was all he said. “But then," he continued after a few moments, "you’ve known that for as long as I’ve known you.”

That night, I sat down and wrote Lucy a long letter. I mailed it right away the next morning. It came back to me about a week later. Someone had crossed out the address and written NO FORWARDING ADDRESS.

Now I sit here staring at the coffin. It is Saturday morning. It is Shabbat. I would normally go to services at my temple, but today, all of them – my three kids, my husband, all of them have disappeared to various soccer games and football practices. So I have decided to take this opportunity to look inside. I’m scared, of course. What if there are bones or…something rotting or…worse.

I inhale. I count to ten. And then I get up from my seat, and go look for a hammer.

Thousands of Books, and This ONE Stands Out!

Note: this article appeared on the Huffington Post on Wednesday, August 24, 2011.

By Claudia Ricci

I've never stopped to think how many books I've read in my life. But it is has to be several thousand. I had to read hundreds of books just to get through my doctoral program. I've always been a reader, and I've always kept a big stack of books beside my bed. I usually have several books going at once. I'm a book person, and so books are my life.

But this morning I got to thinking. How many books have really mattered in my life? How many books have really changed my life or made a real difference? How many books have really stuck with me?

The books that I've loved, I keep. I have most all of Virginia Woolf's books on one shelf. There are books by Toni Morrison, Willa Cather, Julia Alvarez, James Baldwin, John Irving and dozens of other favorite authors. There is my friend Peg's wonderful novel, Spinning Will. There are the two books that I wrote.

But the book that has had the most dramatic impact on me is a different sort of book altogether. It's called Lovingkindness,and it's by Sharon Salzberg,one of the nation's most influential meditation teachers.

That book profoundly influenced my life. And it helped me through an enormously difficult experience last fall.

Lovingkindness is not a big book. Not at all. It's actually rather small. The pages are very tiny. And her message is not new. And yet, it monumentally important: "We spend our lives searching for something we think we don't have, something that will make us happy. But the key to our deepest happiness lies in changing our vision of where to seek it."

The key to happiness lies in the awareness that we are deeply connected to other living beings through "metta," or lovingkindness. What Salzberg does in her book is present a set of specific exercises to help cultivate feelings of lovingkindness toward yourself and others.

You start by bringing good feelings to your self. You focus on a time when you done or said something to another person that was kind and loving. You reflect on the happiness you felt when you helped someone. When you were generous. Holding these positive loving feelings in your heart, you start repeating four simple phrases over and over again:

"May I be free from danger."
"May I have mental happiness."
"May I have physical happiness."
"May I have ease of well-being."

The exercise moves out from here. After you spend time sending lovingkindness toward yourself, you select another person, a good friend, a family member. You spend time directing feelings of lovingkindness toward this friend or family member. You use the same phrases you used for yourself, only you replace the "I" by filling in that person's name.

The next step: you choose a neutral person, a bus driver. A person in a coffee shop. You don't know this person, but you extend feelings of lovingkindess to that neutral person. You repeat the phrases with the neutral person.

And then comes the hard part: you choose a DIFFICULT person. Someone who makes you furiously angry. Someone who has hurt you very deeply. Using the same techniques you used in the other situations, you extend lovingkindness to this enemy. This person who may not want to think about, let alone love and forgiven.

This is where Salzberg's book made an enormous difference in my life. This is where I found the book to be so profoundly helpful.

Last fall, I had to confront a woman whose actions had hurt me more deeply than I care to remember. And yet, I had no choice but to meet with this woman. I had no choice but to confront her.

I felt trapped. I felt very anxious. And then I discovered the techniques that Salzberg uses.

I began the lovingkindness practices slowly. I didn't force them. I practiced them at my own pace. I practiced "metta" during morning meditation, week after week.

And one day, sometime in November, something quite miraculous happened. I thought about this woman saying those phrases:

"May she be free from danger."
"May she have mental happiness."
"May she have physical happiness."
"May she have ease of well-being."

Suddenly, I smiled. I felt a warm glow fill my chest. I thought about the fact that this woman has a little boy, a child she loves deeply.

A powerful change occurred. I realized I could confront this woman in love, not hatred or resentment. I realized what Salzberg said was true: "All beings are deserving of care, of well-being, of the gift of lovingkindness." I was able, as she said, to "put aside the unpleasant traits of such a being and try instead to get in touch with the part of them that deserves to be loved."

I wish I could you more details, without revealing the situation that was involved. Because you would be amazed that I was able to forgive this woman, considering what she did.

But in the end, the details don't matter. What matters is that I was able to meet with this woman, and look at pictures of her baby, and smile, and feel some human compassion.

I keep Sharon Salzberg's book beside my bed. And I suspect that I am never going to take this one book out of the bedside stack.

Hummingbirds Come, And Then They Go

Yesterday's rain has left behind an early autumn chill.
The light is clear and has that September glow.
This morning I sit in a lawn chair
waiting for the emerald
hummers to come.

I train my long lens
on what looks to be
an orange-throated bird

One of the great joys of summer
is the way these birds divebomb
the two feeders.

I like feeling needed by these birds.
I like having to refill the feeders every few days.
I love stirring the white sugar into the water
and beating the liquid with a spoon until it's crystal clear.

I like having the birds here.

So much.

How it pinches today, to feel the days growing shorter.
And to know how soon these birds will go.

The Journey We Take Together -- Part Five

By Susan Prisant

Eloping a thousand miles from home set the stage. We decided travel and discovery would be our mission in life. Were things different beyond America’s borders? We quickly learned they were. It certainly helps to be in your 20's, when anything goes. You’re on a starvation budget, but ravenous for what’s around the next corner.

Renting a room in people’s homes makes it even better. You meet the kind of people that are so warm and friendly, conversation comes easily and you feel you’re becoming part of a larger family.

In the Netherlands, we did just that. We left the MG in the road, baggage and all, walked straight into the welcoming garden and sat down with a mother and three children playing so happily. The husband worked for an Amsterdam newspaper. Two hours later, the sun was setting, we still hadn’t entered the house, but Sandy had been offered an interview to write for that paper.

In Denmark we were waiting for a car ferry. We had time for dinner before the next ferry to Sweden. Looking where to sit in a self-service café, this couple invited us to join them. They were our age, spoke English; talking with them came easily.

They lived in Sweden, in the southern port of Malmö.
They had a large apartment in the city center. By the end of the ferry ride we had been invited to be weekend guests. The weekend passed, but we stayed. For a month. We learned eight words of Swedish and kept in touch for years

But there was another side to Europe. It was the height of the Cold War. We were anxious to cross the infamous Iron Curtain.

It felt a little like a black and white espionage film. First, the route: we set out from Germany, through fully neutral Austria to the Hungarian border. Second, security: we exposed only our passports to the border guards. I stuffed my underwear with all our traveler’s checks, other ID and the Hungarian currency we illegally bought in the West.

The drive through the Iron Curtain was dramatic, alright. Leaving Austria we entered a kilometer of stateless no-man’s land; then a kilometer of fields kept almost barren to deny cover for potential Hungarian escapees. Then, strung over the horizon both north and south, was a chain of radio jamming towers to block out the West.

Then came huge wooden gates and barbed wire manned by young boys armed with machine guns as large as them. They finally stopped our little white MG, while communications with their superiors began. After two hours, they stamped our passports, but for just 48-hour visas.

As we drove through, the young guards swung the heavy gates shut behind us. We knew then we were alone. Very alone. We drove on to Budapest and parked the convertible in downtown Buda. We walked the city and watched the people, whom in turn watched us. We came back to find a crowd sitting on the curb, staring at the car. We sat across the street watching them.

For us, the cold war suddenly became very real. As Sandy got back behind the wheel, he felt a crumpled paper jammed into the driver’s seat. The scruffy note was in broken English:

“Meet here tomorrow night on this time. Please. I must get out…”

Everywhere in Communist Hungary, fear hung in the air; the border guards were no exception. Everyone was furtive. No one looked you in the face. For the first time we really felt what freedom meant. Because there was none.

Six countries later we’d run through half of Europe and most of our money.

What the hell? We put on our best clothes, cleaned the car and drove up to the palatial Monte Carlo casino. A man in a black tuxedo promptly opened my door. We walked up the marble staircase, just like we belonged. We toured the tables, watched the croupiers and threw down our chips. Lady Luck brought us a bundle that kept us going until we arrived at LeHavre, home port of the SS France, for our return crossing to the USA.

Our little white MG naturally came back with us. She had been our “crystal carriage” that had shown us the world offered a thousand adventures, and then some.

Writer Susan Prisant lives with her husband, Sandy, in Florida. Sandy, who is facing a life-threatening illness, is writing a series called "The Journey We Take Alone?"