Big Waters

Having a background in the Navy, I’ve grown a fondness for “Big Waters.”  I’ve spent over half of my life near the ocean, but in my book the Great Lakes certainly fall into the category of Big Waters.

These are places where the land meets a great body of water, and you’re unable to perceive an obvious impact from the other side of the expanse.  The water stretches to the horizon and beyond.

Thunderstorm rolling in from Lake Erie

These waters produce their own weather, and the weather drives the waves.  They have a life of their own. Where they meet the land, there is conflict, but in the end there is a balance that’s retained for years.  Sand may move from one spot to the other, but the water and the land maintain and active but still stable meeting point.

It’s a boundary area on earth, and at these boundaries the curtain between the physical world and the spiritual world thins just a little.  These are places where real magic happens. Old magic driven by the ancient and perpetual powers of the Universe herself.

Today we were blessed with visiting this border zone.  We saw a thunderstorm from and roll into the lake. The land took the water and returned it to its origin.  Sand flowed from the land into the water with the rain, and the waves washed up more sand from the water to the beach. Undeniable action and movement, yet, the balanced was maintained.

Being away from the ocean, I’m grateful for moments like these where I can once again gaze out upon the Big Waters.  They are a place where it is easier to reach out and touch the hand of the divine.

Yoga

I mentioned yesterday that I’d recently started the practice of yoga.  I really don’t know why it took me so long to get started on the practice of yoga.  That questioning outlook on my apparent procrastination is particularly relevant when I start to consider the number of positive things that I’ve learned over the last six months since starting the practice.  A 2012 study indicated that somewhere between eight and twelve percent of the population practices yoga on a consistent basis. If you’re part of that lucky or far sighted minority. If you haven’t yet pulled the trigger and given yoga a try, I recommend you consider the opportunity.  

Without further ado, here are some things I’ve learned over the last six months while practicing yoga.

1. Even on a “bad” day of yoga practice, I manage to learn something or accomplish something that I didn’t really know I could accomplish.  This happened today. I don’t know what was going on, but my back was sore and my whole body was tired today when I showed up for my AllVibez yoga class.  I could go into the details, but you don’t want to hear about my whole body stiffness, epic sweating, or any of my other complaints. Suffice it to say, I was not feeling it.  This happens from time to time, and the yoga teachers will tell you just to listen to your body and deal with what shows up for you. I wanted to quit and go home about half way through the one hour class.  Unfortunately for me, I was deep into the room away from the exit, and there was no real way to extricate myself from the class without causing a ruckus. Toward the end of the class, we finally got to the bridge and wheel pose sequences.  To date, I’ve only been able to get myself into the bridge pose. I was having such a miserable time of it, that I decided that I had nothing to lose and would try to lever my upper body up into the elusive wheel pose. Much to my surprise, I was able to lift myself onto the crown of my head and from there straighten my arms and resolve into wheel for the very first time.  I like to think it looked a little like this, although I’m sure it was not as graceful.

This is not me...I'm pretty sure I looked more awkward than this person.

The moral of the story is that even though I was having a “bad” yoga session, I was able to stick with what showed up.  What showed up for me was progress.

2.  The strength and flexibility benefits of yoga are well documented, and I’m not going to waste a whole lot of your time describing them.  I will say this. I turned forty five years old last week. I thought the type of strength and flexibility that I’ve been able to see develop with a disciplined and consistent yoga practice over the last six months were a thing of the past for me.  I’m not going to say it’s the fountain of youth, but the practice has certainly started to slowly reverse the consequences of some very poor health choices that I made in my thirties. Again, I wish I’d started this twenty years ago. It’s a hell of a lot easier to keep your health than to try to get it back at a later date.

3.  This is for the guys out there.  As a caucasian male, I’ve never really had to deal with the visceral feelings of what it’s like to be a minority until I started yoga.  Those same studies referenced earlier indicate that of the Americans who practice yoga, only eighteen to twenty five percent of them are men.  I can tell you that my anecdotal evidence indicates that this is probably still about right. If you’re a male going to a yoga class, you can expect that there will be between three and six women practicing for every man practicing in the class.  The other thing you can be fairly certain about is that most of the women are going to more skilled, more flexible, better balanced, and not nearly as funny looking as you’re going to be when you first start. In other words, you’re not only going to be an obvious minority, but you’re going to be in a room where almost everyone is better at yoga than you.  They are likely to be skeptical of your motives as well. This is a humbling experience, and is one of the greatest lessons that participating in the practice has taught me. You are going to have to get over yourself to survive and keep going in this environment. Don’t believe me. Just wait until you’re rolling up from your back through your knees into tabletop and you rip a loud fart.  You’re going to want to melt into your mat and disappear. It’s at this moment you’re going to have to decide whether to get over yourself and keep going so you can learn something or take your fragile ego and hide away in a place where you’re comfortable. I chose to stay, and the benefits have far outweighed the cost.

That’s enough about yoga for now.  If you haven’t given the practice a chance, I highly recommend giving it a shot.  I’ll always view the yoga practice I stumbled upon as part of my training for the N2N-TCP as one of the great physical, intellectual, and spiritual challenges that I’ve faced along this journey.  It’s quite a bit of fun once you start developing some of your own flexibility as well.

Changes in Attitudes

Today after my day job wrapped up, I spent some time chasing a sunset. A little bit of map recon would have gone a long way because I ended up in a less than optimal viewing location. On top of the initial geographical mistake, I got to the spot just in time to watch Sol slip below the horizon, and I was left with the dregs as the light faded into night. Don't get me wrong, it was much better than any number of evening pastimes (like watching the "news"), but there's some improvement to be achieved.

That said, Google Photos salvaged a photo or two automatically, so the walk wasn't a total loss in terms of scenery.

Dregs of the Sunset as Interpreted by Google - Fairhope, AL

After the walk, I found myself in a Target looking for bottled iced tea. That's a whole story in and of itself, but suffice it to say that I'm battling my way through breaking a Diet Coke habit and I needed some non-artificially sweetened caffeine.

As I walked through the store, my thoughts brought me back to one of the great Jimmy Buffet songs, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes."  While Jimmy sings about a geographic changes driving a shift in outlook. Walking is doing something like that to my outlook. It's getting more and more difficult to stomach the complexity that I find inundates almost every moment of my conscious existence. Material wealth, choices, distractions, entertainment, and agendas froth around my senses begging for attention and often getting far to much of it.

All this after I've curtailed many of the purchases I used to make and essentially have ejected television from the list of activities I find fulfilling.

The road is calling. I sense a building of circumstances surrounding what amounts to the crazy idea that a pedestrian trek of some distance will allow me to reset and reconnect with something whole and spiritual that even now I can't really define. Today, the draw was greater than it's felt in the past, and every day that passes without moving out seems to make the pull a little stronger...the whispers of my thoughts and feelings a little louder...my resolve to step out and complete this fantastical journey a little more steely.

Rory Conlan has said in the past that "sometimes it's good to step out of line just to see if the line is leading you anywhere you'd like to be going." Maybe it's time to take a step to the right and forge off in a different direction.

We'll see what the morning brings. It'll be different, and I'm looking forward to that possibility.

A Spiritual Journey

I am uncomfortable speaking of the N2N-TCP in terms of a spiritual journey, but as Rory and I continue to plot and talk and train and move toward the beginning of the journey the spiritual nature of the trip continues to become a larger and larger presence in our efforts.

The discomfort comes from an degree anxiousness that this sort of external manifestation of an internal journey is really not something to be talked about in polite company. I feel that I run the risk of being a little crazy or off kilter. I don't know why I feel that way, and I suppose at this stage in the progression it's becoming time to lean into that discomfort a little and try to communicate this aspect of the pilgrimage.

The Daily Message from the Universe - Fairhope, AL

Since I started training for this walk, I've broken with culture to a degree. I suppose I always new that the walk across the United States would be a spiritual quest of some sort, and that's why I settled on naming the idea the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage (N2N-TCP). One aspect of breaking from the cultural norms is that I spend much more time outside than I used to spend. Not only is the amount of time higher, but I've come to believe that the quality of the time is also higher. Vanishing from my day to day existence are the televisions and radios, and in their place, the sunsets and sunrises that have been happening on this planet from the beginning of time forced themselves into the forefront of my experience.

These daily celestial events, many shared (because they cannot be truly captured) in the photographs on this blog leave me feeling simultaneously blessed in a very special and intimate way and feeling small in the face of the vastness and power that they indicate is working all around me.  They leave me with a feeling of distance coupled with a feeling of closeness that I find impossible to really describe.

I am beginning to sense when other people have experienced the same sort of paradox in a similar way, and I'm beginning to believe that we all experience these feelings at one time or another. Through my time under the sky on the trail I sense a slow coming together into a feeling of oneness with others that I don't really remember experiencing in the past.

Uncertainty with where any or all of this is leading makes me question the direction this is going from time to time. In those moments of doubt, I'm reminded by Rory that sometimes it's good to step out of line every now and then just to make sure you agree with where the line seems to be heading.

I'm grateful that he's been a partner in these endeavors, and although I have no idea what tomorrow will reveal, I'm looking forward to finding out.

Culminating Moves

Labor Day this year was spent laboring at getting ready to move from the six bedroom five bath mini-mansion into the three bedroom one bath apartment. One reasonable conclusion for all this is that we have fare too much stuff, and it's doing a pretty good job of owning us right now. Frankly, it's a little grim, and I'm not sure we're going to be ready to fit it all into the smaller place that's headed our way later this week. The sun is setting (I hope) on the era of out greatest excess.

Sunset - Halligan Hall - United States Naval Academy

In spite of the stress involved, I really am hoping we can leverage this move into a more spiritual existence. Having fare too many material things has proven to be no real way to go about living in terms of being able to fulfill our spiritual purpose, and I really feel that this way of life has reached a crisis point.  Even on the third round of minimalism when I thought things might be winding down for me, I've found a pile of stuff that just needs to be shed in order to be a happier person.

Leading my family into this new way of life is proving challenging, but I hope this change in circumstance forced on us by people who were only seeking to do us harm flips the script and proves to be one of the best things that's happened to us in a awfully long time. It's hard to see how that's going to work from the chaos that's ensued over the last couple of days, but I remain hopeful.

Folks say that everything happens for a reason, and I'm hoping that tomorrow those truths reveal themselves in all of our lives.

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

My temporary uptick in work at my day job is proving to be quite a challenge. One thing I have learned is that the physical fitness I've gained through calisthenics and daily walking if proving to be the pivotal factor in keeping my mind clear and my body cooperating. There's a lesson in fitness in all of this because I started down this daily practice path a little over a year ago, and I did not have to rely on the reserves of body centric strength until the last month or two.  Being prepared has really paid off.

Eight People Preparing Their Physical Beings for the Unknown on the Anacostia

We all walk a path into the unknown, and up till a little over three years ago, I'd been able to mostly rely on youth coupled with a lack of preparation and luck to see me through the scrapes I found along the way. It was an undisciplined approach to life, and proved successful enough that I never really stopped to think about the assumptions of the future that I was foolishly relying upon to keep me on a tenable path.

Fortunately for me, I have faced a series of events that have proven conclusively that I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen around the next bend in my life path. I've been able to deal with that uncertainty by taking action, and that's a relatively new step from my perspective.  In the past, I gave far too much credit to the ability of intellect and thinking to keep things manageable. I've come full circle.  I now believe that action is what allows the intellect to function. With action, my mind has grown clearer and stronger.  It did not wither as I'd assumed in the past. The whole experience has been a period of growth that never would have happened had I not faced what I believed was the end of my rope, the end...doom. That's just a bit too dramatic, but I did get quite a wake-up call through my own ill conceived thinking.

I remain uncertain why I've been allowed to follow this path, but I believe there is a reason that may or may not be revealed.  Until then, I look forward to the challenges that the rising of the sun tomorrow may reveal.

Meditation Experiment - Interim Report

Today, a vigorous mist in the afternoon followed a robust rain in the morning, so I failed to capture any images for this missive for the second day in a row.  Unlike yesterday, I did manage to achieve a fair bit of walking today.

Mostly out of an interest in keeping up with what has become my daily writing habit, I thought I'd provide an interim report on the meditation experiment I started last year. The initial thought behind the experiment came from a blog that suggested that practicing some form of meditation for one hundred days held a host of physical, spiritual, and mental benefits. It seemed like a pretty easy thing to try so I gave it a shot.

Before I even considered practicing what I've come to think of as "sitting quietly," I started the journey of daily deliberate walking. When I first started walking, I found that settling my mind and moving with a more conscious pace proved to be quite difficult.  My mind raced. Thoughts of doubt crept in, aa littnd I actually remember thinking about what other might think of my walking.  After only a few walks, my mind settled into the pace, the committee in my head was held in abeyance, and I began to live more deliberately and richly in the meter that surrounded my body.  Walking became a form of meditative practice.  It remains so to this day.

I observed some of the same racing of thoughts and inability to settle when I first started the practice of meditation.  I'm not sure it's accurate to even call what I was doing meditation. I found it almost impossible to sit still for longer than two or three minutes.  The time seemed interminable, and I stayed in a place mentally where I could only think about when the session would end.  This inability to sit and just be continued for about a month, but I kept at it.

When one hundred days had passed, I found I could sit quietly and clear my mind for about twenty minutes with some regularity. Thoughts still flashed through my mind, and resisting the temptation to render a judgement and continue the train down whatever rabbit hole it might head to was still not an easy task. Even given those circumstances, I'd gained a level of discipline that allowed me to recognize when that happened and return back to my breathing. I felt calmer when meditating and I believe I felt calmer in day to day interactions.

Having finished one hundred days, the experiment had become a habit, and I'm happy to report that I'm coming up on the two hundredth day in a row tomorrow. I have not made a great deal of progress since the first one hundred days, but I noticed about half way through the second hundred days that I took less time to settle. I also don't follow the thoughts that flash through my consciousness nearly as far as I did in the past. Returning to just being is getting easier and more natural.

While the heavens have not opened and angels with trumpets and swords haven't appeared, I believe that the practice is having the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits in my life that the proponents promised. Meditation has not evolved into a "burning bush" style miracle cure, and the practice has been far more work than I imagined in the beginning. The impact is more subtle, but I sense a tangible improvement in my ability to remain in a moment, to be calm and remain grounded in the present, and to relax into discomfort more readily than I did in the past.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and the ability to capture something a little more colorful than the words on the page that have appeared the last two days. I'm not sure if photos will appear in the cards, but I hope that they appear in the cards that the universe deals my way.

Gratitude Thursday

As has become my occasional habit when I tend to run low on inspiration, I fall back on the good old gratitude day to tide me over until something else grabs my attention. Today is one of those days.

I am grateful that I woke up this morning. I rediscovered a new little nook at a slightly different time of the day, and this is what I saw.

Anacostia Waterfront at Daybreak with the USS Barry

I am grateful for the visionaries, the financiers, and the people with a dream that have transformed Southeast Washington, DC from a run-down, crime blighted area into something that is going to be truly stunning and mostly publicly accessible. It already is very nice, and I'm looking forward to attending summer concerts in "The Yards" park. They were good last year, but they will be particularly interesting this year when the water access via the new recreational boating docks are finished.

The Yards Park Bridge framing the Setting Moon on the Anacostia

I'm grateful to have been born in a country brimming with opportunity.

I'm grateful for the freedom to fail and still manage a recovery in relatively short order.

I'm grateful that I'm learning that happiness is a choice and is within the grasp of just about anyone. This is a lesson that I had heard, but I've finally gotten enough life experience to begin to feel the truth of it.

I'm grateful for the folks at work that put up with my speechifying, passionate outbursts, and even my brief stints of moodiness.

I'm grateful for a budding spiritual connection to the larger universe, the fact that walking has made this transition local and not overwhelming, and being surrounded by a group of seekers that are pursuing this connection in their own way.

I'm grateful that I finally learned to skip the television and get out of the house and start living.

I'm grateful for working cats.

For a day that felt a bit bereft of inspiration, I'm grateful to be able to fall back into this occasional part of my daily practice and come out on the other side feeling inspired. This gratitude thing really works, and as always, I'm looking forward to what tomorrow may reveal.

A Second Long Day

Today, I finished the actions that were at my disposal to complete my record that will be evaluated for promotion later this year.  I feel good that I've done what I can at this point.  Truth be told, I'm not really sure I want the promotion, but I've decided to turn that decision making over to others and the universe in general. There are a few reasons for this that involve a sense of duty or obligation, but mostly I believe that letting my will take charge and removing myself from the running at this point would be an exercise of ego for the most part. I'm not really confident that declining to compete would be a good decision, so I've put that call in the hands of fate.

I got a late start this morning, and my walking for the day suffered a bit.  I probably needed the rest more than I was willing to admit, and since I'm still on track for the threshold goal this month I suspect things worked out just as they should have worked out.

Anacostia sunrise with the USS Barry

Because I was running behind, I passed my usual picture spot in the magical moments just before sunrise. The air was brittle with cold and and there was not a hint of a breeze. The sun was rising just behind the ex-USS Barry, the reflection off the calm water was magnificent, and the waning moon and Venus cut through the inky blue twilight like a couple of magnesium mirrors.  This is one of the most spectacular vistas that I've ever observed at this location

The second day really started for me when we met with our daughter's neurologist and one of the residents from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to discuss her injuries and prognosis. It seems to me that this was just after rounds near 0830, but this is just an impression and could be entirely wrong. The news we received at that meeting was not at all hopeful.

The neurologist related that the brain damage that was typical in cases with similar CAT scan findings twelve hours into the ordeal was almost certainly fatal. It was hard news to hear, and because our daughter appeared to be resting peacefully and might at any moment open her eyes and resume being a normal five year old (or at least normal for her) it was difficult to believe and accept. We asked some probing questions, and the neurologist admitted that certainty was impossible, but within the limits of medical knowledge there was zero real hope for any meaningful recovery. The swelling of her brain had probably not yet reached the maximum magnitude, but the damage that had already been done had reduced her neurological function down to the most basic subconscious functions required to maintain clinical life.  In fact, they had removed her from the respirator, and her breathing rate on her own was ultimately insufficient to sustain life had they not put her back on the machine.

The neurologist suggested that we may want to start considering the possibility that a decision to remove her from life support might be required in the future. She was on the respirator, she was being given a host of medications to moderate vital functions like blood pressure, she was sedated to block pain to the extent that we understand how that process works, but her life had been taken by the experience she had endured and her death was inevitable in the short term.

I don't remember the details of what happened over the next couple of hours. I think we talked about how we didn't want to give up too early even in the face of what we'd been told. We talked about the removing life support and things that we wanted to do before making that decision. We talked about sadness and disbelief. We asked for another CAT scan, and it was performed. The diagnosis of a fatal anoxic brain injury was confirmed. At some point in time one of us mentioned the possibility of organ donation and what that process might entail. I think we asked our nurse in the PICU about it. I believe he took our question to the doctor. More questions passed between us and the doctor. We decided to get more information. We decided that we did not wish to delay the inevitable outcome any longer than necessary, but we wanted her brothers and sister the chance to say goodby. We called my wife's brother and mom, and we made arrangements to bring the siblings to the hospital.

At some point in the process we spoke to a social worker about the possibility of organ donation, and she also agreed to interact with our daughter's brothers and sister when they came in. She arranged for us to meet with the hospital ethics advisor to be interviewed about the possibility of organ donation. We cried, and laughed, and joked, and cried.

A little after noon we talked to the hospital ethics advisor. She interviewed us and asked a series of questions that puzzled me a little. She did ask the standard questions about whether we understood our daughter's condition and the extremely unlikely possibility for any recovery. She asked about where we'd heard about organ donation. She asked if ANY of the hospital staff had mentioned the possibility of organ donation. Throughout the whole ordeal, none of them had mentioned a word about it. Organ donation was not raised once, and I found this also to be a little strange. I finally asked the hospital ethics advisor why she had basically interrogated us (gently of course) on this topic, and she told me that if any of the hospital staff had mentioned the possibility that the hospital would not have allowed us to pursue this option.

After about an hour of discussion, the hospital ethics advisor cleared us to talk to the non-profit organization that coordinates organ donors and recipient candidates in that geographic area. We'd signed numerous documents at this point, spoke to two hospital chaplains, one of whom we dismissed and asked to never see again. That request was honored. The other chaplain happened to be Muslim, and she was exceedingly comforting for me. I think my wife liked her as well.

More decisions about organ donation were presented to us. After a fairly long time considering the matter we made the decision that we would pursue an unrestricted path to donation. This cleared the path for any part of our daughter that might be used to help someone else could be used. Corneas, organs, bone marrow, bone, ligaments, and skin were going to be made available for transplant.

We were presented with the decision to remove life support or wait for a declaration of brain death. Due to hospital protocols, a diagnosis of brain death had the potential to take weeks or months to play out. We decided to remove life support, but first had to consider how this decision would impact the decision to allow organ donation. Removing life support would likely preclude a diagnosis of brain death and lead to cardiac death if her breathing rate proved insufficient to sustain life. Both of these paths impact the potential for viable organ donation. An organ recipient would not be able to use our daughter's heart if she experienced cardiac death. Also, if she sustained her own life for greater than one hour after being removed from life support, none of her organs could be considered viable for transplant. A diagnosis of brain death would potentially take weeks or months, and if at any time, she experienced cardiac death waiting on the required protocols to be met to permit that diagnosis, it was very likely that an operating room and the right surgeons would  not be available in time to permit her other organs to remain viable. We decided that we would accept the uncertainties associated with removing life support. I know I felt that was the more predictable outcome at the time we made that decision.

At about 1630, we brought her brothers and sister in to say their goodbyes. Hugs and kisses were exchanged. We held our sweet girls hands. We loved her. We gave her cards and some of her favorite stuffed animals. We cried, and laughed, and smiled, and cried.  We whispered to her and told her we loved her and that we were proud of her.

We expected that we would remove life support later that evening, and once we'd completed that hard and soulful exchange of farewells, we went out to the hospital flagpole.  Our daughter's brothers and sister were given the opportunity to raise the "Give Life" flag in honor of the sister's upcoming gift of a better life to someone else. The flag would fly as long as our daughter remained in the hospital and for twenty four hours after her death. If you ever see that flag outside of a hospital it probably means that someone there is having one of the hardest days of their lives and that someone else is getting some of the best news they've gotten in a very long time. It tore at the heart, but also gave hope. The mixture of sadness and triumph is the most spiritual thing I have ever experienced.

During our goodbyes and the flag raising, the organ donation coordinator had arranged for a series of lab tests and medical measurements to be taken and transmitted to the organ donor and recipient network to find possible matches. When the results came in, life intervened. A potential recipient's surgeon had asked if we could delay removing life support until the following morning to allow the best opportunity for a successful transplant to their patient. The doctors and organ donation coordinator told us that we did not have to wait if we did not want to, and that all involved would try to make things work in accordance with our wishes.  Life intervened, and we decided to spend one more night with our beautiful girl.