March 1st

Each day is a completely new creation. Some things are given: the weather, a phone call, a dead battery in my car (again). I like to think I actively participate in the creating of the potential substance in each day. However, today the creator me appears to be on strike. I am having a real low energy day. Although I seem to function enough to do everything I have to, I am aware of a cloud in the middle of my forehead. I can’t help but wonder if this is the way I always used to live and never knew it. Perhaps now I have become sensitive enough to be more aware of my state of being.

Of course, my first reaction is to wonder if this condition will stay, implying, of course, that it is not my favorite state of being. I know that my willingness to accept whatever is passing through my mind and body is the only thing I can do. “What you resist persists” is an adage voiced by many philosophers. I also wonder if my condition has a simple cause, maybe something I ate, or something more complex. I have so many friends around the globe I care about. Is one of them having trouble? Or is something that has been buried and forgotten in my subconscious working its way to the surface for me to deal with?

I watch the gusty blustery wind pick up leaves and whirl them through the air. The three clinging leaves are ripped from their secure home on a branch and are tossed down to be blown first in one direction, then the other. Rushing here, rushing back, they dance to the rhythm of an unknown force. Since I have the door open, the leaves from the oak across the way, which have accumulated in the yard, are gathering under my chair as I sit and type. Just at the moment that the trees have had their very sap shaken out, dark clouds gather in the north to forebode rain. A few moments later, the sun emerges from the scattered clouds to the south.

The literary agent just called me back... Negative. The most positive rejection one could ever hope to get, but it was rejection. Andrew claimed he found the manuscript so interesting that he read the entire 475 pages. He added compliments such as “entertaining,” “fascinating,” “exceptional material.” In fact, he says it is “so much better” than most manuscripts he has read. However, the one editor at a publishing house who read the manuscript judged that it to be “too overwhelming and too much material” for commercial success. And they read only the first manuscript, I have to laugh to myself. They don't even know I'm polishing a second one now. I confess, I never once thought of “commercial success” when I was writing the book.

Further, Andrew informs me the editor wants a focus with details hammered into a central theme with a clear resolution. Life in India portrayed as a resolution? My experience of life as a resolution? Now there is one given—Life is a process. Not even my own life was created to be resolved into a single focus or conclusion. Not even when I breathe my last breath and take off for a new adventure to another state of consciousness do I plan to write “The End” on my life.

Andrew's recommendation is that I contact some small publishers myself because he is sure the manuscript will be published. He just does not have the right contacts in New York City. A part of me says he's right, someone else will be interested. However, this attitude is probably to avoid the devastation I am feeling over having to go through this process again. It has been over six months since I sent Andrew the first query letter, then sample chapters, then the entire manuscript, then waiting for him to read it, then he sent it to an editor, who took another month to read it. In the meantime, I have already been looking for other agents, without any success at all.

Rather then stuff my feelings, which aren't really quite identifiable yet, I dig around in the garden. I am waiting to see if any specific memory of past disappointments will surface. This time out of doors definitely helps me get a broader picture. The more time I spend outside, the more I am convinced that the essential ingredients for good health are simply exercise and good food, along with sunshine, air and water on the bare skin. After all, these are basic elements of our material form: earth, air, fire and water.

In the process of digging my fingers in the soil and tending the plants, gradually, my uneasy sensations seem to dissipate. After all, I just have to go through the process again. I am better off now since I do know the ropes, I conclude.

As I stretch out on the deck to soak in the nurturing sunlight, I check my head to find the cloud seems to be dissipating somewhat. I enjoy sunbathing, and often do it for at least fifteen minutes before showering. Although to suit me, the sun has to be the gentle winter, or morning, sun. Even though it’s still winter, within five minutes my skin starts to feel alive and tingly in the golden radiance. Afterwards, when I get into the shower, I soak up the water, cooled by the earth. As I emerge with dewlike drops all over my skin, I feel the fresh air and sun rays. Nothing is as revitalizing as the kiss of cool air on my wet skin. I feel so fortunate to get the blessing of these three co-creators—fire water air—all at one time.

After a being refreshed by the shower, I sit back with a cup of tea to take in my surroundings. They always seem so fresh and new. I look up into the sky to see a sliver of the new moon smiling down at me from the blue heavens. The sun has begun to paint the edge of the clouds with a showy rose color. Ephemeral clouds and a new moon—stuff for weaving magnificent dreams of unknown places.

As I am sitting and relaxing, I tell myself that these moments are more important than my writing. Actually, my writing would not be possible without these moments, I reassure myself. All at once, I spot a pair of red-tail hawks. It’s the first time I’ve seen them, although Lattie saw them several times last year. They are gliding smoothly over the meadow, enjoying the breeze, clouds and new moon too.

I take a deep breath and relax. I continue watching the birds as they turn their wings to circle the meadow. Then I hitch my consciousness on the back of one of them and take a ride through the wide skies above. It’s a trick a couple of teenagers in India taught me. I enjoy this easy way to relax and change my consciousness. The expansion of soaring through the air cures my earthbound ills. It feels so magnificent to be alive ¾really alive. But again I notice that I always have this feeling only when I am alone and free ¾free to soar though the wide endless skies.

I think one obstacle to solitude is the fear we will have nothing to do. We simply will not know what to do with ourselves. At least I've conquered that one. I'm worrying about having time to do everything I want to do. I have to reassure myself that I will even have time to mail the manuscript to other agents.

Time, Time, Time—that relentless tyrant that is continually whipping us into action. Time is a strange measure of our existence. On one hand, the days go tumbling relentlessly along with the dry leaves. Yet each day in itself is such a bouquet of unique experiences—even the patterns of sun and shadows that play across my garden every afternoon are always unique. The world I live in never has a weekend or a holiday. Without any clocks, the cycles of nature continue forever content to enjoy their sameness and their uniqueness.

Time is such a nebulous thing. Technically, it’s the distance between two events, just as a line is the measurement between two points. But those two points stay fixed, whereas events in time wander and rotate, wax and wane, crunch up and spread out. When we are doing many things, time passes fast: short measures between two events. When we have nothing to do, time passes slowly: only a few measures to count. In other words, during one hour of clock time, mentally we may have experienced twenty-five measures or only two measures. Our assessment that the time flew or the time dragged is simply based on our mental perception. If there are no events at all, what is time?

Yet there’s another strange phenomenon with time. For me, a year is a wonderful space in which I savor a myriad of delightful things. Each year is a long expanding kaleidoscope of lovely experiences, packed full of places, people, ideas and projects. Although the days seem to go by rapidly, at the end of the year, I am often amazed at how much I have done. Yet my friends who while away their days in an office, complaining that time is dragging, seem to think the year flew by. So the concept seems reversed.

When I’m alone for several weeks, every day disregards a label. I become more aware of the rhythms of nature and the cycles of the heavenly bodies. I watch the moon parade across the sky encircled by its entourage of glowing stars. I love being out at night, beholding a night sky that is a million years old. It’s so easy to watch the stars here in the black night away from city lights. Sometimes I lie on the deck, allowing my mind to retrace the trail back to when mankind lived simply. I think of mankind’s need to observe, classify, divide, then to build walls to separate. Certainly, this activity is necessary to keep the details of our mundane concerns in order.

Gardening makes me think about the ramifications of this inconsistency. When I am planting the little seedlings, I am focused on each one to make sure its roots are secure, it is properly watered, then shaded. My consciousness is on that one plant to the exclusion of everything else. Yet this division makes me forget the Whole.

What would it be like if I were to plant it so consciously that I could be aware of its place in the garden plot? Instead of seeing it as an individual, I would see it as a part of a multitude of seedlings that are pushing up through the warm soil to sing their day on earth. Even so, there’s a bigger picture. What if I were planting it with the awareness that this seedling and all the other plants are ornaments on the lovely green gown that Mother Nature wears to adorn the whole planet? What if I were able to comprehend that I am weaving a gem into her enchanting spring garment? What would that consciousness be like?