Ahz mah (So what)

Since quarantine my dreams are all in Zoom, no shutting down nor way to click delete. The brain re-wired, it's all a breakout room of tangled thoughts and rest left incomplete. The weary body begs for screen-less sleep; but like the doctor's monster broken free the brain is lurching onward through the deep yet shallow 2-D dramas. Is this me? But wait -- I am aware, though dim my sight, and there's the torture of the thing, my friend: Awake enough to sense the monster's flight yet too unconscious still to seek its end. I reach in vain with frozen hand to find a way at last to power down the mind.

In the world of mindful communication, there is a shorthand expression which I find both nerdy and useful: Listening, looping, and dipping. Looping refers to the empathic feedback between us, and dipping means checking into my inner experience in the moment. Listening, looping, and dipping describe the entire process of a mindful conversation. Notice that the process is not listening, looping, dipping, and checking the mirror to see how your hair looks. Who has a face-to-face conversation while also looking at themselves?? It would be unnatural and distracting, and exacerbate our culturally-perpetuated insecurities about appearance; but that’s exactly what everyone is experiencing now on Zoom and other video-conferencing apps. And that’s why “Hide self view,” the last option in the little blue drop-down menu, is my favorite Zoom feature. Click on hide self view and you won’t see yourself; you’ll only see the other people. I have such gratitude for the anonymous geeks who added this fea...

It happened again. Another zoom meeting in which I was close to tears of frustration but didn’t say anything. Another zoom meeting where I eventually sank into a trance of disconnection. What’s going on? I have been here before. Beneath the torrent of internal judgements of my own and other people’s habitual behaviors are the unmet needs that are alive in me: for connection, mutuality, consideration, effectiveness, creativity, fun, a sense of purpose. How might those needs be met in a zoom meeting? Well, we could adopt norms and practices to counterbalance the tendency for extroverts to speak up faster (and more often, and for longer) than introverts. We could ask each other “hey, what do you think?” or “I’m wondering how you are reacting to what I just said,” or “can we just check in about how everyone is feeling right now before we move on?” We could take turns. We could all take responsibility for the well being of the group as well as the agenda. We could lean in rather than check ...

Fifth grade, 1968-69. My friend pushes me down the stairs at school and the next day starts pulling my hair and punching me in the stomach. Another friend comes over and hugs me, shielding me from the punches by taking them on her back. I am white. Both of my friends are black. The friend who punches me is angry because our white teacher treats me better. I have told this story many times. I have told this story until I imagine that I understand it. But I have always focused the lens of the story on the friend who hit me, not on the other friend who hugged me. Remembering her today, I am moved to tears. When a friend - a young black man - speaks of putting our bodies on the line for one another, I react with uneasiness. Me, put this 61-year-old body on the line for him, or for anyone? It hardly seems likely that I would ever be in a position to do that in any meaningful way, or have the courage to do so. And then up comes this memory, and the purity of that little girl’s intention blow...

Sitting on the concrete retainer wall overlooking Nantasket beach at sunset, low tide. Hadn’t expected to encounter so many people at this hour, but it seems okay; only a few people are passing by here on the sidewalk at this end of the beach. Mesmerized by the couple dancing to music I can’t hear, the teenagers roaming in packs, the stunning woman posing for photos like a model, the two little girls in long dresses gathering stones in the backwater, the gulls circling low over them. Weary from sadness, glad to just be sitting quietly and breathing in the salty air. Someone is talking near me, and I realize that I am being addressed. A man is leaning against the railing, about 8 feet from me. It’s a beautiful night, he is telling me; actually it’s the perfect time to take pictures with this lighting isn’t it, and a paddle board would be so great right now but did you know how heavy they are to transport but there are actually inflatable ones that might be easier but man just go to Dick...

The small memorial candle on the stove top flickers gently. Today is my mother’s yahrzeit, 2 Tammuz in the Jewish calendar. I had to check how many years it has been since she died; I do not hold it easily in my memory. It was 2013. Seven years. I sometimes joke that our relationship has gotten better and better since she died, but really it’s not a joke. My empathy for her feelings and needs - what was alive in her - continues to deepen. I sometimes recognize them alive in me too. Today I mourn that I did not have the skills to be present with her in a more actively compassionate way, when it might have made a difference for both of us. I have access to those skills now, and to honor her memory I intend to practice them at every possible opportunity. Love you Mom.

Did you notice this too? After Obama was elected President, I began to notice that more and more corporations were featuring photos in their marketing materials of beautiful smiling black people. Brochures, billboards, websites, catalogues. I remember being delighted by the changes. I only later learned that I was being duped. The capitalist system was merely shape-shifting, again. I came to understand, by reading the perspectives of black people, that the marketing phenomenon was a calculated move to profit from the perception of diversity and equality. Duh. Those photos of beautiful smiling black people subliminally led liberal white folks like me to believe that corporations (and universities, banks, medical institutions, etc.) were embracing our values. Those photos were intended to make us feel good, and imagine that systemic change had happened (when it hadn’t), and therefore be happy to spend our money on their products or support their institutions without questioning or invest...

There’s a writing tool that I use again and again to shift from head to heart energy. I just write “what I really want to say is....” and it drops me down to a deeper place every time. Sometimes I have to write it in capital letters to get my attention. This morning I wrote a piece about the shape-shifting capacity of the capitalist system. It’s good; maybe I'll post it tomorrow. But what I really want to say is... I’m feeling an ache of loneliness today beneath the physical security of “sheltering at home.” I miss my son, I miss my brother, I miss my friends -- even though I can “see” anyone I want on a screen. Sadness is showing up and may be settling in for a long visit. And at the same time I am feeling deeply connected at the heart level to so many people, including people I don’t even know.

I wrote a sonnet yesterday. A classic format, 14-line rhyming sonnet. I mention this not for your admiration (although it is pretty cool), but because it points to an insidious aspect of American (read: white) culture. I wrote a sonnet because I am reading a book about understanding poetry. The author says that the best way to understand a form is to imitate it, so that is what I have been attempting. The rhythmic bounce of a sonnet’s iambic pentameter (daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM) slips easily into my bloodstream, bringing back memories of immersion in 18th and 19th century British literature as a novice writer in college. But now, its hypnotic pulse also makes me uneasy. How is it that in the 21st century we are still being taught centuries-old British literary forms as the “classic” forms? Why have generations and generations of American immigrants been taught to revere - and identify with - all things Anglo-Saxon/British, from their accents to their absurd system of royalty? You ...

Black Swan = a statistical term for an occurrence which is unexpected, unpredictable, and carries an extreme impact* We are in black swan country now. (And yes, that sounds ironic now.) No one could have predicted the current tsunami of racial justice protests and responses. What’s happening now - particularly the confluence of pandemic and protest - is unexpected, unpredictable, and extremely impactful. Ahz mah, so what then? Learning to recognize black swans is a practice in humility. In black swan country, WE DON’T KNOW. We cannot assume anything based on past experiences, although that is our natural inclination. For example, white people went back to privileged sleep after the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s; will that happen again this time? The cynical voice in me whispers yes; but we’re in black swan country now. I am also aware that the extreme impact of a black swan can be either positive or negative. So for all the optimism about this wave of protests and r...

Every path forward in the evolution of consciousness seems predicated on mindfulness: the practice of bringing a gentle awareness to the experiences of the mind/body, moment by moment. Anti-racist consciousness and activism seem predicated on mindfulness. So does the practice of nonviolent communication (NVC), a global movement of which I am a humble part. So does conscious parenting. So does learning (as distinct from schooling). There’s a paradox here: that forward motion does not exist without the potential for stillness. It’s one of the polarities expressed in the kabbalistic tree of life, the tension between accepting what is and striding forward to create something that is not-yet. I am aware that I am writing these cool words partly in an effort to ease the heat of agitation and sadness that I feel when the thought arises that Important Things are happening Out There, as I continue to shelter in the serenity of my home.

I distilled my understanding of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist into a note on my refrigerator door for daily reflection:           Anti-racism = Anti-hierarchy Take it in. Take it all the way in. This empire, our entire culture, is built on the foundation of hierarchy: the concept of better-than. But it’s a concept - an invention of the human mind. Concepts seem real because we tacitly agree to accept them as real - but concepts can always be examined, discarded, replaced. It has happened throughout human history, and it will continue to happen. Seeing hierarchy clearly as an empty concept -- oh, it’s like the child calling out the emperor's nakedness! Only now the emperor has a military force protecting him; but he's still naked.

Empathically tapping into the unmet needs beneath our judgements can provide a path to deeper connection with ourselves and with one another.... ...AND racist policies can be dismantled by imperfect humans filled with inner judgements and unmet needs who are not deeply connected with themselves or others! Both statements are true -- which reminds me of our unconscious tendency to view reality with an either/or lens. Either/or is baked into our culture, down to the smallest details of life. At age three, our son was asked in pre-school: What’s your favorite color? He felt compelled in that moment to choose one. And so it goes throughout life in this patriarchal racist capitalist christian empire. The preference-ing, the creation of hierarchy, seeps down into the smallest daily decisions and bubbles up into the biggest policy decisions; yet upon investigation such preferences are revealed to be empty, insubstantial, mere breath.

"Every judgement is the tragic expression of an unmet need." (Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Nonviolent Communication movement) This teaching comes to mind as I hear the many judgements we in progressive circles are mercilessly expressing about one another and about ourselves. We’re judging whose anti-racism is too bookish, or too late, or just too white. We’re judging how people are expressing their caring. We’re judging who is justified in their anger, or their exhaustion, or who has earned sufficient creds to be listened to. What are the needs being tragically expressed by all these judgements? Here are just a few possibilities: safety, consideration, appreciation, integrity, respect, belonging. Empathically tapping into the unmet needs beneath our judgements can provide a path to deeper connection with ourselves and with one another.