20 Jun 2021

How Do You Do It?

by | posted in: Adventure | 0

How Do You Do It?

It’s quite the question, I know.  And I have not written on this blog in a while and am unsure how to use this open form of expression anymore. How should I do it? Many will say it’s too open and I need to be careful about how much I share about myself, let alone others I encounter. Yet, I still want to use my writing as a form of expression and be able to put it out there into the world… with the intentions of no shame or blame of any form brought upon myself or others. So, I continue…

What the _____?

All I can say is WTF has happened in the last three years? A year long sabbatical and travel to India & SE Asia, my father’s decline into dementia, a global pandemic… and now, currently, a new job at the college, traveling in a van for the rest of the summer and in Asheville, NC for a few days. Phew, how does life unfold for you and how might you push a project or direction to attempt to steer life’s unfolding? I imagine it’s a combination of both.

Post Sabbatical…

I fell in love with India and S.E. Asia. With the culture, with the people, with their religion and spirituality and with their family values. When I came home, I realized the way this country’s values (capitalism, consumerism) that I grew up in and completely prospered from was not the place that represented my personal values anymore. I came home from Asia and lived in an empty apartment for months. And when I finally got the courage up to unpack and settle back in, I didn’t have the attachment to my physical belongings anymore. It’s just “stuff” and after living for a year without “stuff” it was wonderful for me. You like your stuff, don’t you? Of course, you do! I do too!

International Travel…

My travel to South America was halted by the pandemic. As were many travel plans for everyone. Stay at home orders were issued… fear ensued. In March 2020 as I was coming home from Colorado visiting my father, the pandemic began and the college closed. In August 2020, I began in person teaching while the pandemic surged through the winter and just finished out the 2020/2021 academic year. I realized there most likely wouldn’t be international travel for a while. I’ve been itching to get out.

I found a good deal on small van in January 2021, a 2017 Ford Transit Connect and began to build it into a camper so I could travel this summer. I wanted to travel to the places in this country that have been calling to me and spend some time in others that I’ve been. This was a project that I took on and feared that I would give up on it for some reason or another. Whallah! Mission completed and I’m on the road.

A New Job !?!?!

Lastly, I was offered a new job at the college that I will be taking. Removing me from the kitchen and into some online teaching and working on some college wide initiatives. How this all unfolded is a bit of a long story that I will not get into here. I get to keep seniority and my official faculty position while responsibilities are revealed. While I have been asking for a change and it’s welcome, I remain a little ambivalent even after I accepted the position. A natural place to be, I guess.

On The Road Again…

Now I’m on the road. With a different kind of freedom. I don’t need a destination nor a reservation for anything. The accommodations aren’t perfect, yet super cool! Had a good night sleep last night in a well-lit parking lot I shouldn’t have been in. Will be making my way towards Arizona, Utah and Colorado through some less traveled roads and visiting my father.

This is how I am doing it. Taking the time to write and putting it out there. I hope you take the time for yourself and feeding your soul. How do you do it?

More to come….

Asheville, NC

 

 

5 Oct 2020

Listening with Empathy vs. Listening to Respond

by | posted in: Love, Personal Growth, Relationship, Spiritual, The Human Condition | 0

 

Well, well, well… it’s been a long while since I’ve written anything… not sure how to use this blog/website after being back from Asia for a year. I’ve been inspired by going back into the classroom during these times of covid by a really great group of students I have. This inspiration is from them and channeled through me. I only hope I can listen to their wisdom after 22 years of teaching.

 Listening is an art, and many people do not have the capacity for it, especially in the case of listening to the complaints and the suffering of others. In order to be able to listen, we need to learn how to transform the suffering in ourselves. One reason we are not good listeners is because in the listeners themselves, there is also much pain. Another reason that prevents us from being good listeners is that we can get distracted by our own ego and personal agendas. A powerful listener acknowledges that the person speaking will be heard and will be welcome to express themselves. And a wise listener and leader will validate anyone who is speaking.

Talking is also an art because if we have many internal formations within us and if we do not know the art of being mindful, then while speaking we shall be carried away by our feelings, our anger, and what we say may hurt people deeply. Both speaking and listening must, there­fore, be practiced together with working at transforming the internal forma­tions within us.

A wise leader knows how to listen and actually hear what others are saying. Epictetus, the Greek philosopher wrote: “We have two ears and one mouth — for a good reason.” It’s more important to listen than it is to talk most of the time. How else can we learn about what needs to be done to improve a situation? No one ever stops growing and evolving and one of the ways to learn (and learn about ourselves) is by listening to others. I have learned that most people do not listen well. In this day when everyone carries around a smartphone or tablet, people don’t focus on each other when they’re together. Unfortunately, this holds true for business people and leaders. 

Psychotherapy believes that if you have pain, you should be able to express it, but because the people around you also have a lot of pain, they are challenged and sometimes not able to listen to you. Each person is an island. If no one has the capacity to listen to another person, we feel very alone… we get sick… No communication is possible and we cannot tell anyone about our pain when we feel the other is not listening. The first task of a good listener is to sit quietly; no talking back. If people argue with us when we are speaking, if they talk back, then they are not effective listeners. We need people to sit and listen, not to give us unsolicited advice or condemnation, listening to each other with empathy. You can see very well when someone is truly listening, you can feel it; and when someone pretends to listen, you know that too.

When we care for and even love someone and if we truly want to make someone happy, the first thing we must cultivate is the art of listening, because listening is very healing. If we spend time listening to the pain of the person we love, he or she will be relieved. And listening without judging releases pain.  In the buddhist philosophy, we aspire to learn the bodhisattva way of listening, in order to help relieve the suffering in the world. Listening, in order to understand and not to respond. We evoke the bodhisattva name in order to practice listening with all our attention and open heartedness. Learn to sit still and listen without any prejudice and without judging or reacting. Listen in order to understand and not to just respond. We will sit and listen so attentively that we will be able to hear what the other person is saying so clearly and maybe even to also what the other person is leaving unsaid. Just by listening deeply, we can alleviate a great deal of pain and suffering in the other person.

So, we evoke the name of Avalokiteshvara and/or Guanyin, bodhisattvas who embody compassion, to practice the art of listening. Every one of us has the opportunity to be the bodhisattva. Each of us has an Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva inside waiting to grow. So, this is not exactly a prayer, but more a kind of mindfulness practice. We then evoke the name of the Avalokiteshvara Buddha in order to bring about greater capacity for listening, because listening is healing, relieving the suffering of the other person. 

In addition, by being human, our power of listening has its limitations. Therefore, the moment we feel that we cannot continue to listen, we have to tell the other, ‘I need a timeout’. To step away from this conversation in order to recharge so I can be a better listener. And we need to allow that to happen. We need to refuel ourselves with freshness; we need to practice meditation, yoga, drinking tea, being with children, anything that can bring back our balance. That is what doctors and psychotherapists have to do as well.

It may seem small and not that important, but some of the best leaders of our time have mastered the art of listening. The art of listening truly can take not only your leadership ability and your relationships to the next level, but also your success and likability as well, all of which help to create a healthy culture. 

17 Feb 2020

Trying to come home…

by | posted in: Adventure, Poetry | 0

Buddha & Mermaid

No, thank you,

I don’t want a conversation about the sport teams you like

While you lecture me about the political climate in the USA

And climate change

And plastic bags

And immigration vs racism

 

I don’t really think your bank account or your car

Proves much

And your art collection

Is a living piece of voodoo.

 

Many years ago

You were so busy

Making money and furthering your career

And establishing your perch

In the pecking order

Of society

 

Rolling your eyes

At us dreamers, tree huggers and lovers

 

Now, it is so very easy

For you to get and be appalled

By it all because,

It’s all the rage to be upset

Which costs you nothing

And any idiot can see the obvious

And not do anything but complain about it

 

And it was a shock to

NOBODY

Who was watching

When people voted in bullies, haters and supremacists’

As leaders of the free world

To demonstrate

How we are truly NOT free

 

Because

You do get

The government and leaders you deserve

And until YOU

Are willing to admit that you too

Have prospered from all this

Abuse

And thievery

And benefit to your social class

And the accumulation of your stuff

 

I would rather

Have a lobotomy

Performed by aboriginal people in the wild

Then take your advice and ingest your medicine

Of wine and concentration camp chicken salad

12 Aug 2019

Fed Up & Food Choices – Video Documentaries

by | posted in: Cooking Advice, Sabbatical, The Human Condition | 2

My trip to India and S.E. Asia opened my eyes to a lot of things around food that we are not exposed to in the U.S. Imagine a farmer’s market going on every day with all the local people selling their freshly harvested farmed fruits and vegetables, and meat and fish too. Yes, every single day!

I got so used to the high quality of produce that coming back to shop at the grocery store in the U.S. is just so boring vs the markets in Asia. Plus, I do not know when the bulk of items here in the stores have been harvested because of the sophisticated genetic modification to keep products on the shelf longer and the technology of refrigeration and atmospheric packaging.

When I was in India and Nepal, I lost weight because of my diet which consisted of rice, legumes, fruits and vegetables with very little meat/fish/dairy. Then I went to Thailand and ate and ate and ate and gained all the weight back. I wasn’t even eating much meat. I love Thai food because they know how to balance the tastes on the palate… sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami. There is lots of sugar in Thai food too.

So, I come back to the U.S. in attempt to adjust. I go to all the Asian and Indian markets to provision my kitchen so I can cook and eat all the foods that I love from half way around the world. I also go out to enjoy a cheeseburger and French fries which I haven’t had in 7 months. Being by myself I realize once again how much time it takes to prepare the foods I was so used to eating overseas. Yes, of course… because cooking from scratch takes time and hopefully, you’re putting love into it too. I was living and staying with folks where we all were cooking together… many hands make light work. Also, the cost of labor is very expensive here in the U.S… For instance, a worker in India gets paid 300 rupees a day, the equivalent to about $4.

Then I get called to Colorado to help with my father… food is not high on the priority list… just plain nourishment at this point. While I’m away I’m back eating meat and foods that aren’t particularly good for me. UGH. Yet, during this time, I know something isn’t quite right.

All the years of teaching culinary arts and cooking I’m aware of the unethical treatment of animals and how we treat companion animals differently. I’ve watched many undercover videos from drones exposing smithfield foods and seen the effects to the land from satellite images of factory farming. Is this for real? Why have I not woken up to this fact and why have I not stopped supporting this direct destruction of the earth and treatment of animals? I know I’m not the only one in this predicament which is why I felt I needed to write about it.

It’s amazing to me that it takes 2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of feedlot beef. Most of our farming is to produce the grain to feed the animals, not US. Plus, all the negative effects on the body from eating meat… and yet it’s still being produced and consumed. One of those documentaries said… our species (human) is the only species that lives in disharmony with nature. Where does this even make sense anymore? Now in South America they are clearing rainforests to raise cattle.

A lot of this is a capitalist and business thing. We need to work and make money, right? The U.S. has this down pat. Businesses have dictated us to work 40 hours a week because that is the number where we can be most productive for the business. But, what about our own peace of mind and being able to enjoy our life? Do we really prefer money, prestige, and success over morals, ethics and science?

One of the things that woke me up was watching a couple of documentaries. Fed Up and Food Choices.

I’d also recommend Forks over Knives. I was flabbergasted and disgusted both with myself and the government. If there is a government made up by the people and for the people, then why are there government policies still existing that have been scientifically documented to be truly hurting us humans and animals? I get it that big business has created an oligarchy in our government. Did you know that this report by the world health organization about sugar intake never made it to mainstream U.S. because the sugar companies and their lobbyists threatened to pull the $400M the U.S. gives to them?

In the roman/greek times, there were an elite few (kings, priests, high ranking military, etc.) who were able to afford to eat meat, dairy, and alcohol. And those were the people who got sick with heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure. Now… we are all the elite… affording all the same things the few did in the past. And at this time… we are all seeing the effects of our diet in the U.S. from meat, dairy and alcohol. Just look at the news about obesity rates.

I had a time in my life where for many years I was eating super clean. In the ways the world health organization is recommending. I was 167lbs and trim. Now I’m just over 200lbs and wanting to shed about 20-30lbs once again. And I know the only way is to listen to my body and some of the expert scientists around the world talking about a plant-based diet. Something in me is motivated this time around.

One of the problems is that I’m teaching cooking based on Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire which is all based around meat cookery and dairy. Didn’t I just talk about the problems for our bodies when we eat these kinds of foods? I’m not sure what to do at this point about all this. All I know is I’m going to do my best to share the wisdom I gained from this past year in Asia and have the most positive outlook as possible.

I know my outlook isn’t fully aligned to that at the moment. I’m working on it.

 

 

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