Thursday, August 31, 2017

It's gonna happen. I'm selling my business at the end of September. Sara and I will sit down with lawyers and the BANK and sign a large pile of papers and then they drop a check into my bank account and we shake hands and toast and hoo-boy.

The first time I bought a house, the procedure was about the same. It was me and my realtor and the escrow guy and the BANK and legal pad sized forms in triplicate. I went home after and went to bed. Even though I was signing on to a piddling amount of mortgage, to me at the time, it felt like I was signing away my first born. Gha...

Anyway, this process has taken about a year. And the end is in sight. I am so ready to be done. I'll still work but the business of the business won't be my responsibility anymore. I can't wait.

Here at the birth center with a family in labor. The parents are deaf and they are here with an interpreter. A very expensive interpreter. Which insurance won't pay for, natch. I've made the commitment to provide an interpreter in honor of my deaf mother who had nobody with her for the births of her four children, not even her husband. She didn't sign but that's not the point. Every woman deserves to be supported in her language when she's laboring.

There's a memorial for a baby this Saturday. I can't say much here but the whole community is heartbroken. I'm heartbroken. I'd like to go live in the woods now. With the bears and the deer and the wild birds.

In these times, may we all find peace in our hearts and lives.

Monday, August 28, 2017

I'm indulging in a bit of anxiety/nervousness/fear mongering etc. I brought soup to work today that is, ah, inedible so I ate the avocado and the apple sauce and decided I was satisfied.

I hate dealing with money. I'm done being the boss. I don't wanna do it anymore. I want to be done, to give the responsibilities to someone else, someone who likes to deal with money, who is good at it and not intimidated. Why don't I have faith anyway?? Sometimes I do have faith and other times I don't. Ghaaaaa.

I have two tats on my forearms. One side says 'right now' and the other side says 'it's like this'. A saying from Ajahn Sumedo, a teacher of Buddhism. Cuz it's true. And there's not a thing we can do about it.

Sometimes I'm so anxious and triggered, I want to run off into the wild to be eaten by a bear. Other times, I'm good.

I sure as shit would be happier if we didn't have the ongoing fuckery in the White House.

May all beings in the path of the hurricane and the floods be safe.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Here we are, brown grass in Seattle because it hasn't rained in a long time. In Seattle, that's weird. So weird.

Home after a long birth and so tired. Beloved family and baby.

Want to hide out and read Anne Lamott and eat blueberries. Don't want any more horror from the idiot in chief. Not a choice to withdraw and stay 'safe'. We must engage, stand up, face our demons, resist injustice.

No choice. Not now. Too much is at stake.

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

Yup, at another birth. This momma isn't even acting like she's in labor but she is. Some kind of pain threshold. We're hanging out in the living room while she, her partner and her friends are all in the bedroom talking and laughing. And she's at least 6 cm dilated. Go figure.

Gearing up to go to the Bay area for my next facilitator training. I'm supposed to give a presentation on the lineage we're in. What happened after the Buddha woke up anyway? 400 years of oral tradition, monks and nuns reciting the suttas. In Burma they still memorize the suttas. And there are hundreds of them.

Anyway, I have permission to create a visual aid so I'm gonna make a flow chart with Gautama at the top and then the stream of all the different types of Buddhism. Is this boring to report? Probably. I don't care. Well, the Christians have all their denominations and sects and whatnot. There's vipassana and zen and Tibetan and so forth. And they argue and debate and discuss. When Buddhism came to the US and the West, it morphed again.

As a teaching, there is great flexibility and inquiry in Buddhism. There is so much to know! I do feel like I've been slacking in the studies department. And now, it's all I want to read. There are scholars, mostly monks and nuns who have the time...while I'm staying up all night in other people's houses waiting on their babies.

Saturday, August 05, 2017