I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to consider, don’t want to think of mentors in my life. There is a wall of resistance, a feisty child stomping her foot in protest – you will not tell me what to do!

You will not tell me what to do. No teacher ever had. There weren’t all that many of them, maybe that’s why, maybe I never wanted any.

My first Zen teacher – I stayed with her only because she opened the door wide and said: stay or leave, it’s all the same to me. I stayed.

Did I learn from her? I learned with her. I never allowed her to teach me, not her, nor any of the other teachers I met later on.

I never allowed books to teach me. They put stories in my mind, their own stories, their own words. Once there were too many words, to many stories, too many ideas, I stopped reading them.

This is my life, I decided. This is my life and I will learn from myself. I will sit on my pillow and learn from what I feel. I will live and learn from what I experience. So I have chosen, and there, too, was the little girl stomping her foot, crying – you will not tell me what to do!

And yet I allowed Brooks to teach me. I allowed him and accepted him as a teacher. Why? Why did I let him tell me what to do? Is it because he never really did? Did he see me as a student or were we friends, so similar, so aligned in how we feel and experience that it was natural and obvious to flow together, to open together? Of course his eyes were open much wider than mine, but that changes nothing.

He did not teach me, he did not tell me what to do. He did not fill my mind with stories and words. He opened, and my stories appeared, my words. He did not teach me, he opened and held the space for me to teach myself.

He was a mentor I could accept, a mentor who did not mentor, a teacher who didn’t teach. A partner and an ally. And of those … I did meet a few. Brooks was first, then a pine tree in the forest, high up in the mountains, a rock on the mountain trail, a mountain itself. They showed me how I can be, they opened the space for me to grow and experience. They were my mentors.

And what of the girl stomping her foot in protest?

She can rest here. She can rest when she sits on a rock or leans against a tree. She can rest, sitting in a big leather armchair, facing the old wizard. She can rest and grow, grow into herself her own way, into her own shape. She can do that with a mentor who doesn’t mentor, with a teacher who doesn’t teach.

It was a joke at first, you see. Or I thought it was. My yearning for magic could be nothing else after all. Chasing elven tracks in forests, looking under bushes, searching among the flower petals for fluttering fairies – I knew they were there, even as I knew they weren’t. They couldn’t be, everyone knows there is no such thing as magic. I knew that. But I didn’t want to know it. I didn’t want the gray, cold, lonely world where every step brought danger, where one false move meant disaster. I wanted elven pointed ears and fairy’s light step.

And so when you said that there is a wizard living nearby, one that will turn me into an elf, I knew it was a joke. But I took the number anyway. And I made the phone call.

I drove to see the wizard few days later. It was cold and misty up in the mountains, fog swirled in the canyon where the wizard lived shrouding the rushing river, the ancient oaks, the lofty pines. It was as it should be, I thought, climbing up a narrow path, up the mountain slope to a little cabin. It was just right for the master to live up on top of the mountain and for the disciples to climb up and claim the teachings. Claim the magic for themselves.

The wizard had a white mane of hair and sharp, alert eyes peering from under bushy eyebrows. He looked at me and said something. Not much, one word, maybe two. I did not understand, but my body did. It woke up, suddenly it sprung to life, leaving me with nothing to do but to be and to feel. The wizard did not talk, he didn’t lecture, didn’t teach, didn’t explain. My mind, trained to thinking, considering, arguing, theorizing, was as useless as any old tool, discarded and forgotten. the mind that carried me through my life, that kept me safe, that was the mark of my worth, of my value, of my position and importance, had no place here. There was no room for my mind once my body woke up.

The wizard spoke a word and energy exploded behind my eyes. Warm, bright, soothing, blinding. He spoke another word, and another explosion – in my breast, at the base of my spine. Another word, and the glowing suns in my body connected in a rush of heat and force, and my body arched in response.

For a lifetime I sat in the armchair in the little cabin, up on the side of the mountain slope, facing the wizard. For a lifetime white, hot threads swept from the crown of my head to the tips of my fingers.
“That is enough” the wizard said, years later, and I opened my eyes. They looked the same then, my eyes, round and green, but they saw differently.

It was a different world, outside of the cabin. It was a different fog, pearly white and sparkling with raindrops. It was a different river, singing the songs with myriads of voices. And the trees were different, old, wise, rooted deeply in the earth, in the time, in life. It was a living world, and I saw a footprint of an elven foot at the base of a tree, and the flowers rustled as little fairies swooped in their mad, morning dance.

The rocks were warm. Sunned for hours, they soaked up the heat and stored it within their glowing hearts. It radiated softly through their porous skin. ”It feels so pleasant”, I thought, as I run up, jumping from rock to rock, from shelf to shelf, hardly touching the surface in my light slippers. “Like an elf”, I thought. It felt so pleasant to climb lightly and recklessly, higher and higher, up and onward and away from the road, away from the valley, away from the cabins and the coking fires.

What looked like a wall broken into shelves, formed into steps by fallen boulders, climbing steadily upwards, turned out to be an entire world, a landscape of deep valleys and sharp peaks, of smooth-floored meadows overgrown by silvery grass, and forests of brush with their sharp, pointy branches and small shiny leaves. There were rocks as large as a head of a giant lying where they feel, with deep crevices left where they split on impact.

It was quiet there, alien, the human world was only a story and I felt uneasy. I begun to walk slowly, climb cautiously, choosing the gentlest slopes and surest assents. No more running and jumping recklessly. I did not belong there. One false step, and the mountain would shake me off with hardly a flicker of it’s rocky fingers.

I crept up the side of a rock and stopped suddenly. I could go no further. There was a way clear before me but this was high enough, this was as far as I could climb, it was not for me to climb any higher. I sat down. I felt uneasy, scared, I realized, I was scared. The rock I rested on was the size of a small truck and yet I felt that I perched on a little twig over a bottomless chasm. One sudden movement, one swing of a foot and I would fall, slide and crash onto the valley floor where I belong, where humans belong.

I was afraid and, feeling my fear, I looked over the valley laying down below me, carpeted with fluffy tops of pine trees stretching smoothly from one mountain side to another, filling the world with deep, dusky green, covering the gray of the rocks. The valley lay peaceful, quiet, serene underneath the evening shadows, but there was a strip of molten gold and emerald along one mountain ridge, and the sky blazed with a setting sun.

I could not move. What fear could have moved me, torn me away from this place, from this splendor of nature? I sat and felt my fear, and as I felt it I felt the rock I sat on, and the mountains it was a part of. I felt the tall, ancient pines, I felt the cedar trees of red-gold trunks, I felt the river rushing madly down it’s rocky bed. I felt myself and the Earth, I felt the nature and the universe and the fear was gone, because I was here now. I was here. I was the planet, I was the trees, I was the mountains, we were all here – we were Earth. We were nature. We were.

“I understand”, I though, without understanding. “I get it”, I realized, without knowing in the least what I got. The fear returned slowly, creeping in, one soft footstep after another. It was time to go.

I climbed down slowly, cautiously. The danger was not gone yet, I was here and not here now, I was here and yet an alien, a human. This was my place, and yet it was not. I had to be careful.

I wandered through the forest for a long time that evening, following little paths, horse trails running over hills and meadows, wading in brooks whispering among tall grasses, jumping from rock to rock across rushing mountain streams. The sun set, the shadows deepened and I turned towards home, walking through soft, fuzzy dusk, and then the crisp, chilly darkness. Trees called to me, hills full of nooks and crannies filled with soft rock dust, with the fragrant silver grass, beckoned invitingly, tempting and alluring, and still I walked. I could not stay here, I knew. There were people waiting for me, worrying, there was a house and a fire in it, I had to go back. And yet…

There was such safety in this night, such rightness. It was my place, I knew it was. It was home. I belonged there and it was right for me to find a place to sleep somewhere in the forest, to burrow among grasses and spread fallen leaves over my body for a blanket, to rest my head on a root of a pine tree and stay there, in the darkness that felt like home, until the sun rises, until it is time to run and jump and climb again. But I had to go back.

I walked on, down a road that took me among humans once more, down a drive that took me to where my humans were. There was light streaming through the cabin’s windows, stopped short by the darkness. There was fire in the stove and there were people moving uneasily about it, with nervous movements and worried faces. I had to go in, I knew.

I walked slowly, the last few steps though the dark, the cold, the crisp night, my night, my world … I had to go in … and I did not want to.

How did I learn what I know? What teachers did I work with? What books have I read? What workshops have I attended?

I can tell you all this, I can tell you the stories of my life but they will give you nothing at all.

How did I learn what I know…

I learned by choosing to look, by choosing to question, by choosing to consider. I learned by listening to others and then looking within myself for my response to their words, for my opinion, for my way of seeing what they see.

I learned by looking inside to see my way of being me.

I learn from being in nature, with trees, with plants, with animals. I learn by feeling them, I learn  by moving how they move, by howling how they howl, by resting how they rest. I learn by being in my body the way they are in theirs, I learn from being present as they are.

I learn from being with people, from being with my husband and feeling him, feeling myself with him. I learn by considering my feelings, seeing where they come from, choosing to feel them or to let go of them. I learn from being present to what I feel, to what I think.

I learn by discovering myself.

The world around me, the universe around me, the nature, other humans, are a mirror. They do not teach me of who I am, they do not tell me what I am, they do not give me wisdom that I don’t have. They reflect me, and in their reflection, by choosing to look, to consider, I learn of what I am. And as I learn what I am, I learn what the reality is, what the universe is. My universe, my reality.

There is no teacher born in this world, nor has there ever been one, that can teach me about my reality – because not one of them is me.

I learn by being present as what I am, being present to what I am.

How did I learn to be present? I heard of tools, I practiced them. I sat in meditation and learned how to be still and look inside. I studied with Brooks and learned how to feel and be present beyond the restrictions of my mind. My Zen teacher, Brooks, they taught me methods, they gave me tools, but they did not teach me what I know. That I learned by using the tools they gave me.

Where the tools came from, what teacher taught them, what book were they described in – it doesn’t matter much. Knowing that will give you nothing at all.

The wisdom does not lie in tools, in other people’s heads, in other people’s words, in other people’s books. The wisdom lies in you. One tool is no different from another. If you look for wisdom any tool will help you find it.

If you choose to look for it.

Stories, series of stories told by people who know how to live, who know the rules, who follow the rules.

I read about the rules as I stretch my arm …

“No, this is not how you stretch your arm!”, says the rule “this is wrong, you have to do it like that!”…

I move, flex my fingers … “No, not like this! This is the rule for how you flex your fingers, like this…”

I turn … “No, this is wrong, this is the wrong way to turn, the sinful way, it will have you damned, it is how you fall! Here, this is how you turn, this is how you stretch, this is how you roll, this is how you move, this is how you live, this is how you think!”

I move and stop … arrested, corrected, fixed, righted.

My body grows tense, rigid … I move just a little … “wrong!” … I freeze …. I try again, slowly, maybe this way … “no! wrong!” snaps the rule.

I stop. Shocked, terrified, blank.

My body is frozen, rigid, tight. I can’t move anymore, I wouldn’t dare to move for the fear of rolling my hip the wrong way, the shameful way, the damnable way. I can’t think, the risk of thinking an improper thought is too great. Inside of the blank, tight, constrictive box I can not move, breath, feel. I am frozen, and it is just as well.

I do not need to move, breath, feel. The rules do it for me.

The regulations, the rights and the wrongs, the meanings, the ways – they are all here, pulling on strings they’ve attached to my arms, folding my legs into proper configurations, setting my feet just so, rotating my head into the proper position, at the proper angle.

I watch the rules as they move me, twist me, rotate me. I watch the rules, trapped inside of the tight, small box of my frozen body, immobile, blank, shocked. Shocked into being a puppet. But a proper puppet, a right, good, moral, upstanding puppet. A well adjusted puppet.

The rules pat me on the head, they are pleased with me. “Good girl!”, they say.

“But there is space here, within those rules” I allow myself to recognize, “in every rule that pulls on my hands there is a space, there is an experience. If I can be there, feel there …”.

I feel the space, the space within the rule. I flex my muscles tentatively … there is no protest. I move a bit more … and a bit more … nothing! “I can move here!” I realize with elation. Here, within the very heart of the rule, the very meaning of the rule, I can move and nothing stops me! I can move how I want to move, I can move my way!.

I wave my hands, they are my own again! There are no strings here, inside. Here I am myself again, within the rule, within the experience of the rule. I roll and twist and bend in a way that is mine, that feels good, that feels open, spacious, and I can feel the rule, I can feel it’s experience in my body and I move with it, twist with it this way and that, my way.

“This is how I dance with this rule … I choose … this is the right rhythm for me, the right form for me, the right relationship for me!”

Here, it is all me now – how I dance, how I move, how I relate. With the rules, within the rules.

There is only space to be what I am, when I choose to experience this space.

I woke up too early. There were noises around me, water running into the bathtub, birds singing their morning songs, dogs joining in the chorus with spirited barking.

I did not open my eyes, I did not want to enter the day just yet.

In the hazy, undefined space I felt love … it didn’t feel good … I was not quite myself there, not all the way real … there was unconsciousness there, trauma …

Childhood trauma, that’s what it was.

I looked there, the unconscious place opened and drifted away and I was present, present in relationship as what I am, in relationship with what he is…

Here there was no trauma – there is no trauma here, I am here, he is here. We are, and the space is unlimited, the possibility here is unlimited, for what I am, for hat he is, for what we are.

This is the meaning of honoring, a thought passed my mind, this is the very essence of honoring, this is what honoring means.

“I love you” did not hold this presence.

“I am with you” … this is what I say in this place: I am with you, I am present with you.

I say “I love you” and it feels flat, constricted. There is need, an attachment there, limits, ways of coping with reality, ways of surviving.

I say “I am with you” and there is only what I am, nothing else, only the presence for everything else, for anything else to open and become.

Honoring Presence

I am with you