Honoring our incarnations....from the Kerala Chronicles

When I started packing for my first trip to India a few weeks ago, I began to think about my spiritual origins.  Even though I was raised as a Catholic, from a very young age I was always yearning for a system of spirituality (and why I use the word "system" I cannot explain) that would make sense to me.  That yearning has led me along many beautiful paths, including the path I walk today, which I call "mostly Buddhist." (In Woodstock we're called Hindu-Bu or BuHindhist). As I was packing for the trip and closing up the Florida cottage, I had to take all the images off my traveling altar and tuck them away. As I took down the images of Christ and Mary, I said to them: "Don't worry. I am not leaving you. I am just going home, to India."

"And how," the Inner Voice of Reason countered, "can 'home' be India if you were born in Massachusetts?"

Clearly, Reason does not believe in reincarnation.  Good thing we don't listen to Reason too much :)

Anyway, I believe in honoring one's incarnation, and this time around I was born into a Catholic family. So be it. When I arrived at our retreat center in Kerala and stepped out of my little cottage on the first morning, I was delighted to notice that I was situated right next to a tiny Catholic church. Here's a picture of it, just over the wall of our compound. The presence of this tiny church, so close by, seems like a beautiful little in-joke between me and my first Teacher: when you honor your incarnation, your incarnation honors you. 
#keralachronicles #@EM_Harrington #beyondthebeyond

After a decade in an animal shelter, Sweet Sheba finds a home!

It seems there's a "Sheba" dog at every animal shelter.
Our Sheba--a pit mix--spent her earliest years chained to a radiator in some horried NYC project apartment, then was moved to a shelter in Yonkers, and finally "rescued" from that shelter and moved up to the Ulster County SPCA in Kingston, NY.  Sheba spent almost a decade in the shelter system. She is not a "beautiful" dog in the classic sense, nor is she a silly young pup, and sometimes she would bite people who moved their hands on her in ways she didn't like. (And as for the "beautiful" dog comment, I want to stress that I don't care about that sort of thing, but a lot of people sadly do).

As a result, potential adopters rarely even said hello to her through the windows of her kennel. She was the passed-by dog, day in and day out....for many, many years. We worried she would never find a home. But we loved her and loved her and loved her, and those volunteers whom Sheba rarely bit got to walk her and play with her, and take her out to the kiddie pool in the summer time, and rub her belly, and tuck her into her favorite "bunk bed." We believed in her, in other words.

On the dry erase board where the dog's "statistics" are written, Sheba's profile said something to the effect of: She will always have a home here and she will always be loved.  That's what I love about my shelter: there is always love, and there is always hope. We don't euthanize animals, and we never assume any dog is "unadoptable." We believe that there is someone for everyone--and whether that combination involves humans, dogs, cats, horses, goats, bunnies, or all the above, we hold true to that Truth.  If you exist on this planet, you belong, and you will find your Soul Friends.

Last week--and here come the tears--Sheba was adopted.  I wasn't there to witness the going away party, but it looks like about two dozen Fans of Sheba were there to see her off.  Many blessings to you, Sheba, and to your new family.    Let this story be a sign of hope for ALL shelter dogs. 

https://www.facebook.com/ulstercountyspca/posts/10153803854501528


#ulstercountyspca #thereisalwayshope #adoptdogs

It's impossible to say "nothing has changed..."

A conversation with my dear friend this morning began with her saying "I don't know what's wrong with me. Nothing has changed in my life but I woke up feeling so depressed." I lovingly pointed out that, actually, something has changed in her life, and that something was the terrorist attacks last week in France.We are ALL CONNECTED. (Sorry for the all-caps, but sometimes it's necessary). Somewhere, several tens of thousands of animals are likely being slaughtered horribly as we speak. Somewhere, in the depths of the ocean, a turtle is choking on a snarl of plastic Wal-Mart bags. Somewhere, in some derelict rural lot, a swarm of ants is being set on fire by a group of misguided boys. Somewhere, a girl-child is being sold into slavery because her family has to choose between food and her. So she becomes someone else's food. I'm not trying to be a downer here, but it's important to remember that until ALL BEINGS are free from suffering, none of us will be free from suffering, because we are those all-belngs. I invite you to pray that everything and everyone--including the perpetrators--be free from suffering and that all beings experience peace and happiness.

Saturday in Florida began with an early trip to the farmer's market...

Saturday in Florida began with an early trip to the farmer's market, to pick up my organic greens from #GreenFlamingoOrganics and listen to that day's entertainment (a kitchy lounge keyboard player delivering an unironic version of "Black Magic Woman" followed by "The Long and Winding Road"). Then I caught an unexpected buzz from my ginger-lime kombucha (causing me to skip yoga) and an unexpected big score at the thrift store ($4 Juiceman II!). Then a field trip to #CassadegaSpiritualistCamp--which is kind of like Hogwarts for adults--with my friend, where we communed with crystals and had our futures told. Then a sunset walk on the beach, watching lightning dance behind the clouds. Then dinner consisting mainly of the market greens, then evening sadhana, then a lovely conversation with one of my best friends from high school (with a brief reminiscense of our wilder Saturday nights from youth) and finally, retirement, crawling onto the thermopedic mattress with a good book.

My high school friend pointed out that I was living the life I had always wanted. She was speaking of the music, and of my forthcoming album (woohoo!)--I have always wanted to "be a singer." But it's larger than that. The psychic today told me that the universe was bringing me peace, because I had asked for it and had "worked" for it. Oh, yes, we worked for it. But I also think that inner peace is somehow easier to achieve in 85 degree weather, with the ocean as one's soundtrack. At least the Yankee in me says that. I think my Florida friends might agree. In the meantime, in this month of #gratitude, I am grateful for the sun. And the sea. And friends. And lounge singers. And my teachers. And on and on and on.

Abandon your homeland. That is the way of the Bodhisattva

As I prepare to migrate south for the winter, I am filled with, well, mostly melacholia and yearning, because I love New York, and I hate to leave it. But I just don't do well in the cold, or the darkness; thus, as soon as the clocks change, I bolt. So I have to leave what I love in order to preserve my sanity, that I might continue to be able to love. I wish there were another way, but maybe this is The Way.

This morning, I opened my little pocket booklet “The 37 Practices of the Bodhisattva” at random and read this: "Abandon your homeland. That is the way of the Bodhisattva."

Up here on the mountain, our growing cycle is always about a month behind...

Up here on the mountain, our growing cycle is always about a month behind the rest of the Hudson valley. The tomatoes are still green, the sunflowers are only waist-high and the raspberries are on the perfect verge of being overly ripe. In a way I feel like it's still August, or even July, because aren't tomatoes a July thing? 

But every once in a while I see a swath of bright orange leaves decorating a distant tree, or I hear the plunk of an apple falling to the ground and it hits me that it truly is September. The bittersweet month. 

Even though I'm supposed to be practicing non-attachment, I sure am attached to summer, because most of the things I love occur in summer: sunshine, warmth, songbirds, flowers, butterflies, green grass, thriving wildlife, trashy books, music festivals, etc etc. 

But the good news is that everything that ends begins again and everything that begins ends and the one constant thing within us all is eternal and beautiful.

An infrequent and brief album update from the writer who never has time to write...

This week we're getting ready to mix the one track on my album that hasn't quite come together the way "I" had envisioned it. This is a traditional "Govinda Hare/Gopale Hare" kirtan song that we recorded in honor of Shyamdas. (The song and its unusual instrumentation basically came to me in a dream, fully formed, the day after Shyamdas died). All this time I have really clung to that dream-version of the song, and all this time I have been singing the song to Shyamdas, but it still wasn't coming together. Several weeks ago I actually prayed to Shyamdas for guidance and the next day, out of the blue, a good friend wrote to me saying that she really wanted me to meet a good friend of hers--a fellow Buddhist practitioner named Susan Ryan. I knew who Susan is of course--she is Shyamdas's sister--and we have met at various events, but we hadn't really spoken at length up to that point (which is mainly a product of my own shyness at large events). Long story short, Susan and I connected by phone a week or so after that and we spoke about how much we love Shyamdas. Then another message came to me in a dream to re-record the chant like a true love song (to the Divine) rather than in the big way I had initially envisioned it. So that is what we are doing today. I am grateful for all the guidance I have received on this project--from both visible and invisible sources. JSK!