July 21, 2024

As summer heat carries on across the country, with shifting storms, and shifting political news, I am mulling over restorative practices. Restorative is an interesting word. It is a specific aspect of healing that by definition makes a person feel better--recovers energy or abilities--when they are tired, sick, injured or even overwhelmed. Restorative implies what is damaged or depleted can be made whole again.

In yoga, restorative refers to a type of relaxation that includes the body as well as the mind. Gentle muscular stretches are held for several minutes, while the body relaxes, supported by pillows, bolsters and other props. Mental processing slows to focus on the breath. This seemingly contradiction of simultaneous relaxation and stretch, increases physical flexibility, releases muscle and emotional tension, lowers blood pressure, improves cardiac rhythm, and reduces physical pain. It's interesting that Westerners, in the push to achieve more mastery in yoga, or more athletic strength or skill in exercise or sports, often focus on self-coercion to summon success, resisting the idea of gentle restoration of the body.

In the Western Biblical tradition, there are multiple references to spiritual restoration that leads to physical healing and renewal in life circumstances, including relationships, prosperity, and a sense of meaning, The first passage I memorized in the Bible as a child was the 23rd Psalm that begins with the metaphor of God as the Shepherd who cares, and "makes me (us all) to lie down in green pastures. He leads me by still waters. He restores my (each) soul". As I child, this image of green pastures and still waters brought me immediate peace, even though I didn't understand the historical context. Now, after years of reflection on this Psalm and it's layered historical and metaphysical meaning, these lines still bring Peace. In the context of 2024 and global climate change, there is new meaning in our collective need for green pasture and still waters with an added understanding of restoration and the critical role of nature's capacity to soothe and heal.

Yet, "restoration of the soul" is not to be confused with the idea that life must stay the same, nor return to what it "used to be". Life is movement, and Life is not locked in to one form, or expression. Life is boundless. It is our human capacity to flow with changing times--with Life's boundless possibilities and our own creative ability to respond to events--that is in need of restoration. If you are tired and depleted, if you slip into despair, or just feel over-burdened, consider a time of restoration, a time of rest, ease and nourishment, rather than neglect or force. Sundays, or these remaining days of summer, in spite of heat, storm, or news still hold a space for your deeper soul restoration. Let go. (Susan Nettleton)

For poetry: https://www.bible.com/bible/114/PSA.23.nkjv

https://bestselfmedia.com/restoration-a-poem/

https://onbeing.org/.../john-odonohue-for-one-who-is.../

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../of-history-and-hope

July 14, 2024

This past week, circumstances brought me to the local California DMV without an appointment. The building was highly digitalized, complete with QR codes, text messages involving more codes, a large mounted screen flashing upcoming alphabetic/numerical coded-clients, alphabetized staff cubicles, a triage gatekeeper worthy of an ER, and of course we, the drivers, lined up and then seated in rows before the screens and counters. I knew I'd have to wait, but that kind of waiting is always an opportunity for meditation, especially a meditation on waiting itself, which is my subject today. One of my favorite Buddhist quotes is from Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha. In the story, circumstances eventually lead the future Buddha, Siddhartha, to seek a job. The potential employer questions Siddhartha about his "credentials" for the job and Siddhartha replies simply : "I can think, I can wait, and I can fast." I have written various pieces on that powerful quote, as condensed attributes of the spiritual life. At the DMV, "I can wait" was at the top of theses skills.

Meditation in a packed room of"strangers" is quite different than meditation in your own quiet, dedicated space and practice. The waiting space at DMV was vibrant with activity. Along with the visual pull of the large screen with number codes displaying changing rounds of applicants, a second screen flashed California public programs, while code numbers were simultaneously announced by a robot voice. Those waiting were a cross section of American life with multiple languages, styles, ages, and handicaps. An elderly man sitting next to me was watching a movie on his cell phone, volume full on!. I was prepared for the wait, but rather than sit with my work I brought or my book, I chose meditation to have a moment to acclimate. No one seemed to notice my closed eyes, quiet breath, or stillness. The screen rotations and announcements carried on shifted; the noisy cellphone movie continued. In meditation, the sounds were no longer a nuisance. I was waiting for my turn.

Meditation comes in infinite forms. Reflecting on how meditation has changed for me over the years, I realized one of the biggest shifts s came when I stopped orchestrating some inner event or experience. Rather, sitting has become a gentle shift to what I can only call the meditative mind as it moves away from the calculating mind. The calculating mind is a mind that plans and maneuvers, it designs, interprets and judges. It "adds things up", that is, it reaches conclusions. It is a significant aspect of human intelligence, often self-serving. Over the years, my sense of meditative mind has changed from an abstract emptiness, or a thought stopping stillness, to a kind of waiting. It is like the way you wait for a friend that you know is on the way, and will soon walk through the door. Or while sitting with a friend, you wait for them to speak, because you sense they have something to tell you, and you don't want to disrupt, or take over the conversation. Or, when all conversation has stopped, you simply share a connection. The calculating mind may still hang around and intrude, but it can be spotted and gently silenced.

The patience to wait develops over years of observation. You discover answers, guidance, direction, connections, are not obligated to only reveal themselves in mediation. Times of turning inward can yield unexpected clarity and serendipitous events later, while out in the bustle of everyday life. So the conversations around me, the robotic announcements, the cell phone movie's voices next to me, don't matter. It's all life. The quiet center speaks through all, navigates around all, or waits its turn--later today, tomorrow, months, years from now. This is the fabric of life in which we all have our part--wherever you are headed today, or this week, you are an aspect of that fabric. All the upheaval of recent events are also aspects of that fabric. Meditation gives us the where-with-all to move with the flow of life. It brings the patience, trust, expectation, directive that requires going with, rather than arguing against, or fighting, resisting and/or ignoring the movement of Life. We can wait.

For poetry: https://allpoetry.com/.../8625707-Life-by-Juan-Ramon-Jimenez

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../Isaidtomysou/index.html

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../NowIBecomeMy/index.html

July 7, 2024

The first week in July 2024 has been turbulent, coming on the heels of the Presidential debate with all its controversy and aftermath, exuberant 4th of July celebrations amid extreme heat across the Southwest (and world), and the earliest-forming Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record, Beryl. Here outside L.A., we watched the local 4th of July parade with kids, flags, streamers and candy give-aways, marching bands and local officials --a definite throwback to small town life, affirming strong roots and a stable future despite the 90 degree heat. While personal fireworks are banned, surrounding cities sponsored fireworks that boomed late into the night. Friday brought heavy traffic; Saturday turned still. That stillness seemed to deepen in the silence of meditation.

The stillness brought to my mind the Biblical passage, Kings 19, 11-13. The prophet Elijah, fearing for his life in a religious/political war, hides in a wilderness cave. God tells him to come out in the open as He passes by. As Elijah starts, there is a tremendous wind that shatters the mountain rocks, but God was not in the wind. "After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there came a still small voice. 13 When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his coat and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Then a voice said to him, “Elijah! Why are you here?”

The story continues with Elijah's new mission, but the power of this passage, metaphysically, is the still quiet directive of the inner 'voice' that matters, not the drama which fed Elijah further fear. It is the inner voice within, in a time of withdraw into stillness, after all the spectacle, that leads him out of the cave and back to place his part in life. The inner voice challenges him to remember the part he has been given in unfolding events, "Elijah! Why are you here?" On one level a fearful Elijah is hiding in the cave; on another level, he has withdrawn in spiritual solitude, to seek guidance for his next move. Can both be true? Yes, we live as people in a delicate world of culture and human society, but we remain expressions of a greater unfoldment of Life Itself.

This week I also came across my copy of Garrison Keillor's poetry anthology: Good Poems for Hard Times, which seemed fitting for this week. It's a mix of complaint and upliftment, the material world and it's difficulties and joys, along with existential and transcendent resolve. The poetry links below are poems from that volume that speak of both levels. Consider today and as you read them, your inner response to the question, "why are you here?" this July 2024. (Susan Nettleton)

For Poetry, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse...

https://allpoetry.com/The-Planet-On-The-Table https://exceptindreams.wordpress.com/.../24/254-the-future/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/14511/just-now/

June 30, 2024

This last week in June as summer deepens in an uncertain climate, I have been reflecting further on the our physical senses and the relationship of our sense nature to spirituality. Many religious teachings throughout world history have shunned our natural senses in a belief that love of the sensuous distracts us from the true depths of spirituality. Still today, we have ideas that meditation requires us to turn away from external sights, sounds and movement that distract the mind's focus from turning inward. While meditation does move us from outer activity to inner stillness, it really isn't necessary to run from sense input. Rather, I propose considering meditation as a process that moves our awareness to more and more subtle expressions of vision, scent, sound, touch and taste. The idea that we have to turn from the physical input of an external world to experience intuition and/or the true nature of the self, sets in motion a polarized belief that our sense nature and the natural world around us, is somehow at odds with our inner life, making it spiritually necessary to be detached from our physical form.

Ancient religions in an attempt to access and connect to spiritual realms with little understanding of the neurophysiology of the human body, drew a dividing line between our outer senses and our inner longing for understanding. Buddha taught in terms of the problem of attachment to the things of the world, which themselves are in motion. In other words, those attachments are inevitably subject to change. Wanting more of whatever pleasurable experiences we have, or emotional reliance on those aspects of life which we grow to crave at the expense of other ways of seeing and being, ultimately brings suffering. These are indeed potential pitfalls in life--not allowing life to change or develop--or even age, which is the nature of life. My focus today is about opening to the wondrous beauty of that which allows us to perceive and relate to the Allness. I am encouraging you to bring your physical senses to the table as it were, to more and more subtle forms of awareness.

I began reflecting on the more subtle aspects of sense this week at the grocery store. As I eyed the snack shelves, I was struck by a growing pitch for "intense" snack experiences--labels like intense "heat" or "flavor", and intense beverages -from soda to alcohol to caffeine! With the obvious exception of pure hot chili peppers, this marketing trend brings a variety of lab generated additives. It is not just food and the sense of taste here that is exploited, but a push for intense stories, news, films, music, the sharp and demanding push of our bodies in sports and fitness calling you to feel the burn. But, do we need increasingly intense experiences? Evidently, intensity is good for marketing. And clever marketing feeds a cultural pressure that offers bonding through both sensory challenges and competition, especially among the young who have yet to develop caution.

My reflection on the subtle senses brought to mind French philosopher François Julien's book: In Praise of Blandness (2007), which explores the early Chinese Taoist practice of cultivating sensory experiences of blandness. Blandness was perceived as a way to move toward sameness, and through that, understand the "undifferentiated foundation of all things". In other words, the Tao, the undifferentiated energy of life, brings the 10,000 things into form. I invite you to experiment with your senses on subtler levels. Inner hearing is not disconnected from the outer sounds of the world; the same is true with taste, vision, touch (the touch of spirit, the touch of God, the angelic touch), with scent (the air that brings a mysterious whiff of perfume), a song arising and awakening, and sound that echos the past--or future... This is not to cultivate the "extra sensory", but to discover the larger frame of guidance and relatedness of a larger world. (Susan Nettleton)

for poetry: https://allpoetry.com/Five-Senses

https://ortizpoetry.blogspot.com/.../12/my-fathers-song.html https://www.best-poems.net/mary.../at_blackwater_pond.html https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../hearing-56d221d141610

June 23, 2024

It was a fairly simple moment Friday evening, as I parked my car in my usual curb parking spot, and felt the need to sit still in the front seat...just stop and be still. I wasn't really meditating, but I've been a meditator for so long, that just sitting "on pause" for a moment sparks a meditation connection. I looked down the tree lined street that brought shade while the Heat Wave--or Southern California's share of it--scorches the country. These trees arch high above the electrical wires; curved branches on the south-side meet mirroring branches on the north side, while dropping purple blossoms in a slight breeze. They give peaceful shelter for birds, squirrels, raccoons, lizards, tiny life forms, insects. There is shade for larger animals too, beyond the many dogs (on daily walks with their people friends) and even shade for bears, an occasional mountain lion, or a lean wolf down from the mountain, looking for food. This Friday evening the angle of the sun sprinkled rays of golden light across the clumps of branches. What a view! And for a moment, I was keenly aware of the act of Seeing.

Maybe it was because my eye doctor had recently changed the prescription on my contact lenses, or maybe it was the contrast of the brutal heat lifting when I turned the corner to my shady street, but I was flooded with the sense of sight. What an amazing thing: Seeing. We know that not everyone has sight or full sight. Aging, along with all sorts of life events can dim or damage sight, but I was struck with the sheer wonder that sight exists at all, let alone the addition of our other senses. It is the composite of those other senses that compensate should others fail. As I sat in the car, I shifted briefly to an awareness of evening bird song....listening...but was pulled back to the view. This encounter was really about watching.

Yet, there is a paradox here when we talk of human beings belonging to, or immersed in, the world of nature and the Allness of life, because to 'see' in this way is a distancing of immersion. I remembered a lady from the earlier years of Hillside Church who told me about a sudden realization she had as she prayed for understanding of her spiritual life and her role in it all. An inner voice answered that she was a "witness". This brought her peace. Sitting in the car, I agreed; I was witnessing the Wonder, but I also was witnessing my capacity to see. This is a point of separation. To see is seemingly separation. The tree has become an object; the self, I, "stand" outside the tree, witnessing that Wonder. I thought of the Biblical quote in Genesis 1:31, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." And yet God, the Transcendent, is both Creator and Created. Confounded, our logic moves to separate. Sitting in the car after a day of dust and heat, then the play of light and shadow, coolness of shade and shade as shelter, I saw the Beauty of it all. A tiny part of me in some unfathomable aspect of Divine Vision, rests in All, God, seeing through my eyes, naming it Good and very Good. Today is a day to trust your outer vision. Look. Simply Look. (Susan Nettleton)

For poetry: https://poeteecummings.weebly.com/i-thank-you-godpoem.html

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../HowtoSeeaDee/index.html

https://www.yogawithsusana.com/post/the-ponds-by-mary-oliver

June 16, 2024

Today is Fathers Day, the holiday that mirror's Mother Day, completing the traditional parental unit. Like Mother's day, Father's Day has extended to acknowledging the significance of those who express the father-like role of support in our process of growing up and maturing. That extension is particularly meaningful to those who grow up with no father or limited support for meeting basic needs --food, clothing, shelter, health care, essential learning and development of skills--to build the assurance that our lives matter, that we are valued and loved. In the 21st century, with both traditional, or reversed, or shifting male/female roles within family life, and new models of gender fluidity, Father's Day is open for a wide band of interpretation and options. Still, it is worth contemplating this time of year ( Mother's or Father's Day), your own assessment and gratitude for those who have sheltered you, guided and supported you, and contributed to your becoming.

Beyond this, spiritually we have the ancient model of God as Father. While the Divine Mother plays a complementary role in religious thought, the role of "God as Father of us all" remains a deeply entrench model and metaphor. Indeed for those who have had absent fathers, or traumatic loss, or neglect or family violence, the idea of a loving God as your Transcendent Father can be healing. God as the Ultimate creator of all, including human beings, a God who can and does protect, guide and sustains your life, a God who loves Creation and thereby loves You, and returns you to Himself, can bring great Peace. Of course, in our dualistic religious constructs, there are religious teachings that warn that the same God can, with great wrath, punish and reject, if we stray from the rule book or put other things, people, ideas before reverence and love of God. Religious structure can define contractual terms that leave the threat outweighing the benefit. But when spirituality is a matter of the heart, when forgiveness is enfolded in communion with our Highest reaching for the All, naming that Father (or Mother for that matter) repairs the scars of childhood.

There is yet another paradoxical idea of you as father of God. I am not writing of the idea that God is just our fabricated Father figure to comfort our confusion and fear, but as the poet Rilke wrote, in essence we are extensions of God, moving God into form to express, through feelings, through creativity, thereby, expanding the dimensions of life. Our willingness to care and support the expression, livingness, being-ness of God is our "father" role. This is worth contemplating whenever you bring forth something new or you encourage others in their life's expression: This is your or their contribution and support of the magnificence of Life. Even our attempt to put into words our spiritual depths, carries the Mystery of God to fuller expression. We nurture a growing God. Happy Father's Day! (Susan Nettleton)

"...So God, you are the one who comes after. It is sons who inherit, while fathers die. Sons stand and bloom. You are my heir."

from Rilke's Book of Hours, trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, Riverhead Books, New York, 1996.

Poetry: https://poemsforyourtalisbag.blogspot.com/.../you-god-who... http://www.lifeofasaiseeker.com/.../rilkes-book-of-hours... https://www.thatenglishteacher.com/.../ortizs...

June 9, 2024

Today's post is an excerpt from my Zoom talk this morning on "Spiritual Surrender".

...The common definition of surrender is giving up something; what is that something? It could be an object, a thing, property, relationship, argument-- giving up something that is yours to someone else, with the implication that you have been forced to, or, it is necessary to do so. ... Surrender implies by nuance, conflict. There is an element of loss and/or control in surrender, especially when used in a legal sense. We give up fighting because we are tired of the fighting or we realize the cost of fighting is too great, (that could be legally, financially, or the physical cost of the fight, or emotional cost, mental cost)--it's too much work to keep whatever it is.

Surrender includes admission, but we often, actually give up without admitting to ourselves or anyone else that we have given up and stopped trying. We agree to some conciliatory plan to prevent others from being angry; we agree to get along, and try to not upset them. But is this surrender? Bargaining is another idea--I'll give up this, you give up that, it will work out. Sometimes, we use reasoning to resolve conflict. But here's the spiritual thing, are our conflicts with others, and things, and events, separate from our spiritual life? A separate category? Is spiritual surrender only about our spiritual life? Spiritual surrender is Giving Way. Depending on your construct of spiritual, that can mean giving way to God's will, rather than your will-- but underneath that thought is still a division, a distinct separation of God and person. Alternatively, spiritual surrender assumes the spiritual movement of life that runs through all. In which case, we are giving way to that movement. And where do we locate the movement of life? It's here, right now. Whatever is going on. So there is a time of spiritual surrender that is acceptance of what is happening, whatever it may be. A surrender to movement, flow, and events. In other words, we don't fight daily life.

...Still society's collective consciousness can pull us into fear and/or anger/blame that disturbs our capacity to surrender. Again, Spiritual surrender is not so much about giving in as it is about giving way to life's movement. We face heat and storms, in a season that archetypally is a time when nature offers freedom. Surrender now includes a changing environment, a summer that pushes us to a new awareness: climate can and does change--climate as weather, but also, climate as mass migration, of shifting wildlife, new forms of life and disappearance or disruption of our relationship to the animal world. A changing atmosphere that is not just about weather, but atmosphere in terms of social support, agreement vs conflict, and unrest. The Surrender I am encouraging includes surrendering to a changing environment, as multiple strategies emerge that will have to be negotiated and navigated. We cannot come to breakthroughs without surrendering the past, opening to what is in front of us to do.... I am saying that in surrender, there is support. We tend to think of surrender, especially spiritual surrender as, in a sense, subjugation--a should, a supposed to, subjugating ourselves. But surrender is support. The act of letting go, brings connection. In surrender, we recover connection. In essence, we surrender to our true identity, that by the nature of configuration, we cannot grasp: We are Life itself.

(Susan Nettleton)

for some of this morning's readings: https://www.designingyourlife.coach/.../for-earth-day-in... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../the-promise-we-live-by https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../culture-and-the...

June 7, 2024

Announcement to all!

Hillside will hold a Zoom Service, Sunday, March 24, 2024 with Dr. Susan Nettleton

Topic: Summer Surrender

Date: June 9, 2024

Time: 11:00 AM Mountain Time, 10:00 AM Pacific Time

If you are not on our email list for Zoom service and would like to attend, please email us at Hillsideew@aol.com or through the contact page on our website: Hillsidesource.com or message us on Facebook with your email address.

June 2, 2024

Last week, already on overload with work and family commitments, I was up early to face my "to do" list. As I headed to pull together breakfast, I was suddenly struck how much clutter had accumulated, during the last very busy 3 months. Too much stuff. Spring was passing into summer--whatever happened to the idea of spring cleaning? Caught between the inner pressure to tackle disorder and the need to get to my computer tasks, I suspected I was in avoidance mode. The solution, I told myself, was the 5 item rule--my default cleaning mode. I put away 5 items from the dish drainer, quickly washed the 5 items in my sink, and randomly sorted one bookshelf that was overloaded, tossing 5 unnecessary accumulations. Next my eye caught the build-up on the dresser. Part of me thought "get to the computer, Susan", and another part was drawn to the dresser corner. I succumbed to what felt like further procrastination. Under a pile of notes that I quickly tossed in the trash, I found what my unconscious had been seeking: my buffalo necklace.

The buffalo necklace is a beautiful bronze cast, flat on the back, contoured on the front, with both a pin and a small chain hook, so that it can be worn as either way. It was made by a Winnebago Tribe artist and I found it at an Native American art fair many years ago in the red rocks outside Jemez. I didn't know I was searching for it the day as I wandered through the artists' displays, wanting to buy something, but not sure what. When I saw it on a table of jewelry--mostly turquoise and silver--I was awed by it's detail, and touched it momentarily. Something inside me shook. I walked away, but was hit with waves of tremors--what in yoga is called kriyas, involuntary waves of spiritual energy, a release of kundalini energy. I wandered through the fair until the shaking stopped and I had seen enough. I wanted the buffalo. For me it was a reminder of why I had left Houston when I completed medical school and why I had moved to Albuquerque and a four year psychiatry residency at the University of New Mexico. That decision came in a deep meditation experience along with a vibrant image of buffalo in a fenced field. The next day, the mail brought the UNM residency program booklet, with my buffalo vision on the cover.

When I found my necklace again, buried under the stack of "stuff", I put it on. I meditated and sat down to work with the quiet reminder of my calling and the spiritual ground of being. My point here for your consideration this Sunday, is not just that there's still time for some spring cleaning. Beyond that, I want to remind you that seemingly routine chores of life are not separate from your worldly goals, nor your spiritual path. In the pull to procrastinate, generated by a nagging need to re-establish order, I was led back to the foundation of my life and work. Guidance is everywhere. Even in our resistance. (Susan Nettleton)

For poetry: https://literaturevaults.com/spring-cleaning/ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../its-hard-to-keep-a... And from Larry Morris: "June is the Joy of God"

God's love is the warmth-shedding June don't think, smell the lilacs don't fret, let the crickets fill your ears with love songs from God

May 30, 2024

Announcement to all!

Hillside will hold a Zoom Service, Sunday, June 9, 2024 with Dr. Susan Nettleton

Topic: Summer Surrender

Date: June 9, 2024

Time: 11:00 AM Mountain Time, 10:00 AM Pacific Time

If you are not on our email list for Zoom service and would like to attend, please email us at hillsideew@aol.com or through the contact page on our website: hillsidesource.com or message us on Facebook with your email address.