One Year Later and an Elk

A few years ago, I went on a meditation and service (work-trade) retreat in the high alpine mountains of New Mexico for 5 weeks. I was not new to retreat practice so I understood how transformative a retreat can be, but I was not expecting for my life to shift so much in just 5 weeks. I arrived full of inspiration and hope for my practice thinking that I knew how things would go and be. But really none of us can know what life has in store for us. As a case in point, one year ago today, while driving home to the Refuge at Pudding Creek from a full weekend of teaching in the East Bay, I had no idea that I would not be back to Oakland and Berkeley for at least a year. I didn't know that it would be so long until I would get to hug my friends or teach in person again. Now a year has passed and I am a changed person. How have you changed? The dharma teachings tell us that all things are impermanent, but I wonder how much we really understand that when life chugs along as expected. I change and so do you. We are miraculous beings that are always shifting and adapting, mending and breaking. Be tender with yourself.

So in New Mexico one afternoon at the beginning of my retreat it became clear that things were not going to go the way I had hoped and planned. I walked into the forest to take a breath and bring my upset about the situation to the earth and the sky when looming in my path was a big beautiful elk. Have you ever seen an elk? A dairy cow would be dainty compared to this animal above me on the trail. The elk startled me out of my indignant upset about things not going my way. I gazed into its gentle brown eyes and knew in a sudden flash of awareness that the practice of meditation in itself is not anything other than a support for being awake and alive in the life, personality, and body that we actually have rather than the one that we wish we had. Meditation is the practice of being intimately present in any moment. And that the practice of awakening can and does happen anywhere and anytime rather than being limited to a meditation hall or yoga mat. That might have been the end of the story except that two days later in the same place as the original elk sighting there was a dead elk with a twisted neck on the ground. I don't know if it was the same animal and I never found how it died. It was a strange synchronicity that birthed wonder and awe in me. I spent the next month while on that retreat visiting the elk as it decomposed. Over time I noticed that the elk, like me, had a spine and a pelvis and shoulder blades. I began to see clearly how it is that both the elk and I are of the nature to die. It is crucial to do what is meaningful with your life. Of course, what is of great import to me is different than what is meaningful to the elk or to you. Be tender with yourself and do what is important.

The other part of that retreat that stands out in my memory was an upwelling of love washing through me as I practiced and served. From the smelly elk body to the cleaning of the retreat cabins, I felt held by the land, the retreat center, the practices, and the other staff. I saw that we are all made of love. I wanted to live my life, the only one I have, in a way where I would be held through synchronicity, wisdom, and service. I wanted to walk under a moon with an owl overhead, to listen to the call of ravens, and move in the cycles of nature.

So I came home and changed my life (which is another story of how to make huge changes in life without freaking yourself and your partner out too much). There were struggles and disagreements and I was unskillful at times just as humans are, but here I am now at Pudding Creek. It is my second spring at this place and it is so much more than I imagined. It is a place of practice, magic, and connection. Yet, because of the pandemic, it is different than I hoped and dreamed. This time, however, I remember what the elk taught me. Things are not always what we want, but there are lessons in letting go and life is to be lived. It is all practice. Today the mighty plum tree is a wash of pink blossoms and the moon is almost dark in the open sky.