musing

Smell of woodsmoke
The bite of the evening's breeze
A husky, dry maple smell pevading the air
Leaves snap against bare feet, the wet ones underneath, still tinged with dew sticking to the bottoms of toddler toes.

A table of family members
A yardsale where the dead once lived
Sleep that comes too early to make it restful
A taste that something is so delicious that you hope it haunts your mouth for eternity

Accepting
Releasing
A breakfast invitation
A chance to start over when the alarm goes off

Diaspora...October 2010

I feel like I've been carrying these buckets of water for a long time, testing their weight, feeling the yoke harnessed at my shoulders, the ropes testing their teeth against my shoulder blades...

I'm here, in body and spirit, although it felt like there was some disassociation for quite some time as I sought balance in a universe that had seemingly come unhinged. Had a job taken from me and yet a new life given to me, found grief and let it leave to make room for joy and opportunity.

Nothing seems to be without reason or purpose and often the universe seems to already have solutions, answers...it is just up to us to figure out when we are truly ready to embrace the gifts out there.

I'd like to pick back up here. I've tried to plunge my head into the icy faucet and come back up clearer...I'm pursuing leads, tackling fears, leaning hard into uncertainty with my jaw set strongly. My family...amazing, a new miracle everyday and I am there along for the ride and when that barn really burned to the earth and left only ash the sky was much a better view than I ever imagined it could be.

This post is for you, for all of us, for everyone who is on their path and for everyone who will take a step towards their path. The imprints, your imprints, are already there for your feet to find...and when you do, the fit is perfect.

See you real soon.

Zen Daddy

The Left Side: May 9, 2010

The obi is tied on the left side for women, the strong side, to represent the fact that women are considered the more powerful life force, the more dominant energy because of the fact that their bodies are also capable of creating and nourishing life, as well as being able to physically, spiritually and emotionally bear the trials and agonies of that act of bringing another life into the world.

So it's not so much about Zen Daddyhood today and much, much more about Zen Mommyhood.

My wife is a cosmic shift in my life, a miraculous change of perspective, that chain of events that daily reminds me of how good it is to be alive.

My Zen soulmate is:

Compassionate
Evolving every day
Courageous
The master of her Raw fate (check out her blog The Raw Deal--insightful)
A wonderful mother
My best friend
Highly skilled
Curious
Unafraid to step into the unknown
A woman with great ideas
Pushing and helping me to be better
Gentle
Really funny and sweet
A fighter
The clearest pool of deep, deep water
An iron woman



The kids are awake...let the new day begin.
I humbly bow to all mommies in their metaphorical dojos all across the world.
Thanks for giving us Zen Daddy's life and helping us to celebrate it.

Zen Daddy

Doorways

When the barn burned down I could finally see the sky....

A family member shared this with me, and here we are in the midst of Spring, Pesac and Easter, renewal and time for reflection as things below the surface rise and take vibrant shape again.

The barn has burned indeed...
I was fired or removed, excessed or surplussed from my career, my job, my way of living over the past eight years.

So I am looking at the sky with a renewed sense of hope, keeping a continual vigial over hopes and dreams realizing that in searching for zen in the art of daddyhood I must once again begin a new path into understanding why the barn burned down at this time and what that vision of the sky might hold for me as I start walking once again in my life and studying teh signs and patterns as I form a new idea of zen-daddyhood and zen-like adulthood in the midst of this burning at the age of 36.

So far, I have asked so many questions so far, but the sky looks marvelous and the view breathtaking.
All else is uncertain with regards to this fire, but what it wipes away must be replaced by a newfound freedom and sense of lifemaking.

I am gathering new timbers from the love and support of friends and family around me, building a new structure for my life....and this one will include lots of windows and no roof at all.

Everything in your life is everything you allow it to be.
Be Well-
Zen Daddy

To Zen or Not To Zen...that is my question

I'm here.
At a dinner table.
Changing a diaper.
Driving the minivan (looking as smooth and relaxed as one can driving ye olde minivan)
Playing pirates.
Doing dishes,
Washing laundry.
Looking for sleep.
Meeting the repairman,
Paying the bills.
Cleaning up toys.
Bulding couch forts.
Taking out trash.
Returning calls.
Searching job sites.

Everything all of us is doing, connected, hardwired into one another, a giant paternal pulse, in iambic pentamter beating away our living moments.

Boy w've been busy and I apologize for being away--it was intentional and it was part of my growth, being able to let go of the fact that I was going to blob it out everyday and while spiritually, emotionally, mentally I did just that I was unable to send it out to you or post. Rahter than worry myself about it or beat myself up about it for feeling like a fatehrly failure I just let it go, knowing I would get back to it. The reasons are as complex as the lives we have been living, all of us, making our way through each day-- Most snowy here, most jam-pakced with joy and play and trying to fill the days with laughter and silliness and eating and time together.

So here I am, having walked another long way, having asked myself another series of long questions with even longer questions attached to those...and surprisingly some answers along my way too. If I try to live Zen am I missing the point of living Zen, and if I focus too hard on the living of it will I miss the living and my supposed inextricable link to my world?
What about just giving myself over to it--if I do that, and consciously know I am working on doing that, does it take soemthing away from my journey?
I have decided in musing on these things that not any of that matters and if it did it is just bs anyway and not the role or job of this Zen Daddy--or probably any Zen Daddy out there in the universe.
The blogging is a quest, the lifestyle and choices are the vehicle for my self-transformation and that is all that matters along that line of ideology and if other friends, soon-to-be-friends, strangers, parents whoever enjoy the journey with me and find themselves dealing with all of this too and search for their own clarity and tips for being the best they can be daily then it is all truly worthwhile and it will have achieved something that transcends the random and everyday.

Questions are a window into oursleves and into what we deeply at our truest evolved forms wish to be. We ask questions partly because of what we fear from the artificial, superficial world around us I think and we ask those questions also as a weapon to ward off that world believing at those deepest levels that we as a society, as a world can overcome and destroy those veneers and facades which prohibit so many from attaining their best selves.

There...I feel better about those issues, are you confused? Hope not, but if you are that is a wonderful place to work from too. Fear, confusion, uncertainty are only allies in our lives that are reminding us that something more important is out there for us to anchor our hopes and dreams in.

I am wishing you happy searching and questioning.

With Gratitude,
Zen Daddy

Meditating while standing beneath a ceiling fan, seven feet off the ground, arms burning from working on the wiring, thinking about how the world in its ways tries to hardwire us to experiences or expectations of how we should be, how we should define ourselves. I play crisscross with the wires, thinking about for a moment how I do not want to be that kind of person.I believe in tracing one's path you must pull your fingers from that grid and unplug. the electronic herd holds no meaning for you if you are simply being pulled by their mechanical tide, all heading in one direction.

January 26 is coming. A child's birthday. What is really most important here?

I swing from vine to vine tonight, having had a lovely night with my kiddies, more driven by exhaustion then inspiration in my writing, but I am trying to work these convoluted shapes in my head out.

I am wishing all of you a deeply restful, undisturbed rest.

Zen Daddy

Jan.20-22

Two days...trying to put two days into one post--I have been thinking a lot and pondering various personal thoughts, but I am going to be succint, or at least focus on keeping my thoughts brief.

I like to think that we are all cartographers in the world and uncertain ones at that.
Reading the maps that we design for our lives, getting caught in the shoals, being tossed and turned. Sometimes seemingly floating forever going nowhere, watching the horizon but never getting any closer to it.

Isn't parenting like that?

Question: Are children happier within the construct and contexts of family life when the parents are happy and feeling fulfilled and actualized? Is it true? Do the children see that accountability, ownership and deep sense of joy and consciously or subconsciously absorb it as well?

For me and my life with my wife and babies, I think so 100%--we live the questions adn answers of it daily, but what do you think moms and dads, or any friend or reader out there.

When I look at my map and see it smeared with kids' food, scratched out crayon questions, re-tracings of my steps I am reminded of earlier posts and earlier revelations that you won't get everything right along the way--you will barely come close on a daily basis, but you can do a lot of things well and set your sails to catch the most favorable wind as you plot out how to raise your kids and why you want to raise them in the manner that you do.

At times however, I certainly feel I know every breaker and wave, every minute pull of the wind and rudder, but often I am not sure what instrument to use and so I make it up and see how it plays out. Foundering at times, but so far, after 11 years of so, coming out above water, a bit waterlogged and gasping at times, but loving the sweet oxygen and rush I get from all of them, from life, from the adventure.


How do you do it?
What mistakes do you make? Do you feel, as I, that they are things to be celebrated or things to avoid?

What's your compass?


Zen Daddy