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

Teachable Moments

They're out there--those teachable moments.

The true master realizes that they know nothing and that they have everything to learn from their students.

Things that happen, that just sort of pop up and remind us of why we love something, these teachable moments It could be in the classroom or the proverbial schools and halls of life, but by living in each moment, moment to moment trying to just really be, amazing things seem to happen when the guard goes down. And I did not miss the pun of teach-able--but I beleive that the essence of this word lives in the "Able," the ability to be want to teach, to teach and most importantly, to be able to be taught. To be able to sit down across from another human being, occupying practically the same space, breathing the same air, and simply let yourself learn by just being there with them. It takes a great amount of patience, courage and attention to be able to just be with someone else, let along understand that you have libraries of education to learn from them. And they're all teachers, just as we are all students.

A new lesson each day.

Zen Daddy

Jan.18

Just grateful for having spent a grand adventure in the arms of my boys.

Look at what is most important in your life.
What is worth living for.
What is worth dying for.
What is worth everything to no one but you.
Hold onto those things, tuck them deeply into the folds of your jacket and let these be the roadmap which guide your every single moment.

Zen Daddy

Jan.17: Releasing Weight

Learning to let it go means learning to release the unecessary weight.

And believe me parents, this diet plan is more than Atkinson bargained for. We are talking something much bigger than just physcial, with results that are lifelong and full of deep healing.

Turn down the volume in your head a few clicks simply by switching off the retaliation, rebuttal, or return comment button--you want to say something to that person who cut you off? You have something negative on your mind you want to tell a co-worker? Your angry? Disilusioned?Upset at a casual remark a spouse made that got your goat? Release it. Let your weight go.

Can you imagine, for just one pure moment, what that might feel like?


That aggressive need to be right, to be first, to be the one with THE thing to say, to act as if you're in control over someone else..you're fooling yourself, lulling yourself into some false sense of security thinking "now I've told them.." Release the weight from your life, untie the albatross and take control of your positive living--living that occurs as a result of the good things you say and do, living that happens out of a need to live a good and decent life. How do we fix what goes wrong? We can't-- it already went wrong, but we can do our best in the next moment to live a little better, and if it is our "fault" in some form we can own those issues, apologize and release the weight.

This Dad worked on that today--feeling whole lot lighter today, with just a few tactical errors along the way. By asking myseld about this and all of these other 16 days worth of issues, I am seeing when thigns manifest, how, and creating solutions rather than problems. I am pursuing understanding on a different level now and truly understanding what does and does not matter in the "weight" that frames my daily existence as a person.

So go ahead and give a day over to the release of your weight and check the mental/emotional/spiritual scale at the end of the day--results might be more impressive than you think.

Zen Daddy

Walking the plank...

Lovely day with my boys, but tonight the Zen legacy comes from the mouth of babes.

"Walk the plank me hardies..." says my boys. Lives my boys.

At first this may not make sense, after all the Chinese Zen Buddhists and Japanese masters did not really make their way down to the Barbary Coast to have a cup of tea and talk about enlightenment--perhaps if they did history would have taken a different tact and the English would have been a whole lot more cheerful for a hundred years, but I digress.

We all walk the plank, and either the actions we choose put us on it or we place oursleves on its edge, peering out over an unfathomable sea, swirling uncertainty beneath us, potential murky and dangerous enemies below. Sometimes we need to walk the plank, maybe even give ourselves a good springing bounce before we leap off, and sometimes there are a lot of sharp teeth and eager mouths waiting for us, hungry for what we have or who we are.

I find that if you face the open sea, face lifted to the horizon, body eager and pressed against the caress of a hopeful wind, you can find something that feels like peace. Everything tunes in tightly and all is silence. Whoever or whatever got you out on that plank doesn't matter, why you are there does not matter. The fact is-- wherever you are means that you are there, and it's that plank. So, are you aware of where you are and are you prepared to give that position up in order to accept something bigger than you when you feel your feet on that plank--whether the sea is choppy or smooth?

Currently, we are knee deep in pirate flsgs, sinking ships, swords and eye patches, a pile of scattered Connect Four pieces, sloppy office debris, full belly's, mail and papers probably from 1982, dishes, laundry, workloads, missed calls, returned calls, chipped paint, unwashed floors, trashcans, dirty sinks, broken stuff, stuff. All of it matters and none of it matters--I am here, in it, you are there in it, and nothing can change that fact except for how we choose to see it, recognize it, really be in it and let self move with the rythym of tides. There we are: at work, at home, in the car, sitting on a toilet, at a watercooler, in a cubicle, in an office, in a basement, doing paperwork, missing a lover, loving a love, holding a friend or missing one, playing with kids, sleeping, crying, fighting, living, dying, hoping, praying--pick any adjective and insert it into the moment of where you are now. In everyone there is a plank you are walking, we are walking.

You will slip a little out there, it has many textures for you to discern, and yes, nothing is very easy about doing it and yet everything is. Guess what..you're on it right now and so am I. That horizon, that wind, that taste, this life, this...everything. Go ahead, take that next step.

It's a doozy.


With Gratitude for every day,
Zen Daddy

January 11-15, 2010: Trilogy of thought

I waited this time.
I knew days were passing and I chose to let it go, practicing a little Zen Daddy moving with the current. The waters were raging and thrashing my day around a little too much to focus on keystrokes.
Amazing things--both beautiful and horrific happen on this planet and the ripples are felt everywhere. Let us pray and remembe our brothers and sisters in Haiti--there lot is ours to share. It just puts so much in perspective. It is a shame, however, how we often we need this type of stimulus, no matter how strange or awful, to motivate us to do something or be something good.

Just be good.
Try something good.
Do some good.
Do good in the world without understanding why it is happening.
Force yourself if you have to , to avoid needing a reasoning to tough someone's life in a miraculous and positive way.
For those who have lost so much it is the least you can do, the leat we can do as people on this fragile earth.


Meditate for peace.
Meditate in the hope of becoming one with your own heart and its strenghts and limitations.
Mediate something turbulent in your life and understand it will become better.
Walk a proverbial mile in someone else's shoes and then buy them a new pair when you wear them out from all your walking.
Find yourself daily reflected in the lives of others.
May this day bring you harmony and find you on the road to good, honest moments and seeking a hand to hold and a life to touch simply because it needed touching.

Zen Daddy

a non-Zen Monday

The lesson is count your blessings.

I did not today. Missed the Zen--tried for it, looked for it, breahted for it but it was beyind me as I was clouded and a bit lost, careening like a pinball from one tilt to the next--but no points scored in my favor. I was all crash and no heal or recovery, just wasted energy today.

I could made it so much better. How'd you do today?

I am now paying the consequences--feeling sorry for myself, saying dumb things to myself, beating myself up over all the work I did and didn't do today.

Count them greedily and delight in them--none is too small in this world.
Tomm is Tuesday--gonna open up the day differently....we'l see what happens.
Zen Daddy

January 10: Being With It

Today: Be with it.

Today was Family Fun Day, a day trying to enjoy time together, find fun things to play, adventures to have..just family.

I decided to take time throughout our travels today to "be with it." Wherever I was with my family, whatever we were doing, to really be with it wholly and completely. It is hard sometimes, no matter how fun thigs can be, to stay completely with an activity when it's a Sunday or you have a stack of paperwork somewhere calling your name. I put it all aside, I placed it in a small wooden vessel and set it adrift. I wanted to be with it (my family) and be without it (everything else).

I practiced my haikus, written in spilled milk from breakfast and embraced yogurt spattered across the hardwood floor as a means to sculpt gentle chrysanthemums along the poems' borders. As children trampolined across my abdomen and we bowled into the evening hours screaming and cheering for each others' duckpins I found a gentle recognition that we had spent the whole day in one another's company figuring out our lives in humorous, mysterious and wonderful ways and we were with it throughout. I will give myself a purple belt in "With-it-ness" for today, third degree. I did well, but as all Dads know, we always feel some attachment to making things better, doing more. I don't know why that is, except to say it has been embedded in us through our culture, but that drive exists. I have been able to put it away sometimes and sometimes it wins out and puts me in a crippling anklelock, but I eventually escape, humbled.

So Monday comes and with it new lessons, new understandings.
Bow to your victories and mistakes for today.
Bow to the love of your family.
Bow to life.

Zen Daddy

Achieving mistakes: January 9,2010

No rulebooks, no guided tours through this thing we call "parenthood."

My Crane style won't protect me from projectile infant urine technique and no matter how many times I dub the voice over I still hear my own words come out of my kids' mouths when they get too crazy: "How about I tell you No dad." English or Japanese subtitles can't save it--the Ninja brood hear something and they come calling for me, smokebombs to camoflauge their attacks to my groin and face, cute laughter to mask the throwing star-like pillow coming straight for my eyes. They apear like wraiths in the mist, making me responsible for every thing I have said or done and their weapons are edged. I rush to my book, but Dr. Spock is impaled on the Diaper Genie, a Zweback biscuit casually stuffed into his mouth and the Japanese kanji for "revenge" is tattooed, Yakuza style, on his forehead in crayon. They want answers, they want snacks, they want time and they want it now--okay, step by step, figure it all out moment by moment and accept that mistakes will be made as you kamakazi into the family room fray.

I promise you, What To Expect When You're Expecting does not have a chapter on battling Ninja children to the death or the art of paternal seppuku--it is all hit or miss Papa Samurai and the blade will certainly cut with a dull edge from time to time, making a bigger mess than I intended.

We're all doing the very best we can, pail after pail of water we cart like an oxen up the mountain, bathing in the waterfall of early 6am or 10pm showers to wash away the pain of the day's lessons. Receiving a caning from the boss or walking the hot coals of our uncertainty. There is always home to come back to for us parents, but the front light that illuminates the way doesn't always have all the answers--and that is okay. We must achieve mistakes in this process, we must settle for missing the mark at times, for being imperfect, fragile human beings, capable of breaking or misstepping or both. Not every board I punch will break and some not only resist they hit back, breaking off a portion of me instead. To achieve mistakes means we tried something and, by our definition of what we were trying to accompish, we missed our goal. Children and wives, husbands and families will understand and be happier for it if you are willing to celebrate mistakes as a means of an attempt and the opportunity to learn and become clearer in your next choice.

So grab some sushi, snuggle up in a mountain pass with the feudal family and figure that despite the strength and power of the tiger and dragon surrounding all of you, there will be mudslides and it will downpour every now and then. Take it all in.

Zen Daddy

Bowing to the master

Zen Daddy's know when Zen Mommy's are the masters.

The lesson: Know your master and understand that what they have to offer will take a lifetime and beyond to gather.

If the kitchen is the dojang, then my wife is the sensei. I will take off my slipper socks before entering and I will ring the gong by pressing the "Pulse" button once on her blender. This blog is partially about me serving my family in the best possible ways as a husband and dad for a year's worth of travels and reflections and so today my palate shall narrate a tale spun in
culinary ki-ah's paying tribute to my wife.

Ok--so if my blog has not bored you enough or simply has you dreaming too much of Kung Fu The Legend Continues please check out The Raw Deal--Claire Bowerman's blog. Have you met my wife? Have you heard of her? You've probably seen her on tv in a plethora of commercicals and films or on QVC or creating an amazing wedding or charity event. Yep, she does it all and makes no bones about it. I didn't learn about it in a hidden mountain cave on a faded scroll or high in a temple in Tibet but by being around her and appreciating the marvel she is. She spent all day working on a meal, a meal she had only dreamed of previously and one that required an adventurous palate and a willingness to risk--all things I have been willing to do since we began the Zen Raw journey at home. The house, laden with scents, conjured up images of chillies, lemon and something spicy. We were all nestled at doors hoping for a taste, possibly expecting a pine cone tart on a spruce bed of petrified curry treebranches with a side salad of flower petals. This meal has all the makings of a black belt in effort and delight. I already knew she was raw serious and dedicated to creating a truly vibrant masterpiece, but this spinning back kicked me into the family room. Talk about delicious--and I mean rich, spicy, warm and thick, delicious--so amazing, so utterly amazing.

I know a master when I see one, even with one eye closed or one hand clapping.

This grasshopper has come to the table of the master hungry to learn, to participate, and she is serving up quite the human experience because raw food, dinner, cooking don't just make a meal they make a statement about the person, or people involved. It is one of the special things our kids love to do and something my wife loves, loves, to participate in and I am grateful--my tummy is grateful.

Lesson learned. She is not only everything to me and my family, but her efforts to do something like this serve to demonstrate how much she thinks of us as well.

Bow and accept another forkful.

Zen Daddy

January 7/8: Stuck between times

Working today, last night, right now at 2:26am.
Catching time in between grading and other paperwork.

The lesson is making it last.

whatever it might be--a kiss, a hug, a few moments at the dinner table with your children.
Make it all last because we all know it is limited in the grand scheme, but the feeling will remain and the result of you having made something last will resonate.
Take teh time today to find something or someone you love and get involved in something and make that moment last. Without savoring what is precious we are merely taking up space and watching everything fade to nothing.

Zen Daddy

January 6: One leaf

Allow the current to take you.

Time crunch. Missteps. Eye rolls. Deadlines (there's a reason they call them that...connections to nowhere that have no real bearing on who we are as people or employees) Busy week. Little time. Short fuses. Worry. Debt. Sick kids.You know the drill parents.

Can I possibly do anymore to bring us over the next hill?

Dads know what I mean--so many pressures to be a dad, to be the right kind of dad, not to mention being a man and the right kind or type of man at that. I still haven't figured that one out yet. Providing, caring, defending--just too many verbs and not enough time in the day to do it all and still feel good about yourself. Be that leaf, bobbing along, resting on the crest of a wave, riding out the uncertainty. Sometimes those feelings above are just reminders of how much you do and how much you want to accomplish for yourself and your family--but that fear embedded there is an ally, not a problem. It is there, built in, to guide you along and let you know that the responsibilites are great, but that you are not in it alon.. There are other dads out here with you, amazing raw-foodie mommies, brilliant Italian cooks, insightful funny children, old friends, charmingly delicious Starshine boys and a host of others to let you know that what you are doing has value. You have value and sometimes when you are caught up in all that flotsam and jetsam you need to go with that current, let it give you a way rather than trying to force one so desperately. Allow clarity and peace to emerge from giving yourself over to the freedom of something more calming and relaxing than fighting all the time.
Sometimes it is simply more important to go with that current, feel the breeze and watch the sky racing by.

Zen Daddy

January 5: missed my morning flight

Missed my proverbial morning flight to catch up with all of you.
Sleep was missed last night, perplexed by why it is hiding from me.

"Knock on the sky and listen to the sound."

The lesson for my being today. Listening in all its forms, in all its ways--to crying, yelling, pleading, begging, whining---it was a day for people's needs so it seemed and I tried to knock on everything and be present in the knock in order to hear some reverberation, some echo, some sound. I heard many things and felt many more.

There is something unseen I am pursuing that goes beyond my limited writing ability--my daddyhood is asking me new and tough questions everyday and I am listening. There is an awakening happening with everytime I see my family--or at least there is a shift that is moving me towards a new focus, a new sense of listening and a stopping to listen better.

Warm, soft sleep to you and yours-
Zen Daddy

January 4, :10:18

It was strange, hard at times and a bit awkward to be back within walls that are not my house, not my home, without my family today in the workworld. The day went well enough, but that life balancing issue, currency, miracles, so many puzzles to be examined just from these things I am writing about recently.

Let's focus on today's lesson a bit more--work. I spent time meditating this morning and this afternoon on the following thoughts:


We work to provide.
We work to create.
We work hard sometimes to build relationships.
We work hard sometimes to maintain different types of relationships.
We work hard to get it right.
We work even harder and get it wrong.

I found no direct answers, nor expected any, but it was calming to take that moment for myself in the day, twice, to examine the places where I had been walking, where I was in the now and what I needed to do to step forward. As I said, no specific answers, but I'm like you just trying to sort through some of this and create a platform to, I suppose, evolve from. 365 days right? A goal. Ok, breathe deep, step after step.

Work...today's lesson--

As I moved through our evening--as quick as it went-- it still allowed me to take stock in an appreciation of the work here (bathing children, making lunches, doing dishes, watching a film, reading together, putting on a band-aid or giving medicine, watching a child read a book, do their homework or just plain get silly) this is the right type of work for me to be involved in--sign me up, give me my id and I'm punching my timecard for this kind of employment. It pays more in a second, in a day, in a year than any other type of job I've ever known.

Dads, give ten extra hugs to your kids tonight, tell them you love them even more and make sure your wife or partner knows just much much you appreciate them before the night is through. Too much slips by unrecognized in the day to not take a few precious moments for the real work that suits you best--so do the very best you can to live up to it. I'm proud of you dads, you real men unafraid to love and hug, to take care of your families, to make promises and keep them.
I am writing about it, but in the diaper-filled, toy-strewn dojos of cities and suburbs everywhere you right now are doing the real work.

Zen Daddy

Zen Daddy

January 4, 2009: 4:34 -Later in my day...

Hi.

I missed the morning by a few hours--I was up at five to go to school and just got moving along--I'll get better at this.

The lesson for my first day back in the classroom post-break:

"Get up and do something useful, the work is part of the koan."
-Hakuin

Good day, sad morning, walking out of the house--leaving the family behind, knowing baby is sick and missing the warm bed where my wife and I sleep. I tossed and turned all night, peaceful sleep eluded me. Unsure of why?

The key to harmony lies in understanding work in its many facets?
When to work, when to help others work, when to let them work, when to give up work for something else? What is work really? Some use work as a way to hide from, escape from, or avoid something else? Some work too much missing out on greater things.

Some make sure that work is also fun and focuses on bringing people, ideas, etc together.

I like the last one, esepcially seeing as how so much work goes into having a family and cultivating the positive power of the family structure.

For work and home--all day--Today we will work some, making sure to do it together. Whatever work comes our way we will find ways to explore the concept together as positively as possible--with my students I will also be a student, with my family I will share the role of inquisitve child and focused husband.

Zen Daddy

January 3: 9:20 pm--miracles in all shapes and sizes

You have to be willing, I think, to see the miraculous in something as simplistic as your child drawing and creating a monorail from paper, or your little baby saying, "Hi Daddy--Daddy, I'm way back here" when he is only a foot from you during story time and is used to sitting snuggled up against you--(he just wanted me to know he felt a bit farther away, but he was thinking of me).

I breathed deeply today and made it last.

I tried all kinds of things to stretch the time and make it really last.

There were so many things to celebrate and we stayed in all day doing just that--it was really cool, and when I needed a minute to stretch or go to the bathroom, I told people and went and did what I needed to do. That, in and of itself, is a miracle because the old me would have kept on playing while my stomach kept on growling and it is important to make sure you are getting care as well in all of the fun.

My son got mad at me and said I was boring at one point because I would not let him set up a new, still-in-box train garden that we were packing away for next years' holiday, after almost seven hours of straight playing with him doing a zillion different things. I let it get to me and was sad and frustrated for a few minutes, but mommy tagged in and took over and it worked itself out and all was well. Those moments happen too don't they.

I watched the kids play and laugh.
Harmonized a song with my wife.
Ate delicious soup and drank powerful H2O.
Completed a few chores.
Built multiple blanket/cushion forts and watched invisible fireworks.
Created a version of Dutch Wonderland with my wife and took the kids there to play on all kinds of rides we made around the house.
Ate more soup (it was so good...I love the miracle of potatoes)
Played board games
Put eye drops in my son's eye--conjunctivitis
Read stories
Drew some really cool picutres and heard my kids tell us how much they love us while they made us cards proclaiming it

Took a glance at my little one's scar on his chest where he had his open heart surgery at 8 months..now there's a miracle.

So much to have been grateful for today and I'm just hoping I did the best job I could as daddy, husband, person...there is always more I guess, but this day, this moment--I tried to celebrate the miracles--there were just so many....I'm sure I missed a few.


Zen Daddy

January 3, 2010;10am: Where the day starts is not where the day must end

Migraine...started at 4am.

Fortunately, my sweet wife was able to bring me some Excedrin and let me sleep a while longer so I could find a better way to maintain. There was a moment in the midst of my skull hammering that I just listenened to the kids downstairs playing and heard my lady cooking...a comforting feeling.

Feeling better now at 10am.

Ready to embrace.

Saw a plant dying outside, frozen in the winter weather, but a giant bird's nest sitting in the middle of it. A symbol of definance of the death around it perhaps, a symbol of home and the potential of transition. Who knows, but it spoke to me and today I am breathing and looking
into aspects of life.

"Truth comes in between breaths," said the Buddha and so today I will spend my time turning down the volume in order to recognize the truth of miracles, daily miracles, in my life.

Enjoy your breathing and enjoy the view from the windows wherever you are today. I'm glad we're in it together.

Zen Daddy

January 2, 2010: Evening Satisfaction

At various turns today things were a bit out of sort with the kids, but life, not existing in a vacuum, throws us those moments as ways to keep us sharp. At least that is the way this Zen Daddy wants to perceive it in order to celebrate learning lessons rather than waste chances.

Encouraging today meant complimenting, thanking, challenging, maintaining boundaries, flexing others, focusing more, breathing deeper, thinking faster, thinking less. The site here, the time writing, the fact that this is happening is in a way--hold on my little one is calling for me

"Daddy, my ear hurts." He is crying. We hold him, my wife and I, and start to talk about the day, his off moments, his hurts, we use a flashlight to look at his ear, his teeth--it dawns on us...new teeth, earache--he says his ear hurts. No guidebook comes with being a parent. We hold him, we comfort him--he wants blueberries. Fortunately, we are at grandmom and grandpa's and they, of course, has some yummy ones. We look at one another, we try the old standby of children's Tylenol (he has no fever however)--and you know, it's all of this life happening, and I bet that while they carried water, practiced forms, meditated, cleaned the temple and just searched for nirvana that the Zen masters of old did not have to take care of three children and keep them safe from the monsters pouring out of every newspaper and television. Whew! A lot to work on--a lot to balance. Balance is a key factor in all of this--as a parent, a Zen Daddy, everythign. Anything you want to be out there. Learning to balance.

It was a day full of many lessons, and I learned some new ones, especially the one about making sure to focus on others and take the extra effort in daily life to encourage others; I did not miss the fact that the word" courage" is living in there as well. Attaining peace and harmony in one's life--emotionally, socially, spiritually, etc takes courage to dare. Applying this to how you treat the ones you love takes even more courage, and patience as well. Like being a parent, it's a process and will not happen overnight.

Gotta go..my little boy needs his Daddy.
Have a peaceful night.

Zen Daddy

January 2, 2010, 8am: Pursuing Encouragement

"You can achieve your aims through the enouragement of others. Encouragement is one of the great powers...Kindness and gentleness in your relations brings allegience, co-operation and ultimately, success." ( I Ching, No. 58, Thinking Body, Dancing Mind)

Little voices at 7am, filling the house and my thoughts turn to listening in the stillness of my covers. A toliet flushes, a dry night for one child, and the other pulling at the crib bars for release from his toddler confines. Drawing yesterday's lesson from the mind and body, freshly embedded, pressing it into the pages of today. Even so early, the currency is piled around us.

I will focus energies today, despite whatever might be going on with me, to encourage everyone else around me in order to celebrate the positive power of nourishing others--this energy, circular in nature, should, theoretically, come back on me as well and allow me to thrive and find inner peace and strength; this will be my aim. A day has many hours in it, and today is Saturday.

Another father told me yesterday that a Saturday is "a lot of hours to fill with finding something to do with your kids...it's hard" Things can be hard for us all the time given teh myriad of responsibilities, right? I do agree with the feeling, but I must say, everything is possible on a Saturday, and all of those hours will be encouraged so that my wife, three children and myself make the very most of the chance to find the keys to this Saturday.

Zen-Daddy

The Student's First Awakening

The close of my first day...and the Zen lesson embraced:

The currency of one single day--how to take stock in what is most valuable in your world and understanding when you truly live in those moments and when you allow yourself to be bogged down by the unnecessary chatter and static of discord, hesitation, negativity within....

Moments of January's first day:

Shoots of bright grass poking from holes in the snow.

The kids and I standing by the stream, tossing pieces of ice into the water, watching them melt.

Dressing up as pirates and singing sea chanteys about bottles of rum and Davey Jones locker.

Hearing my daughter say I love you.

Looking at children's artwork from years past.

Losing my temper over something silly like my little one standing up on his chair at the dinner table.

Falling asleep with my arms wrapped tight around my son's shoulders, my face buried in his soft hair.

Talking with friends about a direction for a new year.

My wife and I laughing over our duet singing of lyrics for the infommerical for "FlirtyGirl" exercise products.

Feeling frustrated when my wife is in pain and I cannot do anything but want to.

Saying I love you to everyone in my family and wanting them to know how much I mean it.

Learning how to really let go of the inconsistent heartburns of frustration and temperment.


In order to celebrate this currency it is best to understand that one must given themself permission to be human, to make mistakes, to be happy and disappointed and that both are mere markers in a quest for deeper understanding. It is good at the start of this new year, in this new journey, to realize how many opportunities are out there for a daddy like me to become that much better and clearer. It is overwhelming, as I check my human portfolio and feel my home filled with love and life, to begin to understand just how wealthy I am and how much all of this will grow in the coming days and months.


Stay open to everything. Goodnight.

Zen Daddy

A New Year...a new opportunity: January 1, 2010

Ok...hi.

I wanted to try and make contact with other parents out there, dads definetly, but mommies too--other families, other friends, others who are seeking clarity in their lives as parents.

If I drop this blog deep enough into the water I am hopeful that its ripples will reach you.

One year, one journey...a Zen Daddy taking the walk of 365 uncertain steps, trying to find a new point of clarity as a father and husband each day. If I apply the philosophies of Zen Buddhism to my daily living, practicing these ancient beliefs as a daddy and husband, will I too, as the wise sages did, be able to achieve some beautiful, miraculous moments of clarity and thus, in turn, be able to become the best husband, father and human being I can be? A lot to chew on...

What is the sound of one hand changing a diaper and if a sippee cup falls in the kitchen and it is all alone does it make any sound?


I hope many of you will grab whatever it is you need and take this walk with me.

Sincerely and With Much Hope,
Zen-Daddy