Great.

Ok so now comes the snag.

I feel awkward.  I have these silly thoughts like “Did he mean it?” Did he just say yes because I asked and he felt pushed into it?”  Would he regret it if I used it too much?  “How much is too much and how would I know?”  So I began looking on line for compost turners thinking that if it were cheap enough I could just avoid all of those feelings, all of the potential discomfort if I did overstep my bounds or offend him or irritate him and just get MY OWN.

Then I saw it. That is how it all works.  I have to have one of everything and you have to have one of everything because we don’t have a clear social contract about the norms.  Or I guess you could say the social contract we do have is about each person for him/herself so I am going against that contract by even making such a request.  I could see the whole territory I have to traverse just to borrow one tool, one lousy tool.  And I could see how I would rather have my own tool than confront this relatively simple set of transactions.  So how then will I get the courage to have conversations about matters much closer to the heart?  How will I get the courage up to break down some much larger barrier erected by this culture of separation?  How will I find what I need to re-weave that social fabric so my sharing with my neighbor is more relevant than all of the noise I find in the context of separation?  Before I simply moved to co-housing, to a culture where there was a different social contract.  So do I only interact with others I know are like me, who share this desire to break down the walls?  Or do I find the strength to invite my neighbors to join me? Find out if maybe they crave something different too? Find out if they wish to break down a few barriers of their own?  I have not bought my own compost turner yet and I have not walked over to my neighbors yard to borrow his either.  My compost smells again and I am a bit stuck between contexts.

It really is like waking up. Resistance, distraction and alienation are strong weapons and make me very sleepy. When I began to wake up, I got curious. Why am I eating a lot, why I am watching a lot of TV?

There are two levels to the answer. The first line of thinking, the one that helped me stay asleep, was that I am so severely nauseous, eating and getting lost in a movie are two of the only ways to help me feel less nauseous. There is some justification here, some defensiveness (only to my own inner Judge), like: “Hey! I am doing the best I can! Leave me alone. I am in pain.” But as I looked more deeply, I could feel into a collective source of information, a collective pattern of behavior and that is when I recognized that the gift of consumption is that it helps us not to feel. The overeating, the excess of entertainment … They stuff me full so that there is no sensation – not nausea, not creative impulse, not really much of anything. Inside of that understanding I opened up to compassion for myself – whether I eat or watch TV or not, and for a society that is struggling with its relationship with food and entertainment and the consequences of its excess.

The truth is, I am very excited and welcoming of this pregnancy and it helps to remember that. It was a conscious decision, one well thought out if not planned to perfection in terms of timing, after all – there is no perfect time. It’s helpful to get present to my gratitude, the support I have, the love for my family and my friends and colleagues. It’s helpful to simply get present, to trust in the next Right Thing.

I was at my dry cleaners this weekend chatting, as I usually do, with them. This week’s topic was on the cyclicality of their business and how summer vacations impacted their bottom line. As I was leaving the clerk said, “I’ll see you next Saturday.” I responded without much thought, “oh no I will be away, I am going to sit meditation in silence for three days.” Her eyes go very big and she replied, “what if you go crazy?” I joked and said, “I would call her from the retreat center if that happened.”

I now find myself not wanting to tell anyone what I am doing this weekend, lest they think I am weird or different. Yet I can’t help but wonder, am I actually in the insanity now? Is going away to sit in quiet, allowing for my smart phone obsessed, movie watching, NPR listening, e-mail checking self to hit a giant pause button the sanest thing I could do for myself, my family my company and my community?

My interest in silence began in 2006 when I started doing work about bystanders and how silence and diffusion of responsibility allows everything from micro-inequities to atrocities and genocide happen. Now in my work I teach people to speak up and take action when they see injustice especially at work. This work coupled with my extroverted tendencies has me feeling intimidated when I look at silence as a tool for growth and healing (which I call quiet).

In March of 2006, I saw a documentary called Into Great Silence it was about the monks of Grande Chartreuse located in the French Alps who as I recall only talked a few hours a week on Sunday. The movie was hard to watch. It was slow, not a sound was uttered for the first hour or so of running time when at the moment the care taker called in French for a cat to be fed! I remember thinking how strange these men were and how odd their life was. I could never live as they do. I also wondered how long it took them to hear about things– like the 9-11 terrorist attack and the birth or death of family or friends. What have they completely missed by being tucked away in silence? And as I left the theater and came out into the hustle and bustle of the Cambridge streets, after sitting for 160 minutes in silence myself, I actually wondered if my life was the strange way of living, if all this noise was insanity.

So this weekend I get to experiment with great quiet, noble silence and shutting off my phone, putting away my books and even closing my beloved journal. I will just be with my thoughts, my greatness, my inadequacies, my aches, my inquiries, my questions within a community of strangers. And I believe that with no verbal interaction with these folks, I will find sufficiency, love and maybe, just maybe, discover that I am enough.

What about things that just plain ol’ hurt or don’t work, things that feel bad? I like the Buddhist take on reality because it’s as close to a religion of sufficiency I’ve studied yet, and because it is not really even a religion, it’s a pathway into a paradigm of nondualism, where the reality is there is no right or wrong. There are consequences, e.g. I smoke, I put carcinogens into the vulnerable tissue of my lungs and increase my blood pressure, I engage in a risk of health complications. But there is not moral injustice, or fairness or convictions in a higher power who has the hands of a master chess player. Life is so complicated it would be impossible to sort out the infinite variables to know for sure what the scorecard is. So if my partner has cancer or cheated on me, or we lost the big client or the bid on a great house, the Buddhist thing to do would be to feel the truth and consequences of that in the moment, while to keep on living, keep on doing the next Right Thing.

And what the next Right Thing (initial capped purposefully) is often the simple thing we know to do from listening deeply to our inner voice. Sufficiency as a practice is one of being present, of mastering our states of mind and body with compassion and self-love, while recognizing our webbed connection to all beings, to all matter. The question that naturally follows is: How do we measure this Rightness when we are part of a team or a family? Do we measure internally with our other inner voices, or include a council of trusted advisors? And as leaders, how do we stay present while creating a strategy that our teams can get behind? How do we do this in a scaled fashion as our teams, organizations and families grow?

Gina's harvest - August 6th

I reconnected to Jennifer Jewell of http://www.jewellgarden.com/ in July. She is a garden writer and photographer, her pictures are stunning. In talking to her about sufficiency, gardening and what is enough, it struck me at all three of us at Seven Stones have gardens. Shea being the most avid at this moment, Jen getting her first garden in after three consecutive summers of moving and absolutely falling in love with it and me growing something for the first time ever.

In some way I chose to garden because of the structures I had in place: direct sun in my large urban plot, a small space where I suspect a herb garden once resided two owners ago, a girlfriend to assure me it was easy and a neighbor who promised me it was easy.

Mostly though, I think what inspired me to plant tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, kale and collards was a sense that sufficiency resides in taking care and being responsible. To be re

sponsible for my own food supply and to stop relying, even in a small way, on global corporate industrial farms to feed me. I chose to experiment with trust—trusting that I had the ability to feed my family.

Heirloom Tomatoes

I got my seedlings from the farming charter school about a mile from my house. I got the compost there also. I got the kale from my local health food store. No other fertilizers were used. The one part that keeps me on the grid is I had to use water from my water authority.

Next year, I hope to double the size of my garden so I can supply vegetables for my entire family for a season, I am looking for ways to collect rain water, I have my own compost to nourish the soil and although I still plan on growing mostly from seedlings, I will attempt a few seeds myself. Do I believe that my experiment will profoundly alter the planet? I doubt it, yet in Garden Writers Association Foundation’s 2009 Edibles Gardening Trends Research Report, more than 41 million U.S. households (38%) grew a vegetable garden last year and 7% (7.7 million households) were new to growing edibles. I am curious to know what the numbers will be for 2010. It appears that I am one of millions taking part in a local experiment that could alter the nature of how we grow and consume food in the United States. My garden experiment has carried me further on my sufficiency journey. I have found the courage to jump in and make a difference for myself, my family and my community.

What experiments to you have the courage to start today?

This week, in the face of morning sickness (aka all-the-day sickness), Jen Cohen offered me support. Food or whisking Maxine away. I chose childcare. In fact, I said, I had just that morning fantasized about Sophia, her daughter and her babysitter coming to take Maxine for the day. Next morning, before 8 we got a call from Jen. Calling to see if we can make that work honey, she says. Really? Can it be that easy. It pretty much was. It got my husband involved, and it required Jen to drive to my house to get Sophia (the lovely babysitter lives near me and they adventured this way – we live 40 minutes apart, a barrier getting less opaque). So, yes, some effort of coordination for the small investment of mama resting and getting some work done for the business, Dad getting a break, and maybe most importantly, some serious bonding between the girls and our families. Jen left saying she felt like a better mama. I know what she means.

It worked so well, it is happening again today. And hopefully tomorrow. Then the summer transitions a bit, and like all of life, change will occur, but it was enough of an investment, mostly on Jen’s part in giving, and ok, maybe a bit on mine in receiving what feels almost too huge to take in, to secure a sense of familiarity and love between our families – the children and the men. It just so happens that it is a fantasy of Jen and her husband to have the right fit family for Sophia to have for overnights. I would say we are well on our way to that.

So, when we resource leadership retreats and leadership development programs, we realize we are also reaching into the lives of the families of the leaders. What is happening at home, no matter our efforts to resist, comes with us to work – in the form of mood, distraction, elation, or support. And vice versa. I’ve had countless conversations with my husband about the impact of his work life on our home. It is an illusion – that we all participate in at times and to varying degrees – that we are not part of a web of life, a fabric of social bonds, that transcend the human-constructed divisions of home/work, personal/professional. Those boundaries and dividers and separations are just not true.

What is true is that love conquers all. At home and in the boardroom. Love comes in all forms. You know it when you feel it. The offer, the stretching, the giving, the commitment, the declaration. And right now, love is in the form of gratitude – for the attentive babysitter and happy daughters and expanded connection and quiet space that allows me to reflect on such things.

In fact, I am wondering now, on the last evening of this week’s adventure in relaxing and pleasure, what I can take with me into my regular days of life that has worked. Can I treat myself with so much love and respect? Can I allow myself to move at a pace that actually honors my current state of mind and body? Can I feed myself what feels most nourishing? Can I be this generous with myself, this forgiving? Can I ask for what I want? For what I need? Can I go with the flow, letting go of what I want and think I need? Can I only do one thing at a time? Can I allow myself to enjoy watching my family enjoy each other?

This last possibility really inspires me. I’ve had to sit on the sidelines a bunch this week because I wasn’t feeling so great. But I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. Watching the play between my daughter and husband, waving to Maxine as she circled around and around on a park ride, simply bearing witness was enough, more than enough. I can honestly say I never do that at home. If I can’t participate I am quick to do a chore or jump on my computer or make a call. Vacation has showed me that there is more to life, and it’s already all right with me.

What is it, I thought, that has someone react with such venom when someone else is clearly under enormous stress? Isn’t that stress, or distress, the source of their erratic and disturbing behavior in the first place?

I remember the time I drove myself to the hospital while hemorrhaging, or when I was driving my husband back after cancer treatment and how he was writhing in pain while I sped home as quickly as possible. I can also think about all the times I have beeped at others not knowing really what they might have been dealing with in their car.

What has us just honk and beep and yell, totally forgetting that we cannot possibly imagine what might be driving (no pun intended) people to act in sometimes perilous ways?

Now I know that when we are using heavy machinery our reactivity is higher; we get startled and activate our most basic instincts. But in that dump, when we were going maybe three miles per hour, each of us finding our way between dumping stations, was that really at the source of that woman’s hostility? I actually don’t think so. I think that our sense of knowing each other, our sense that each person is doing their best at any given moment, that we are somehow in this together, is hidden from our view and missing in our hearts. This hole in our social fabric, this fraying of our knowing each other, of our sense of deep and real connection to all living being, permits us not to notice, or to even assume the best. This tear in the social fabric makes it ok to beep and yell and gesture in ways that only cause more harm.

So now I practice whenever I see someone behaving recklessly on the road: I ask myself, and I allow myself to wonder if their mother just died or their wife just left them or if they are driving to see their child in the hospital. I wonder what can’t I see, that if I could, it would open me back up to caring for their life, making it impossible for me to yell or honk or cause a greater tear…

When we arrived at the New Britain Museum of American Art  we were pleasantly surprised. It was an open spacious wonderfully laid out museum with American art from the colonial period until today, including a commissioned piece in memory of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. My husband and I were so intrigued by the museum that we never made it to the concert.

The MC Escher exhibit was wonderful. I learned about his life and his interests in mathematics, landscapes and reality. However the two things that caught my attention the most was 1) he drew with his left hand – being left handed that gave me some vague sense that everything would work out and 2) I learned he used a technique called mezzotint which as far as I am concerned put him in the divinity category of artists.

Yet despite all of the impressiveness of the exhibit and of the museum, the artist that captured my attention that I am still thinking about is Dalton Ghetti. He takes years to complete his small intricate carvings out of wood and graphite. Small actually isn’t the correct word. He creates miniature experiences out of left over pencils. Although he doesn’t use a magnifying glass to create his work, it wasn’t until I picked up one as part of the display that I could truly see and feel his genius. In his artist statement he commented that most people who view his work comment on the amount of time it takes him to complete a piece. They can’t believe the patience he has.

I am struck by that when we see this genius many of us are more interested in the time he puts in rather than what he creates. When we are trapped in scarcity, being impatient and looking to technology to speed things up so we can work faster and faster . . . when we come across someone who values “slow contemplative work” we are shocked and amazed. We may actually believe that he is wasting his life spending two years to accomplish such a small piece of work. Escher might have agreed, he put down the mezzotint method after working with it for only three years because, “it takes too much time and effort from someone who rightfully or wrongly believes he has no time to waste.”

What would become available to us if we all slowed down a little? What if we all added some contemplative time to our life and work? Then what beautiful master pieces would we all produce individually and in our relationships? When I took the time to slow down and contemplate with my husband, I found an entire world in the small moments we shared.

Sources: “Eye” and MC Escher artist quote from www.mcescher.com        “Alphabet” and artist quote from Dalton Ghetti are from the New Britian Museum of American Art