This entry's title refers to two recent experiences, perhaps characterized as passively and urgently informative, in turn . . .
I.
Last weekend three friends (fellow "Cavemen") and I trekked up to Marin county, north of the Golden Gate, for fine dining, fellowship at the Pt. Reyes Station hostel, and (Main Objective:) a day-long immersion in the art of meditation as presented by the Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
Let me first put an absolute all-thumbs-up for the excellent dining experience we enjoyed in the Olena Farm House restaurant situated directly by the T-intersection where Sir Francis Drake Blvd. dead-ends in to Highway 1. Brad, Jerry and I arrived there, famished, around 7.15pm; upon Jerry's general recommendation for the virtues and flavor of Steelhead Brad and I added to Jerry's choice of this excellent menu item for dinner . . . we were all suitably impressed. Equally delightful was our waitress's perfect and willing timing of the submission of Dave's order (a nice hunk of steak), which resulted in a hot and juicy meal being delivered to our table barely moment's after Dave's arrival (from his cozy room in San Anselmo 30 minutes distant) around 8.15pm. Got to take care of HALT; consider it a service geared towards unity via self-preservation.
After dessert (frankly, this was a bit of a disappointment) the four of us trekked (in three separate vehicles -- blame us for a moment's delay in any potential drop in gas prices) out to the Point Reyes Station hostel, which we found just a wee few minutes after the 9.30pm late-check-in deadline. The attendant gave us just enough good-humored razzing to keep us humbled, and after a cursory unloading of sleep-over materiel (into the disturbingly claustrophobic bunk-dense crucible which functions as the men's dorm-cum-fart/snore-compression chamber) we settled outside in the patio area for cigars and a Meeting. The meeting was a good idea, but the cigars less so, the truth of which became increasingly appearent (if so in a haze) in proportion to their diminishing sizes as our BTC* approached 100% (all but Brad, wise, wise Brad who prudently did not partake; which as we shall soon see upheld the notion that no good need goes unpunished).
Our choice to congregate in the patio was driven by the lack of privacy anywhere inside; initially this location was irrelevant and even desirable, as the fresh air was, well, fresh, and bracing. Being rather close to the hidden yet audible heaving of the frigid Pacific, the air became more and more laden with a damp and cooling quality, eventually driving us to seek refuge in the hostel's dining room, blessedly recently vacated by others who'd been using it for their own socializing. Thus we continued and finished our Caveman Team Meeting therein, with the ironic tableau of Dave and Your Author (and, to a lesser extent, Jerry) suffering the wooziness and general sense of Just-Shoot-Me-N0w-What-Was-I-Thinking? consequences of our stogie stints.
Enlightenment #1: repeatingly taking deep, slow drags off of fine cigars, passing them to the man next to you with a barely uttered, don't-exhale-stifled, "ere!", produces unsavory effects not dissimilar to those we are trying to avoid in the first place . . . as our Primary Purpose . . . an irony not lost on any of us.
*Blood Tobacco Content
Dave, being possessed of a clear Vision For Him -- that being blissful, solo slumbering in a king-sized bed, departed for his pre-paid utopia after our sharing finally came to an end around 12.30am. Brad and Jerry, simply seeking a reasonable sleep in advance of our mutual meditation encounter, willingly entered the dubious dormitory sleeping cell.
Being James, I remained up a bit, to journal and read. When I finally did slip into the sleeping room I discovered the air therein was already sapped of any discernible oxygen, that precious life-sustaining substance having been converted by snoring, flatulence and the alcohol-saturated exhalations of at least one comatose body into something more resembling a simulation of Venus's atmosphere. Thus I voluntarily joined Jerry and Brad's nightmare venture towards attempted sleep as a means of survival.
By alarm time (6.45am) I managed perhaps 2.5 hours of fitful sleep, and that was made possible only by a belated decision to utilize the earplugs which I never travel without. (Being responsible for minding our reveille I was conflicted between enduring the pains of group snoring and the yearning for potentially dream-induced silence promised by auditory muffling. Foam won out over duty, but thankfully the alarm's increasingly loud call eventually pierced even my personal defenses.) Jerry's torso soon began a slow pivot towards an upright position (bringing to mind many old vampire movies), and in due course we effected our escape by emerging into the hostel's equivalent of an expansive living room.
It was by this time it was apparent that Brad was missing; after attending to First Things First (here meaning, "God, please help me find an immediate source of coffee!") I took a small stroll outdoors (caffeine in hand) and noted that indeed Brad's departure was complete, indicated by the absence of his car. We later learned, via several voice mails, that (a) Brad's system could not endure the Rite Of Passage imposed by alcoholic-methane-infused carbon dioxide sleeping methods, so (b) at 5.00am, having not slept one eye-ota, he packed it in and returned to Los Gatos. Wisdom again: he knew that attempting a day-long meditation experience on no sleep might have lead to a deep REM adventure perhaps beyond recovery.
Thus it was that Jerry and I ended up as the Cavemen dharma duo at Spirit Rock, where we greatly enjoyed the amazing, sometimes (for me at least) intensely challenging journey into the realm of Buddhist meditation techniques. I may revisit this dense and complex personal experience in a future entry, but for now suffice it to say that I at least (and I suspect, Jerry too) got far more than I anticipated from the act of taking this next step in spiritual growth. At times it was painfully difficult to sit with the reality of my emotions, yet the vital need to face such temporary mirages was revealed to me to crucial for my life's path.
A higher-quality will be posted next week.)
Enlightenment #2: serious meditation is not easy, at least not for a neophyte such as me. Growth indeed often involves necessary pain, yet misery indeed is only optional.
II.
A perhaps jolting change of gears here . . .
Mid-week, as I was hustling downstairs from my bedroom to my living room (in response to water coming through the ceiling from an overflowing toilet: an emphatically spiritual start to my day) my left leg was suddenly the source of intense pain, entirely focused on a thumb-tack sized spot directly behind and below my "knee pit." (I rarely get to use the sophisticated technical term, "knee pit.") This, much like the Spirit Rock day, brought me an entirely new life experience, utterly unique to my life's adventures to date.
I was quite unable to put any weight at all on my leg -- and thus effectively unable to walk. This frightened not only me but also my wife, whose brother-in-law has very recently been hospitalized for a blood clot. (Even more recent: I lost a sweet friend, Carole, to such a massive blood clot in her heart that the doctors deemed it inoperable. She passed after 3 days.) So my loving and worried spouse took me to Kaiser where my physician ordered an MRI.
Thankfully no blood clot; the diagnosis is an inflammation of the a vein, often a precursor to more serious issues (such as -- blood clots). And just what could have given birth to this troubling development? My doc's verdict: "too sedentary of a lifestyle."
Who, me? Oui, c'est moi. Je m'accuse!
Enlightenment #3: if I wish to capitalize on my general joie de vivre by living to a ripe old age (say, anything past 75), I best view this as a serious wake-up call: my spiritual fitness is not all that is in need of enhancement . . . it is well past time I give determined and emphatic attention to both healthful nutrition and exercise. Hmmm . . . how "coincidental" that I've been recently introduced to elements of the Eightfold Way, which includes some emphasis on wholesomeness.
Right after I finish off this Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream.
