Feed Your Soul

Catherine speaks about not needlessly indulging in stressful news, that is, not being immersed in news and images that are frightening about events over which we have no control. This is not to say that we should ignore events of our time but that we should have a counterbalance of interest and activity that feeds our soul, feeds our spirit.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is from a Zoom session broadcast from Australia on January 3,

2021.

It's called Feed Your Soul.

I've been thinking lately about the ways that unhealthy mind habits can insidiously creep in,

Kind of slowly.

And as most of you know,

I have emphasized for a very long time the importance of mind management,

Of managing your attention,

Of directing your own attention,

How important that is.

And just the other day,

I had quite a lesson in all of this myself.

Our experience here in Australia,

Our experience of crisis actually began in June of 2019 with the bushfires,

Which probably are kind of long forgotten for many of you,

Especially in Europe.

Not so much of you here in Australia,

But our news on the radio and on television and with everyone you spoke with was all about the bushfires for months,

And then it led straight into the pandemic.

So we've been hearing sort of crisis level news since about June of 2019,

Which is about a year and a half.

And along the way,

You kind of get super interested,

Of course,

In these matters.

And I tend to be very interested in news of all sorts.

So I,

You know,

I get a lot of newsfeed that comes straight into my email,

But I also got into the habit of listening to the habit of listening to the news in my car.

Now,

That is a departure from my usual way of living,

Which was to get in my car and put on some great music.

I have had playlists for,

I mean,

Literally going back to tapes that I would make playlists on and then CDs.

And now,

Of course,

MP3 is on my phone.

So I have all this great music hand selected by me that I would listen to in my car and I would just kind of rock out.

I'd have a sort of dance-a-thon and a sing-along in my car.

Great fun.

It used to be kind of a delight to get in the car.

So anyway,

I got into this news habit because of the seeming criticalness of the situation,

You know,

As though you're turning on the wireless to listen to Churchill.

And I was riding the car the other day,

And there was a story on about the Chinese wanting to propose and develop a megacity kind of on the doorstep of Australia,

On Papua New Guinea,

Which is a poor area,

And they would bring in many billions of dollars to tempt them.

And so this news story is running on the radio,

And I'm finding myself feeling anxious.

And suddenly,

This thought raced through my mind.

This can be applied to pretty much almost everything.

What can I do about the Chinese deciding to make a megacity?

How am I going to be stopping that?

And in this moment,

It occurred to me that I've been indulging far too much in this kind of material of which I can do nothing about.

And how it was creating this level of nervousness and stress and anxiety in me.

So in that very moment,

In this recognition,

I turned on my music.

And in a short time,

I felt better.

I felt much better.

Now,

We all have a portion of our attention that is spoken for.

Most of us,

I dare say most of us on this call,

Make our living with our minds.

We don't toil the fields.

We don't work in mines of various sorts.

We don't hunt game or forage,

Right?

We use our minds to make our living.

So a certain amount of our attention is actually spoken for.

It's economically employed.

And a number of us have our attention being used for taking care of others,

Perhaps,

Children or parents or any number of circumstances.

There's a lot of service that most of us are involved in in one way or another.

So our attention is used in those ways.

Our attention is used in employment or in service or in relationships.

And it's always,

Of course,

Very good to apply very precise attention as much as possible.

But let's be realistic.

Sometimes our attention,

Either when we're in any of those kinds of functioning operations,

Or when our attention is just free falling and drifting around,

It's not on task,

It's not having to do anything in particular,

Our attention can get into trouble.

It can get into needless trouble,

In fact.

So the thought that came to me the other day in the car,

When I turned on the music was feed the soul.

So that's what it felt like.

And by the way,

I'm never using the word soul in any kind of religious context.

It's more like in the Motown context of soulfulness.

Feed the soul.

Feed the soul.

Feed the spirit.

And sometimes,

You know,

We fall into these habits where we just forget to do that.

Mysteriously.

The one thing that is so important,

Such high priority.

And so salubrious for us.

We forget to do the very thing.

It also heals us.

Because frankly,

In those moments,

I was feeling unwell.

Those moments before I turned on the music and I was in this kind of anxious state.

The anxious state,

By the way,

Was a very anxious state.

The anxious state,

By the way,

Was on top of all the other stuff we're facing.

Right?

Let's face it.

We're in troubled times.

And there's a background anxiety that if you're paying any attention whatsoever,

You've got to be feeling.

Some of the time.

So this news was landing on that already existing stream of anxiety.

But it was amazing how quickly the attention shifted.

The attention shifted into this delight.

And into this pure sensory experience.

And there's never it's never very far from my awareness that I don't really make assumptions about longevity.

And there was a reminder of that as well,

That you've heard me say most of you have heard me say the revelation of living what I like to call a perfect moment.

And I'm not saying that I'm not saying that you've heard me say what I like to call a perfect moment.

And that's a moment of true presence,

And of delight and gratitude and of love.

So I was having many moments of many,

Many perfect moments.

Part of the mind management is to recognize and to use your own body and your own nervous system as your barometer is to recognize when you're off base.

Without blame or without any fuss or anything,

Just recognize it and see if you can reset the attention.

And keep it simple.

Doesn't have to be grand.

Keep it simple.

Reset your attention.

Find something that delights you.

Feed your soul.

Hi,

Catherine.

So nice to be here.

So nice to see you.

What you just said just sounds so simple.

And I realized that it is very simple.

Just recently,

I noticed myself reading the news as though it was like a soap opera.

I was younger in my family.

We used to watch this,

You know,

These sort of EastEnders or Coronation streets,

Which are very popular here.

And it's just kind of endless,

Just drama,

Drama,

Drama.

And I found myself listening to the news in the same way and actually getting really engaged instead of looking for the next installment.

Exactly,

Exactly.

You know,

What was going to happen in this terrible situation?

And I thought that's strange because I don't always watch the news,

But I seem to have got into a habit of it.

And yesterday,

I don't normally walk before work,

But yesterday for one reason or another,

I had to walk very early.

And I was walking down the side of some water with these spring flowers just starting to very delicately raise their heads and realizing that just habits are so ingrained.

You know,

Why don't I go and walk in the morning because it's a beautiful time to do it.

And it's so nice.

And it's a choice.

Yes,

Yes,

It is.

It's in that moment.

And then that becomes a habit.

You know,

Then you walk in the morning and that becomes a habit and it's easy then,

Because you're on a roll.

Resetting your attention becomes a habit,

Right?

Of course,

Yes,

Doing certain types of things that would be conducive to that are great.

And I highly recommend that as well.

But even if you're just at home and you can't go walking because it's in climate weather or something,

Just resetting the attention as needed.

And not needing to be perfect at that by any means.

We all,

You know,

Have our crazy moments.

But just inclining into that habit makes it more strong.

So I noticed the same thing.

So I'm a failed student this morning.

So I noticed the same thing this morning.

So I went to the news and then I kind of looked around the house and I thought there are things to do around the house and the things to do would make me feel better,

You know?

And then I chose the other.

So it's just interesting.

I hear what you say.

Yeah,

I love that what you just said.

Yeah,

I mean,

Sometimes it takes a kind of extra effort to drag yourself from the very compelling,

Dark force that is before you that's attracting for some reason.

And it's an interesting investigation about how humans are very attracted to dark stories and,

You know,

Murder mysteries and all kinds of thriller type things.

We kind of like to be agitated.

I guess it's a kind of intense emotion.

You know,

There's something compelling about it,

Obviously,

Because there's so much of that that sells well.

So to really understand that there's something weird encoded in us that has a certain fascination for all of that.

And to see when it's getting really toxic,

Like when it's really toxic for your mind,

And that you're taking it all too seriously.

There is a certain soap opera-ish quality to all of it,

You know,

And I've been thinking about that a lot too,

Just being of an age where you've seen so many phases of history,

Even of modern history,

Of recent history,

Which has changed more in my lifetime than perhaps it changed in centuries before.

I mean,

What's happening in our lifetime is the stuff of science fiction,

Not that even long ago.

So we're in this dizzying swirl,

And it is fascinating to watch,

And there is a kind of natural curiosity about it.

But I really sense that the onslaught of this level of information and much of it very troubling is far beyond what our delicate nervous systems can handle.

And in terms of the speed of it is also very taxing on our nervous systems.

So to be aware of that,

Clean the house instead,

Great,

A great rework of the situation.

Right.

I'm wondering if my thing that I want to share with you is a counter example or an example.

It just so happens the other day,

About a week ago,

That I was in a hospital,

Happens the other day about a week ago.

I picked up a book from my shells.

I don't know why I did.

And it's Hannah Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem,

Which is about the Eichmann trial.

It's also called The Banality of Evil.

It's about the Eichmann trial in the 60s,

And it explores the actual mechanisms of the Holocaust.

And when I was younger,

I used to read these sort of witness books,

You know,

Like Elie Wiesel and so on about what actually happened in the camps.

And I'm glad I did that when I was younger.

I don't do that anymore.

Because once you know,

You know,

I feel.

Yes.

But this was just,

I really didn't think I was going to read this through to the end,

Because I just thought,

You know,

This is not the kind of book I want to read.

But it is absolutely brilliant.

And it's been very enriching for me,

Because Hannah Arendt is just this amazing thinker.

And you can almost see her thinking while you read the book.

And she knows where her thoughts take her fearlessly.

So she has no problem whatsoever talking about the way in which the Jewish councils collaborated,

I don't think that's quite the right word,

But worked with the Nazis,

And made the Nazis life easier.

And she was so criticized for that,

As you can imagine.

I have just found this book so enriching to me because she's telling the truth.

And it's a bit like your essay on climate change.

It's like once you get the truth,

It's just,

I don't know,

It's just nourishing.

And of course,

It's painful,

But it's nourishing.

And so,

You know,

I'm curious,

Because I mean,

I wasn't planning to sort of share this with you.

But it's just so interesting compared to what you're saying,

Which is like,

You know,

Step back,

Feed the soul.

And I feel like I'm certainly not at all suggesting to bury your head in the sand.

And I don't live that way myself.

As I said,

So much news comes into my inbox,

When I wake up in the morning,

I feel fairly caught up in a short while.

But there comes a point where,

You know,

You understand enough is enough,

That you have saturated with a certain type of news and that there's no more that is going to be so beneficial to ingest,

Given that you do have a nervous system and that you do need to have a balance of calm in order to just function well,

And to have a lightness in your heart and to have a feeling of love and lightness in your step,

And to also be strong for others.

So any system will crash if you press it down enough.

Every system will crash if it's taxed enough.

And certainly we,

Delicate humans,

Very emotional creatures,

Very empathic creatures.

I propose it's very important to manage how much we take in of the terrors of the world on any given phase of time.

Now,

If you've read my essay,

You would know that I have been looking at a lot of the most troubling stuff for a very long time.

I still do.

And I don't really have any happy spins about it either.

I,

Like you,

Feel the truth sets you free.

Just face what you have to face and work with that.

But for me,

Part of working with that is to keep in mind the beauty and the loveliness of life and the mercy that does pervade still,

Right?

The mercy in all of us,

In so many hearts you see around the world.

You know,

Most of the news is really bad.

That's what sells.

And you hear about all the bad things people are doing.

But you don't hear about all the small kindnesses and the little mercies and the ways that people are connected and all the love that people share and all the incredible creativity.

Well,

We do hear about some of the creativity because it ends up being appreciated by many people.

But a lot of creativity goes unacknowledged.

So it's very important.

It's another part of mind management is keeping the balance of an uplifting of the heart,

Of feeding the soul,

Of feeding the spirit and facing the hard realities that we are asked to face in our time.

Because I've known a lot of activists that was not only my specialty in journalism,

But my passionate interest.

And I hung out a lot with activist types and was involved in a lot of actions myself back in the day.

And I've known a lot of people who have burned out,

They get angry,

They get depressed,

They get fearful,

They become people you don't want to work with,

Because they're so high strung and easily agitated.

And even though they might have been on the side of the greater good and doing good work,

You know,

I always say it's all about the vibe.

It's very difficult when the energy,

When the the frequency is feeling not good,

People run from it,

It's not effective.

So I'm just aware of all of that.

In my own case,

In my own life,

It's a constant balance of like,

How much of this do I need to know?

How much is good for me to know?

Is there anything I can do about it?

Those kinds of questions.

And sometimes I use other types of tricks in my awareness,

Like,

What if I had only a year to live?

Where would I be putting this kind of stress if I only had a week to live?

The other day,

A week ago today,

I was with my neighbor,

We decided very spontaneously to go to the beach to go for a swim.

So we got all our gear together,

And we get in my car,

And I see that I'm low on gas.

So we stopped at the gas station.

And as we got finished with the gas,

Putting in the gas,

Now we're leaving the gas station,

I'm stopped waiting to pull out onto the main road.

And someone plows into the back of my car.

I mean,

She never stopped only the only the only thing that stopped her was my car,

And us in it.

So it's a big wreck.

And my friend screamed,

But I didn't.

I,

As soon as this car was stopped after she pushed us forward,

And we'd been shocked for with the sound and the motion.

I turned to him and said,

I don't think we're gonna be able to go to the beach today.

And neither of us remembered that.

I had said that until like two days later.

I remembered and I said,

Do you remember I said that?

And he said,

Yes,

Now I remember you did say that.

Because there was something in my awareness that just was sort of like,

Oh,

The plan has changed.

I was really happy that that was the case,

Because I really didn't have much reaction otherwise to the accident.

We both got a bit hurt.

We both got our necks hurt.

But anyway,

It's just been a drama going through all this insurance stuff and all that would be ensuing after an accident.

But it was also,

You know,

When you have something like that,

You are made aware again,

Of how delicate this situation is,

How it went the way it did,

But it could have been certainly far worse had she pushed me out in front of an actual oncoming car.

She was she pushed us out a bit into the road but there was no cars coming.

So,

You know,

You realize there but for fate.

And it's,

It's a wake up call about how am I spending these moments?

Would I be getting all upset about the Chinese building a city,

Which I can do nothing about if I really knew if I could see clearly the date on which I would die?

Whether it's 20 years or three years or a year or next week,

That's the kind of reflection that I think is important.

It's a balance between paying attention and not everybody wants to pay attention much at all,

Which is fair as well.

If they if it's just not their inclination,

Then also,

But for some of us,

We do have a kind of interest in a certain type of social,

We feel an obligation,

Perhaps.

So I definitely have gotten better at managing the the amount of that.

But to your point about about dipping into that material,

When there's insight embedded in it,

It's one can very much be uplifted and find all kinds of benefit from from being able to I love what you said about how you could hear her thoughts as you were reading it and that kind of empathic sense of being able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to really find this whole different thing and it's something that's made that that's part ip I really liked about iPhones,

They'd keep seeing movies and quotes coming up.

And yeah,

That's that's a great wonderful way of engaging and promoting something Section.

It's cool Close to me like I can tie it to something,

It's good to hear your voice after a long time.

Yeah,

Look,

I've had an interesting time over the year.

And lately I've been getting,

I don't know,

Frustrated with my attachment to story.

And I've been turning around and going,

OK,

When I notice it,

Just drop it.

It doesn't help.

It bleeds you off into emotions that don't really do very much use.

And that sort of continued on for a while.

And then a few days ago,

I stopped altogether and I went,

So all of this is actually just something to fill up and something to pretend in some way that I'm not going to die.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And I sort of continued that thought through and went,

Well,

Not so much imagining that I would die or how I would die or where or when.

No,

And I don't know how to put concept on that.

I don't want to put concept on it really.

But it just changed something and relaxed something.

Beautiful.

Yeah,

I totally get it.

I'm glad about that.

Ironically,

Just before this session,

The person who's our co-host,

Our co-host is on here tonight with us.

She sent me a text saying that she'd just come from these geothermal springs where she'd been bathing in them.

And she was wishing that she could be able to just die at some point eventually in such a circumstance.

And I wrote back and said,

Yes,

If only we could just choose the way we could die.

But yes,

I so hear you.

The way that death does hang over our existence and a lot of very brilliant things have been written about that,

Notably the denial of death by Ernst Becker and following on from him this group of psychologists who wrote a book called The Worm at the Core,

But they've done 30 or so years of experiments following his work on the ways that we humans,

A lot of our activity is in the service of denial of death,

It turns out.

And it's a fascinating study.

It's a really incredible understanding.

And when you understand that,

That we humans,

We use culture and self-esteem,

Self-importance,

To ward off a host of fearful things.

But death,

Of course,

Is the worm at the core.

And so,

Yes,

If one could imagine that you're going to have a nice,

Easy death in a place that you love,

That would take a lot of the pressure off.

You know,

You could cruise to that moment in a sense and enjoy it more.

But because we are afflicted with these kinds of worries and knowing that that is an inevitability that we face,

It can cloud a life.

It's very important to take the awareness into much bigger space and to as much as you can,

And it's very hard to do,

But delink from the personal story and the potential end of the personal story,

Well,

Not potential,

It's inevitable,

And move your attention wide into being itself,

Into existence itself,

Into the sense that things go on in space and in other planets even and in life that you're a part of,

That even though the personal of you may end,

That what you were a part of goes on.

And I think that that's a lot the drive for people to have children.

It's a biological legacy that's very powerful,

And it's been a drive,

An incredible drive in nature for so long,

In all creatures,

This procreative drive.

But if one could expand the awareness into just the appreciation of having been part of an existence and that existence goes on,

Even if we go extinct,

Existence goes on.

So to move the awareness into very big space and not lock it down into tiny little me,

Me with my problems,

Me with my fears,

Me with my assumptions of longevity that might get challenged along the way.

What a tragedy,

Huh,

Given that so many people in history didn't get as long a life as many of us did,

Any of us on this call tonight,

Many,

Many,

Many billions of creatures,

People.

The priorities just need to be clear.

We're getting these lessons.

I mean,

They're subliminally going in.

We're in a time of threat.

And I'm not talking about only the pandemic by any means.

The pandemic has a 1% death rate.

The climate catastrophe we're facing may have a 100% death rate.

We're facing a very incredible time in history,

And we are feeling it.

We feel a sense of foreboding.

And that's why I say it is important,

It's really important to feed your soul,

Light your heart in all the ways you can for you and for everyone around you.

Someone said to me the other day,

We were on this subject,

And he said,

You know,

I keep thinking about soldiers in wars,

Where every day they would get up and they would have to go through another brutal,

Horrible,

Horrible day not knowing if they were going to be named or killed on that day.

And if they managed to get through that horrible day of misery,

Of wartime,

They'd do it again the next day.

So you think about just what the human spirit has had to endure and had to face and had to rise above,

And we're in a pretty lucky circumstance to be able to still have some semblance of a lovely life.

So I say really enjoy,

Enjoy,

Enjoy all that you can,

Use it as your balancing medicine,

As a countering medicine for all the difficulties,

And reflect on this is what we've got here,

This is our moment,

And we're all part of something far bigger than even this historical moment.

We're part of a long,

Long,

Long line of creatures that go way back,

Pre-human,

Way back into the oceans.

We're part of all of that.

Those are your real ancestors,

That's your real family.

Very nice to see all of you.

It's really interesting,

I've seen a lot of you since the summer,

And it's interesting to keep up with people,

And I really love all the things that you say.

Just turning back to what,

Catherine,

What you started with,

I have recently stopped reading any opinions about anything.

I used to love to read,

Well,

I still do,

The opinion pages of the New York Times,

Or the opinion pages,

I mean,

The Guardian,

Washington Post,

I read the Berliner Zeitung,

I read a whole bunch of all of these news sources,

And I'm trying very much just to read the news,

Just only the facts with no interpretation,

And no one trying to give me some over-narrative of how to line up,

Connect the dots to their lines,

That I'm trying to make my own lines,

Which leads me to the project,

Catherine,

That you know about.

I just wrote a climate change essay that turned into an 80-page exploration of climate science,

And it was really my attempt to create my own narrative only from the facts that I could read.

And this entailed chasing down peer-reviewed,

Printed science,

And to find out who are the top people,

To find out what is the most up-to-date research,

And it was a very,

You know,

It became a real mission.

And I spent several weeks,

And I had several weeks,

Because like all of you,

This is COVID time,

And I've got really nothing better to do than to try to find some truth.

And what I found was that I came to a conclusion that I didn't really want to see.

I learned things that I don't want to know.

I saw a truth that I don't want to hear or have in front of my face.

And I mean,

I can go full circle on the whole project,

Because right now at this point,

Although I've written this 80 pages and I've convinced myself,

I don't want to share it with anybody.

I don't want to send it out to some blogger.

I don't want to send it out to my friends,

God forbid,

My family.

Why would I want to be the messenger of something that is the buzz killer of all time?

And so I'm just keeping this for myself at the moment.

And I'm really in need of some good advice.

What can I do for my soul?

And also,

You know,

It could be my Motown soul.

It could be my Mojo soul.

What can I do to keep that off going when I know what I know?

Yeah.

I'm going to ask you a simple question.

Yeah.

What do you love?

Yeah.

In terms of spending your time.

And,

You know,

Obviously it doesn't have to be something grand,

Like going to,

You know,

Positano or anything.

It's just,

You know,

That's pretty nice.

It's really nice.

But I mean,

That's not as handy at the moment,

Is it?

But what,

In terms of your daily or any given week or whatever,

What do you love?

Well,

I can tell you that I love music.

Yeah.

And music is my home.

You know,

People would ask me where I'm from or do I ever feel homesick.

And I can always say,

Well,

As long as I'm playing a viola,

I'm perfectly at home.

Music is where my home is.

At the same time,

I have a project I've started and it's a big one.

I'm making bagels.

And like I have this need to eat a proper bagel.

And here in Berlin,

There's no way I'm going to get a proper bagel.

So I've decided I'm going to try to make one.

Wow.

And,

You know,

It's really complicated.

I bet.

Yes.

You've got to have the right flour.

And I'm sure that of all of you out there in Zoom land,

I'm sure there's some real baking masterpieces amongst you.

But I had to learn that.

And because tomorrow morning is my birthday.

I thought on my birthday for breakfast,

I'm going to have fresh bagels,

As good as the bagels.

You made this up.

Yeah.

And do you have lox and cream cheese and things like that?

I do.

Yeah.

So you asked me what I love.

I love bagels because when I'm eating a bagel tomorrow morning,

I will be thinking about the last time I ate a bagel in New York City on the corner across from Carnegie Hall.

And how I love to go there every morning when I'm in New York,

Because their bagels are the best.

And so,

I mean,

It's just that I love the connectivity to a place in a time that means so much to me.

Sure.

So what I love is looking for meaning through this kind of connectivity.

Yes.

Yes,

Yes.

And my father's 90th birthday party,

Which was the last pre-COVID party,

We asked him,

Dad,

You're 90.

How old do you want to be?

You know,

You're still a pretty good pianist.

You like to be the center of the action.

How long is this going to go on?

He said,

Well,

At least 100.

And we asked,

Well,

Why?

Why 100?

Why keep going?

He said,

You know,

I want to know how the story ends.

Except that,

Well,

Who knows,

You know,

I mean,

That's the thing.

It's like,

You know,

You're.

.

.

It's like he finds life to be this great joke,

And he doesn't want to leave before he gets the punchline.

Mm-hmm.

And.

.

.

What happens next?

I mean,

I think that is part of the drive of why we do keep watching the soap operas.

We want to know,

Oh,

When did that happen?

And that happened.

We're curious.

We're really damn curious.

But anyway,

If I can have some direction about what to do with this horrible,

Horrible thing that I feel is my truth,

I don't need to share it with anyone else,

How can I process that and how can I incorporate that in a life that is continuing in a forward direction?

I mean,

What I did with the one I wrote is I put it up as a free link,

And people found it.

I didn't proselytize about it,

And I certainly didn't give it to my family.

Big mistake.

So,

You know,

I put it out as a free offering,

And for those who needed to find it,

They could find it,

And I would say that's the same for yours.

If you decide to put it out there,

You could just put it out in a quiet way,

And if people stumble upon it or they're looking around,

It should have a title that would be searchable.

You could put it up as just a free link on its own website.

And then when people find it,

Then they share it to their friends who are presumably on that wavelength as well,

And that's how it works.

It kind of gets out organically by word of mouth,

And for those for whom it's not their cup of tea,

They probably won't go onto their radar.

So I think that you don't have to worry so much about that that you offer it with open free hands and not even keep track,

Really,

Of who's going to respond and who isn't and does anyone respond and so on.

I think that's so true of most of our offerings.

You would know that as a musician who,

You know,

You play your best.

Maybe there's some nights you're not at your best,

But you are trying every time when you're on a stage,

And it's a free offering.

It's like it lands or doesn't onto the ears of the audience,

Right?

You have really no control of it landing.

You just have the offering of it going out.

It's actually quite an odd thing.

When we're in normal times,

We'll play the concert three nights in a row,

And we can feel in the first moments of a concert,

Even before we play,

There's this atmosphere in the hall,

And it's quite palpable,

And it is the other instrument in the room.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

And that other instrument has a very,

Very large effect on how that concert's going to be.

Yes,

I understand that.

That's probably true in sports,

In all kinds of circumstances,

Where you can almost feel,

And nothing magical about this,

Just something almost that could be measured.

You can almost feel like a coalescing of energy or a discordant energy or something in between that is there at the very start.

I have really enjoyed listening to everyone's sharing,

As always,

And really the simplicity of your beginning offering,

Catherine,

About the news and what to take in.

As I was listening to everyone,

I kept hearing in myself about,

You are what you eat,

And it was great that you set me up with the bagel story,

Being that everything we take in creates who we are and how we vibrate and what we are actually feeding others around us.

I feel that I,

Too,

Need to back off on the news periodically because it does become really overwhelming from the point of view of,

I want to respond.

There's this part of me that wants to respond in some significant way,

And obviously I can't.

And so some of the things that have helped me through this time,

I would say fundamentally the most important thing is making art,

Whether it's a good bagel,

Which I don't know how to make,

Or my writing,

Or just even putting stones in a particular little pattern at the base of a tree on a walk.

It's just like,

Thank you.

And it's almost like my conversation with life has become very intimate in these little peculiar moments that keeps me feeling connected.

I think part of listening to all of the,

When I go off on a tangent,

Is I want to be connected.

I used to travel a lot,

And I used to have conversations at length with the person who made my cappuccino.

And all of these casual connections with people,

They're gone,

And they've been gone,

We're in our third intense lockdown in England.

It's just like,

Whoa,

It's just so heavy.

And I realized that those connections have been,

They can either be replaced with junk food,

Or they can be replaced with,

Or even,

I don't know if replaced is the right word,

But there's a void in me that can be touched by,

I'm just turning into one of those little old ladies that talks to pigeons.

But it's so satisfying to have those conversations.

And you said something about children and that biological driver to extend forward or even outward.

And I feel like this is what keeps me from collapsing emotionally with impending doom,

Is that my vibration will carry outward in whatever form life perpetuates.

How do I rattle out a beautiful sound?

And it's almost like I have these images of weaving the story.

Like there's so much grief,

Okay,

I need some gray thread here,

But oh,

That hot pink sunset thread needs to come through.

And I just cover myself with this beautiful complex shawl of experience and sit with it,

And it's a gift to be able to sit with it even for another moment.

Yes,

Very,

Very good,

Yes.

And to have that tapestry that you're weaving,

You know,

Just in what you were just saying about how you didn't have much,

Forgot how you said it,

How you didn't have much agency to change things.

But in any case,

The tapestry,

The weaving of the tapestry is the offering,

Right,

That you are arranging the stones around the base of the tree and you are using the pink thread to represent the sunset,

And that you are noticing and that you are enjoying the little conversations that you might have,

Whether on the phone or however you can have them.

I know you're locked down right now.

And I love what you were saying about the way that connection feeds you.

When that becomes the inclination that you have to connect,

You can start becoming quite profligate,

Is that the right word?

Yeah,

You can become very,

Very loose about what you allow to be the connection,

You know,

That it doesn't have to be very profound even,

Even though that is especially wonderful,

Having profound connection,

Having profound conversation that really lights your soul and your whole spirit and your mind and your heart.

That's very satisfying.

But you can also have a lot of other types of connections that maybe are not as satisfying but are still lovely and not be too demanding of them having to be profound if you just don't have that access,

Especially when you're locked down,

If you're not able to just be with the kinds of company that might be that deeper place,

Other than on Zoom,

Which fortunately we do have that.

I don't know if you've ever traveled in a foreign country or traveled alone in a foreign country in which there weren't many people who spoke your language.

So you're really in pigeon conversation,

Actually.

My mother-in-law doesn't speak English.

My relationship with her is so rich because we recognize something in our gestures,

In our eye contact,

And the way I might use a mannerism that is alien to her,

And she'll giggle.

And there's this lightness that just feeds me in such a way that,

Yeah,

Nonverbal communication between humans is amazing.

Yes,

Absolutely.

The last time I saw my mother,

And I would have expected to see her again,

Except that I wasn't able to go back to the US in this past year because of COVID,

So they're not letting us out of Australia,

By the way.

If you're a resident or a citizen,

You're not actually allowed to leave unless someone's dying.

So we've all been stuck here.

Not the worst place to be stuck,

Obviously.

But anyway,

The last time I saw my mother,

I didn't realize it was going to be the last time,

Although due to her age,

I knew it could be.

Now,

As it happened,

My father had just died in a different state,

And I had organized the entire memorial for 500 people and had,

You know,

Emceed the whole thing and had every single detail and write the stuff for the newspaper and on and on and on.

I was so tired,

And I got really ill,

And I lost my voice.

So now I had to go from that scenario of two weeks of doing that to go see my mom in Florida,

And I had completely lost my voice.

I mean,

I had no voice.

So I spent four or five days with her.

I was totally silent.

I had to write notes to her because I had no voice,

And I was sick as well.

And my mother tends to be a quiet person anyway.

So we just spent that time like in a retreat.

We went out to a couple of dinners.

We ordered in as well.

We watched a lot of movies,

Took naps,

And I've often thought about that,

That that might well be the last time we were together in the same place.

We do talk on the phone,

Of course.

And I've thought it was a very sweet visit.

It was a really,

Really sweet visit.

Yeah.

So,

Yes,

A lot can be communicated,

Not even that it has to be profound.

It was just sharing company.

Music