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Scripts From An Open Heart Installment VII . . . Mary Pocock |
The Pocock Diaries is a work in progress - this is installment seven. If you missed any of the previous issues, then begin here. Entries will be added each month. Some excerpts of e-mails will also be included. And please feel free to send along your thoughts or feedback to The Pocock Diaries
Click on any image to view it enlarged. | |
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Palliative but not dying - talk about a rock and a hard place...
now even mail order is a big risk
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I am in Los Angeles - land of angels, in the Bonaventure Hotel.
Outside my window, a blimp just cruised by, asking "Have you met life today yet?" |
| This city is truly wonderful, full of life and contradictions. There are about fourteen hundred people from several continents in this charming architectural oddity in downtown L.A.; located close to a market building which yields among an infinity of items, three dollar burritos the size of a full dinner plate. |
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I am here, receiving teachings on the Path to Inner Peace, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, a Tibetan Buddhist master. The teaching are very healing and empowering. When you think about it, external peace is dependent on internal peace, since peace is a state of mind and not a 'thing.'
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What my personal pilgrimage has begun to teach me is that the destination is dual - certain death combined with the deathlessness of my spirit, which shall continue long after my body has disintegrated.
Concepts have not given me comfort when facing my possible early death.
Meditation experiences, faith and acceptance have paved the way for a happiness not dependent upon external circumstances.
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| Before coming to L.A., I was artist in residence at the Upaya Center in Santa Fe, run by Roshi Joan Halifax. She offers courses for health care practitioners on Death and Dying Care, works with prisoners and runs a wonderful retreat center, offering classes and personal retreats. Roshi Joan invited me to come for the month of November as artist in residence. While there, I produced a new body of photographic work, did drawings, taught, and meditated. The light there is so beautiful - no wonder artists are drawn to new Mexico. |
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I reached a missing piece of the healing puzzle in Santa Fe - I learned to accept death and pain, not intellectually, but by going through it - living it - allowing it to permeate my whole being. Scary, but necessary. Seeing what the feeling of fear is, where does it live inside my body and how does it function...then what happens when I let it go, was transformative. We can let fear go moment to moment, and so too, with all grasping at emotions.
When you get the courage to do this, life feels not so solid but much more beautiful.
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One thing about death: it sure is transformative. |
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After my stay at the hotel architecturally based on coloured circles, the Bonaventure, my pal Jodi and I drove up the coast to the hills above Santa Barbara- to the White Lotus foundation. I did yoga teacher training there a few years ago - excellent training in a beautiful setting. Jodi and I arrived at sunset and headed for the hot tub looking out over the ocean. We retired after a heaven sent sauna to our cabin in a lemon grove.
It feels great to just be here in the country on the side of the hill....we are both typing away on our laptops, munching on snacks and talking about our lives.
Jodi is an artist, filmmaker, photographer and co-runs a book publishing company called The Dilettante Press. So we were happy being geekettes in a cabin far from the busyness of our lives.
The next morning we had brunch with White Lotus Yoga Center co-owner Tracey Rich, and spoke of art, life, yoga, healing and architecture. She and Ganga White have made wonderful changes on the property over the years. White Lotus is a work in progress - like life herself. |
When you think of art, it is possible to imagine our greatest work of art being the sculpture of our lives. Our life is molded from existence herself and woven with people, living creatures, appearances, and forms of all types and colours. Emotions, thoughts and actions of ourselves and others help co-create this movable experience.
All life can be seen as sculpture. Everything we leave behind when we die lives on as a type of art form, influencing all we have touched. It actually lives on in the minds of all we have influenced and in the myriad of ways that we have marked the world. It is important, therefore, to be conscious of the choices we make in this world. | |
Time is the substance I am made of.
Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river;
it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger;
it is a fire that comsumes me, but I am the fire.
Jorge Louis Borges | |
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