New Improved Personal Cooking

Recipe For Disaster
Getting Your Just Desserts
Dish Ran away With the Spoon
Half-Baked and Getting Steamed
Proof Is In the Pudding
Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth
I'm the Damn Gingerbread Woman
*These could all be titles for this rant written for my own edification and entertainment, on a day when life seemed to be taking a bite outta me. Thought I would share.
Basic ingredients:
1 "I", separated
1 conformity-demanding societyhalf a dozen well-meaning relatives
1 formal educationat least
1 truckload of mental concepts, labels includedfistful of more/bettergenerous encouragement of fearpinch of measurement, begetting comparison (or to taste)
1. Always start with fresh ingredients.Crack an egg. Allow it to develop into a human (is that a bun in the oven?).At the appropriate moment, welcome wonderful world! Eyes open, not a thought anywhere. Hungry, wet, no problem, because no "I". Just hunger happens, just wetness, no language. No recipe for success.Mix is fluid and light.
2. Sprinkle in and absorb the idea, coming from everywhere, that there is an "I", called (insert name). Fold in the first of many concepts--that since this I is "here", all else is a "thing, over there".Whatever. Still no problem. Words.Wait. You mean, there's a secret code? To all this? Everything has a NAME?!Magic!Carefully stir in language. Stir in more language. Keep stirring.Separation will occur.
3. Introduce rules based on language. Blend until identity is solidified. Personhood is beginning to rise, as well as "the other". Conflict ensues.If at this point the mixture begins to pull away from itself, beat until pliable.Turn onto a flat surface and knead with gusto. Also, begin to need. And want. After all, there are so many goodies, so many additions out there! They say that s/he who finishes with the most sprinkles WINS!(Some fear, involving not getting/being/having enough, may rise to the surface. Ignore thoroughly.)
4. Let mixture stand in confusion while busying oneself with "survival" and problematic relating to those pesky "others". Notice that a crust is beginning to form. Is this normal? Pour a glass of wine. Toast your favorite kind of denial.At this point, variations of the basic recipe become endless, characterized by cheflike opinions, such as: Needs to chill, must add spice, too much fluff, waaaay too heavy, crusty is bad, sweet is better, you're burnt, not enough substance, vegan is the Way (meals have morals, too!), you should bake but you shouldn't smoke, if you can't stand the heat/cold, why are you in the kitchen/arctic?--etc., etc.
5. Now there is a thick, hard shell. There may or may not be a gooey center. Is this the correct recipe?Oven is set to "when hell freezes over"; timer stuck between "past" and "future". Perfect. You have followed the directions well. Quell all suspicions. You have flour on your nose. Have you looked in the mirror, lately?
6. Ready yourself, for everyone depends on you. Proper control depends upon your critical preparedness and leadership skills. Develop a sensitivity to gluten, while being highly allergic to peanut butter. Meanwhile, fantasize about such things as peanut butter cookies.
7. God, how long is this supposed to be in the oven?Here's a clue: Ashes to ashes...
8. Not sure about this. Obviously, the recipe is somehow flawed, or the cook uneducated or rebellious. This does not look or feel right. It's even PAINFUL.Maybe seek an expert chef's opinion? Maybe just dump it and start over? But I invested so much! I've had such faith!Y'know, it wasn't supposed to stink like this.The picture showed it rich and beautiful, with the people saying, "Ahhhhh!"Why is it so flat? Her dish is firmer. He likes firm. They told me it was bitter. I think salt is bad. I remember when cooking was fun. Maybe some more frosting/glaze/sauce...that's me, all right, can't leave well enough alone. Why are there so many damn PROBLEMS? Isn't there supposed to be an easier way?
9. Screw it--I'm done! Into the oven it goes. Look at this mess! How many times do I have to tell people to put their stuff away? I need a vacation! If only I hadn't bought the New Vegematic Mixmaster with the Advanced Rack, I could be in Tahiti...!
10. Wake up to fire. Dust to dust, on the bottom of the cosmic self-cleaning oven. Holy crap! Why didn't the timer go off?!How to serve:The truth is best without garnish.The recipe, education, ingredients, cooks, advanced kitchen technology, bloodhound-like sense of smell--all of it went up in smoke.My world, my house, my oven, myspace, my self, me--lost in the fire.I guess there's nothing to bring to the potluck.Except, hey...If I'm burnt, and no longer chef, kitchen, dough or salmonella...maybe I'm the party itself? Hell, could I be the whole enchilada? Herself and guests and table and country and world and...how about the egg, cracking? My parent's precoital picnic? My great-great-grandchildren's unleavened, gluten-free DNA?Hey! Could I be the very context in which any nourishment/starvation happens at all?Could I be...do I...am I before context?Tips:Serve warm in winter, cool in summer.Everyone is invited. No exceptions.Leave the concepts off the cake, and you won't have to stress about calories or any other nutritional content. No problems are real. :)

To Us

Before I say anything else, I want to express my gratitude to all of you for the existence of Maria...because it is absolutely true that I would not be here as I am (whatever that means) without you being there as you are. You are the other end of me.I used to make jokes about moving to a cave in Tibet and adopting a yak, all in the name of finding Peace. I recently said something about becoming a nomad--which sounds like leaving, moving on, abandoning the system. I really am all for creating systems that work, even if that means creating a "no system" system. Whatever. It's all a great story. But the more I run, the more I can't escape myself. This feels like a terrible kind of prison, until I realize that it isn't life that is imprisoning--it's the silly belief in a separate Maria, in a personality apart from the world--that brings on the feeling of somehow being behind bars.I see that the belief and the feeling arise together.So what happens when I stop believing in the fictional character? What happens if I don't buy into the story of my life (or anyone else)?For entertainment purposes only, I'll tell you how this works.Typically, I wake up before I think I'm ready, to an alarm from the clock or bladder or cat. I am blank for a few seconds. Then thought rushes in, and I immediately construct myself by "remembering" who, what and where I am. This is followed by instructional stuff like "make coffee", "bathroom", "throw cat out/let cat in". By the time I'm on my feet, I've added lots of things to the mental me, such as "Ouch, my back! Oh, yeah, appointments today...ugh, feels like another hot one...global warming?...can we afford to put in air conditioning? Probably not...damn economy anyway..." and so forth.A while ago, this way of being continued on through the day, usually accompanied by escalating tension and dread, with brief bouts of humor or philosophical resignation or relief-by-fantasy of some kind. At night, I would generally collapse with the incessant chattering of my own brain to keep me company, and sometimes the idea that there just HAD to be a better way to live.But now, sometimes just after I wake up, more often an hour or two into my day, I catch myself making up my life--and there is a halt, a stop, a silence.The fictional "I" dealing with fictional problems dissolves like smoke. For a while, there is pure, untouched and unadulterated life. I am that. Thoughts appear, but they are only thoughts, only trees, sky, dishes, people. breathing. Then I will follow one of those thoughts and believe things like, "I need to...I should...I might...he/she/we/they..."...until the next reminder-from-nowhere, whereupon I vanish, again, as if I never was.This vanishing somehow creates a really big space--edgeless, actually, and timeless, in which life just happens ceaselessly as itself. There is no need of "me". "I" do not have to keep things running. There is no reason to attempt to prop up reality according to "my" terms and concepts. Reality does very well on its own, by itself, unmarked by any attempted ownership on my part!I may as well be dead...woohoo, I may as well be dead! Yay! What a REAL relief!! By some miracle, I am still here, even when I go nomadic and the wind erases the footprints I think I should leave. There is a very clean world under the mental one. There is a world that is so unconditional that even terrorists are allowed to exist, as well as our perfectly flawed selves and our crazy ideas about morality and all that.What happens is a non-conceptual reality, with no lines or divisions, perfect freedom and zero actual problems. Vast space, in which the thinking mind knows it's own limitation, and allows what really IS to function limitlessly. Ha! That makes no sense, does it? But that is what results when I try to communicate something non-linguistic using language. More silliness on my part, I guess. :)I can no longer take credit for anything I've ever done. Another way to put that is, I can now take credit for absolutely everything anyone has ever done. All the same, all the same. "Finding Peace"? What the hell is that? Kind of like trying to see sight.I really don't miss me, not one bit.Love you.

The Fall of Love

Over the last few days, relationship seems to be the recurring dream. It might be all the relationship-centered phone calls I've received lately, which remind me of my own. Ah, the bliss, the irritation, the hope, the betrayal! All that fabulous detail, which arises with the notion "MINE".Once upon a time in the not-too-distant past, I was explaining to someone my passionate belief that there is no way I could allow an "open" relationship. "I know myself well enough," I said, "to understand that I'm just not personally secure enough to deal with something like that." Truth. I wanted to be number one...no, number ONLY. I figured that if my partner couldn't give me that, he didn't really love me the way I needed to be loved.Besides, it was so complicated! Truer still. Simple is best for me, when it comes to the layer of world involving family. I still prefer monogamy. Jealousy can still happen, or not. I might believe that I'm somehow special to the one I'm so attached to, or not.And so forth.What I was trying to say, actually, was that I wanted a relationship I could believe in, that I could have faith in, that I could feel safe and loved in. Meaning that my expectations were met, my partner behaved and understood, so that I would not feel threatened. So that I could trust. So that I could be happy. So that I could REALLY love, not just love with reservations, just in case.I wanted to be totally, blissfully attached, without the possibility of abandonment. Secure ever after.Deep down, isn't this how most of us feel?I really was convinced of my own insecurity, immaturity and neediness...but, silly woman that I am, I forgot to look deeper. Too damn scared of ghosts, of rejection, of the unknown. Still, there were clues, all along.For instance, the first time I held my brand-new twins, there was an epiphany...I fell immediately and deeply in love, knowing that I would put my life on the line for these babies (and any future children). I saw that I would do my absolute best in their care, that they were simply the most beautiful beings alive, and that I would protect them. My children. And while I was having all these new-mother thoughts and feelings, there was another, simultaneous knowing. I have to let them go. They will grow up and develop their own lives and thoughts and loves, and I have to let them go.With each birth came the same bitter-sweetness. The same joy-pain. It was a taste of reality, just a taste.I saw this, I knew it, but I reasoned that maternal love and "coupled" love were two different things. After all, I didn't expect the same things from my children that I expected in an adult partnership...right? Right. Well. Kids grow up, mostly, and reporting from the front, I find that I have been positively awash and aglow in their approval and unconditional acceptance and complete willingness to bow to my superior wisdom and knowledge. I have been delighted with their spontaneous gifts, humbled by their beauty, puffed-up with pride at their intelligence (that's right...that's MY kid!!).Oh, and dismayed by their sudden and seemingly vicious betrayal, irritated by their thoughtlessness, confused by their absolute blindness and lack of understanding. Completely scared by their recklessness and embarrassed by their awful behavior. Hurt terribly by their rejection, jealous at their attachment to someone else.Yeah. Really different.Now an understanding has arisen. Care to step into the rabbit-hole of love? This is a tough one.(C'mon, jump! I'll hold your hand on the way down...it won't hurt THAT badly!)(If you don't want to jump, you don't have to. Feel free to wrap yourself in the solidity of your life.)Okay. Now we're falling. I confess, this isn't really the rabbit-hole of love (quit snickering!). This IS love. We're falling, in love. Did I mention that I haven't found the bottom yet? I am happy, though, to draw your attention to some points of interest on the way down.Forget trying to grab something to save yourself, by the way. All roots, branches and apparent hand-or-footholds are temporary and coated with impermanence (really greasy stuff). Of course, you can try, try to stop this fall...it hurts, though everybody tries. Maybe it's instinct, maybe it's what we learned. Maybe it's just fun.Anyway, take a deep breath and notice the strata--the layers that we happen to be falling through. They have different names, but they all begin with "I want" or "I want to avoid"...True Love, Sex, Respect, Recognition, Attention, Security, Sensation, Power...as many as you want to see, that's how many there are. Sure, you can explore any one of these things, as long as you understand that, though you may imagine you have stopped at one level or another, you are actually still falling. To believe that your fulfillment and destination is where you think you've landed is to be lost in the rabbit-warren of dreams.Done with that? Okay. Now it gets more subtle. It seems as though the fall is slowing, or that we can see more clearly...you watch your arms reach out to hold on to your lover, your child, your parent, your friend...you watch your heart trying to capture a beautiful moment, your eyes a lovely sunset, your mind a choice you think you should make. You see yourself trying to keep everyone and everything. But it all goes away, and your heart breaks. There is such a struggle to understand why bad stuff shows up and good stuff leaves... why feelings and minds change. Maybe you rage at the way things are, blame god or someone or yourself for abandoning you. Maybe you believe you've given up, because you have hurt too much and you're numb. You think you will always be alone.Guess what? Still falling.Having fallen through so many things in so many ways, the alluring promises of a nice, safe ledge to cling to lose their sparkle, don't they? (Actually, you just come to see that the shine is your own light, reflecting off the greasy stuff). The vistas are gorgeous, still, but you understand that they don't belong to you, in the sense that you can't own them. Ever. One thing, feeling, situation, idea, time is followed by another. All stops are temporary. All goes are temporary.Except...this damn FALLING.Now we have dropped very, very far. It's dark, but we can see; the sensation of falling, of the inability to grasp safety feels...clean. We look at the passing walls with genuine interest instead of what we might get or what we might lose. In freefall, what is there to gain? What is there to let go of? So we just look. There is nothing left to do but surrender to this endless drop. What can you do? Where do you go when each refuge is found to have no floor?Look, here are the last layers, ancient and deep. These are the imaginary supports for the lasagna of life, the mine of mind, the ex of experience!One says, I don't know what love is. I need to find it.And below it--All there is, is falling. All I am is watching events go by. Can't catch a thing...I dream, it's beautiful, scary, interesting...it never stops...The only thing I can keep is falling...Because I AM falling.In love. Into myself.Ohhh.It's brighter all the way down here, in our freefall. I say "we", because together, we compose this sensation of living, this fact of falling. We are the fall. Only one more layer, the mother-lode, veins of which run through every single thing in your life. Even "we".It's called "I"."I" wants, "I" avoids, "I" arises and creates "mine" or "not mine". No big deal. It's just one more layer, that's all. It's quite beautiful, a perfect tool of division. But you are not that. You are the fall THROUGH that, the motion, the space for it. The "I" is what you imagine you need to relate to anything, and an "advanced I" can have advanced relationships. As a matter of fact, an "advanced I" sees that ALL things are myself in relation with and to the world, and ALL of these relationships are "open".They are so open, in reality, that there are no real boundaries. What is a boundary? That thing called "I". What are you without this "I"?Not falling anymore. Not falling in love, or rejection, or rabbit holes...Just being your own love, not having to relate, because everything you encounter is already you. Now, life falls through your stillness.***Considering love and relating from here, now, I mentally isolate the relationship between myself and my husband from the rest of the world/life. The first thing I'm aware of is the fact that I've just turned a living, breathing, changing, mysterious "no-thing" into a thought, into an idea that is the merest sketch of the soup that Richard and I are dwelling in. It is a hard idea, called "our relationship", and I can imagine myself stubbing my cosmic toe on it. So I have to laugh. Because the idea is falling through me. I am the no-thing, as he is, and I will never, ever be able to nail us down. There is absolutely zero security, if I believe the thought that says we are separate things trying to "make" a relationship.In my direct and unvarnished experience, he is an eternally-changing event that arises. Now I see him, now I don't. We get closer and exchange words, sensations, imaginations. Closer still, and he gets blurry, I have difficulty defining anything except pure sensual information; closer still, and the convention of separation is gone. Then, it isn't. Sometimes he is my own right hand (lefty or not), and sometimes he is the current burr under my saddle. In fact, there isn't any way to describe him, really, without describing myself.Yet, there is no way I can really know him, the same way there is no way he can really know me. Our perspectives are absolutely unique. We are each absolutely alone in that sense, and always will be. But also, there is no way we can be truly separate. There is no way to stop the fall. Because he/I is/am the same being, in the verbal sense. We are being life.I guess this sort of takes the romance out of the idea--but it doesn't take the romance out of us, should we be so inclined. :) We seem to roam the spectrum between "don't I know you from someplace?" to "you are the reason I live" in relative comfort, with little--if any--regret.I love that I still love him even though I don't need to. I love that I still fall even though it's completely pointless from the mind's point of view. I love that I love.I love.I.Love.:)