I just feel like writing at the moment, so that's what this is.
I've just spent the last forty minutes editing and writing an intro and outro for an interview I recorded last week with adrienne maree brown. When I reached out to her to be on Everything is Workable, I did not expect to hear back. I reach out to a lot of amazing people who I know have very busy schedules and probably get dozens of podcast interview requests every month. I hardly ever hear back, but I hear back often enough that I don't regret taking the time to keep doing it. I know EiW doesn't have a huge listenership. It's a rough production and the sound quality isn't always the best, but I've heard podcasts with worse sound quality and honestly, when the content is good, I just don't care.
And so often, the content blows my mind. I have these deep, meaningful, transformative conversations that I then get to share with the world. Even if only a few folks listen to each episode, that's a few more people than just the two of us who had the dialogue benefiting from the insights of universal wisdom. That's that many more folks who might have a seed planted, or find some validation in the hard work of social restoration, or feel a sense of connection to a larger community of people doing the same kind of work in the world.
I also submitted an application to the Upaya Chaplaincy program today. I have yet to pay the deposit and get in references from teachers, so it's not entirely done—but the momentum has started. I don't know if I'll be accepted but I figure I'm a good candidate. I spoke with someone who does intake for the program and she seemed confident that I was too.
I really want this, because most of the training program is doing things I'm already doing, but with feedback and support and guidance. It will help me to be of benefit, to do more of the work I want to be doing and connecting me with a greater breadth of folks on a similar path. I also like the idea, on a really basic level, of having a simple answer to the question: "What do you do?"
"I'm a Buddhist chaplain"
It encompasses everything. I realise I'll still have to explain because folks hear 'chaplain' and seem to default to an image of someone in black robes at the side of a dying person in a hospital bed. But it's more than that. It's spiritual guidance and showing up to alleviate suffering. It's listening and being present for humans and all that humanity encompasses. It's working with others towards collective liberation through cultivation of compassion and love.
It's really so very true that we are always in transition. I can't really say that this is 'a time of transition' as I cannot tell you when that's not been the case. I tumble backwards thinking of what brought me to this moment of choice, where I am applying for what is, for me, the first kind of post-secondary education I've ever taken a genuine heartfelt interest in.
The personal transitions of the first half of this year—moving from Canada to the US, Gretchen's diagnosis and the adjustments of that New Normal, going on a retreat for seven weeks—all led to the possibility for me to take this opportunity. And the year before that when it was the upheaval of a nomadic lifestyle, travelling between Calgary and Seattle, Seattle and Palo Alto, Seattle and San Diego, Seattle back to Calgary over and over, the travel a sort of stability that interrupted the possibility of stability in my social life and in connecting with a sangha. And the time before that, when I was still in London and coming out of the intense practice life I'd build for myself and entering into what was a new relationship being built across great distances of space and time. Learning to find my voice and express the fruits of my study and contemplation through my blog, through my podcast. Ever backwards to all the points at which I had the lesson that my suffering did not make me special, but that my suffering was also equally deserving of being addressed and alleviated as anyone else's. And the day I found out that I'd been assigned the wrong tax code and the UK government owed me a refund that allowed me to set up an investment account which, at the time, was for a distant dream of a retreat centre...
It's not enough to buy land for a centre BUT it is enough to cover the $10,800 cost of this training over the next two years.
One thing leads to another. Or rather, all things lead to the next things, of which there is multitude. Potential is endless, transition is constant, and what a grand thing that is. A lack of change isn't death, but non-existence.
Anyway, it's almost dinner time now. And so it goes.