November Sabbatical Journal 2008

I knew I was missing teaching.  The whole dynamic of observing someone and offering something that might be of help is just so ingrained in me.  I began teaching swimming to non-swimmers at a 4-H summer camp when I was 14 years old.  And began my training as a Montessori teacher at 22.  After 10 years of teaching in schools and summer camps, I went to massage school and was teaching massage for trauma by the time I graduated.  So this sabbatical time of not teaching has been restful.  But once all the naps were taken and I began to feel restless and longing for traveling, I just got this itch.  I needed to teach something, even just a little.

We had driven to Keene, New Hampshire for Marshall to choose new glasses frames.  I was sitting waiting impatiently as I so often do.  I really shouldn’t be allowed to be bored.  I turn into one of those kids at the back of the bus up to no good.  I was watching a mother and daughter trying on new frames, asking each other how do these look.  The daughter found a pair she really liked, put them on, and asked her mom- how do these look?  I said, “I don’t like them.  You have very beautiful eyes and the frame should surround your eye socket to frame your eyes and those frames just block us from seeing you and your beautiful eyes.  Try that round pair.”  They both looked at me dumbfounded.  Then the mother said, “John Calvi!  I’d know that voice anywhere.  I’ve taken workshops with you at 3 different Quaker meetings.”

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I was lost in a large supermarket looking for something I couldn’t find and not sure what I would substitute for this recipe.  I was also feeling a bit lost on one of those gray days when you wake up and not sure what you are doing in your life and one seems neither as cute or smart as yesterday and what disaster might be on it’s way coming and I don’t feel well but maybe I’m just worried but not sure what about kind of days.  That’s when a woman made her way up to me in my befuddleness and said, “I know this is not the place to say this but I just want to say that your work with me all those years ago saved my life and I will be ever grateful to you for your gifts in healing work.” It was a balm to my unsteadiness.

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Sometimes when one is lifted out of the water, there is no sense of place or purpose.  I’ve had some of that this sabbatical.  I’ll be out into the day and with free time I might get to worrying what am I doing with myself and my life.  Sometimes this comes in a voice of doubt and impatience, which completely ignores all I’ve been doing.  It helps to remind myself of another time- I was exhausted and resting at Pendle Hill the Spring term of 1990.  I had traveled to teach to 30 groups in one year and helped several friends with AIDS to die.  I was really pooped.  And by and by as I rested but had no work of my usual healing trauma topic to tend to, I came to wondering who I was and what was I doing and where had gravity gone now that I had stepped out of my work harness.  I was feeling particularly lost one day when someone said to me in passing, “I didn’t know you wrote that wonderful song.  That’s great”, she said with a big smile.  “Yes”, I said trying to be casual, “I was so happy when Meg Christian recorded it.”  “What?” she said, “I was talking about A Little Gracefulness by the Short Sisters.  What song did Meg do of yours?”  “The Ones Who Aren’t Here”, I said.  Now she had big tears in her eyes and said, “You wrote that?!  That is my most favorite song ever!”  It was just the little boost I needed to remind me who I was amidst my drifting.

Of the many wonderful aspects of sabbatical- unscheduled time, release from duties, self-care- I find the most luxurious to be time and space within my own mind to wonder.  Maybe I am waking up late or stacking firewood or driving to visit a friend.  As I leave the patterns of work and over-work and choose more simple tasks, there is a softening of focus.  Instead of keeping track of multiple projects and keeping a hard focus on sequence, information, and quality of mind and touch- I am doing some physical motion simple enough to allow ideas and thoughts to come and go as my mind wanders.  And the longer this becomes the new practice, the better I am at noticing when something important comes along or some thought is just a delight and a lift to my being, just being.  As I wonder about my life, how’d I come here to this now, what is it I know and understand, and what are the parts I haven’t a clue of and might I know more than I think I do- all safely wondered and gazed at in slow motion.  And in some wonderful quiet and still moments comes news of what I now can understand of some knot that has been tied tightly for so long.  It’s as though a deep breath has come at last to the thirsty lung.  

Chief among the sabbatical luxuries is solitude.  I have always, all my life, needed more time to myself than anyone I know.  It’s difficult to explain.  Often it feels as though my clearest sense what I am feeling isn’t possible until there is no one else around- as though others feelings clog my radar until what is mine is unclear.  I did not consciously learn the discipline of solitude as a pragmatic professional and spiritual practice for someone of my gifts until I was in my 30’s.  And then what might be possible unfolded in bright colors after years of yearning for goodness knows what.  What was all this feeling and sensitivity for?  Why could I feel where the trouble was in the room or in one person’s body?  Why did I know the questions to help sort out confusion and pain but was too shy to speak or believe I might know something?

As sabbatical has gone on I’ve grown used to the vast luxury of time and not pushing.  It feels like the rest of a lifetime, an island of calm I only dreamed of.  Part of me wants to live here as a contemplative and live in the quiet.  An equal part of me wants to use this immense gift of time and restoration to reenter the fray of trauma and torture work.  I will have to toss the salad carefully in the future as these are not opposites within me but rather dancing partners needing each other for balance.  The quiet and stillness and wonder and solitude bring all my best self, all my strength, and all my learning forward.  And the work moves all the learning and readiness into a dance.  The task again and again is to be graceful.  Not to stay at rest nor to live solely in work but to have each refresh and inform the other in every cycle, at all levels.

How odd to understand this now when maybe half my working years are done.  On the one hand my mentors gave me just what I needed all along the way.  On the other hand, I spent the first 18 years surviving and didn’t begin to inventory the damage and wash the wounds until later.  Like each of us, I am right on time- no matter how much in my impatience I would like it to be different. 

October Sabbatical Journal 2008

October Sabbatical Journal 2009

I really wanted to help.  Any mother who has lost two children needs help and in her particular culture grief is done in very restrictive ways.  To lose a spouse, a sibling, a parent, a dear friend- all can be very sad.  But to lose a child is the worst burden of grief known to humans.  And to lose two- once as a young mother and later as an old woman, this called for the wailing and screams not permitted.  She is short and cheery.  An immigrant of many years, she speaks little English.  She’s heard only a little about me and seen me just a bit but when someone in her family says he might help, she says yes.  As soon as my hands are over her, I want to run away in terror.  If you’ve smelled death and thought you might retch, or seen too much blood and thought you might pass out, well, think of feeling so much grief that your heart would break forever.  That’s what I felt and there are no gloves in this work- only allowing the feeling to wash over me and move through.  No flinching, no cowering, stand facing the wave and feel every bit of myself joining her experience as though it were my own feeling.  My face breaks into weeping and my mouth is contorted though I am silent.  I know anyone with any measure of antenna can feel this down the block and around the corner.  Marshall felt it in the kitchen- ultimate sadness he called it.  I am a bit out of practice. Eleven months of sabbatical with no hands on work and no teaching has lessened my preparation disciplines.  So when I enter the work her wave of grief feels larger than it would otherwise.  I am not removed by focusing on the Light nor swathed in reverence as I would usually be.  As I moved my hands above her and slowly touch her neck and shoulder and belly and feet and knees and hips, I wonder if my guidance is less or my capacity to hear it is less because this witness happened while I was tired and spontaneously without preparations.  I wonder if the heart troubles I’ve been having, which have tired me, will be touched by exhaustion.  Mostly I am with her and yearn with all my heart for her relief.  I’ve asked her to say her favorite prayer while I work and I can’t quite feel if her spiritual connection is working so as to move the work along.  On the one hand, all this is familiar and regular- I have my hands on someone in terrible distress again and I am as completely present as possible and know what will come is not up to me and I will be grateful for any blessings.  I hope some grace for her learning will make the way smooth or smoother.  On the other hand, I am 11 months into a 14-month sabbatical and some of my muscles, as they should be, are slack.  What tension is necessary for full attention?  What of my own stuff obscures?  I don’t know how long we worked- time seems so unlikely as a measure or something unreal during work.  But I feel I’ve touched all places I’ve been led to and it’s time to close.  I remove my hands from her feet and stand above her.  I swoop my hands in the Tai Chi move of Big Cloudy Hands gathering up all her energy and raise my arms to the ceiling, heavenward, with feelings of thanks and here she is and please give what’s needed.  And as I lower my arms hoping some gifts are washed over her, I step back and raise my hands again asking to be washed and to say thank you for this opportunity to love and as I bring my hands down I cross my arms in front of my torso and finish standing straight my feet in good balance position holding my whole body without stress, palms down.  I ask her to rest a while and this is translated to her.  She nods without opening her eyes.  It’s time for me to leave.  It was a very large witness.  Later at home, I drink a large glass of something very cold and lie down for a nap where I sleep deeply and gratefully the rest of the afternoon.  I hear later that she laughed for the first time in a long time.  So much here that is beyond words- the gifts, the disciplines, the Light that washes, the reverence.

August & September Sabbatical Journal 2009

Sabbatical Journal August & September  2008

It wasn’t very dramatic or even scary really.  Just waking up on a Saturday and feeling like I’d slept on something wrong which now needed to be stretched out to restore circulation- an arm maybe or just a hand.  But it was my heart.  I could feel the rhythm was off and I felt a bit light headed.  I wasn’t in pain, no nausea, no sweats- just some sense that something important was a bit off regular.  I had a shower, felt more light headed, sat on the couch and told Marshall, and then called my cousin Annette- Super RN.  Time for a clinic she says.  We are on Cape Cod and the EKG at the clinic shows things are a bit off.  I take the suggested ride in the ambulance because it seemed unfair to Marshall to drive me, and my possible heart attack an hour to the hospital, though I didn’t feel sick enough to warrant an ambulance.  With oxygen, all symptoms disappear.  3^rd and 4^th EKGs are normal.  It seems that some backside of my heart didn’t get quite enough oxygen but other than that I don’t have enough illness to show what’s wrong.  A stress test with my hospital later on at home shows only a normal 57 year old over weight who seems stubborn enough to go longer than needed to show he’s fine.  

I did have a moment or two in the ambulance when I set aside the idea that I was really OK and opened to the idea that maybe this was serious and I was in trouble.  What would I do about open-heart surgery?  Or not being able to work or go upstairs?  Of course, I didn’t take the middle road consideration, which is order the chicken Caesar and 86 on the next 10 bacon cheeseburgers.  I had a sad deep moment about surgery and large life changes/limitations.  And then I got back to the moment and felt badly that Marshall had to drive alone on a beautiful morning when we should have been at the beach while I got to enjoy a very perky EMT and be in an ambulance going very fast without being in pain or scared much.

I had been working outside most of June and July.  I schlepped about 1,000 pounds of soil, lumber, and flagstone into the back yard for garden beds and placed the flagstone outside the 3 south facing doors.  After planting the garden and mowing the 3 acres of slope, I began making a stonewall.  I got a stairs mostly made and laid some very large rocks as the wall base.  And then I stopped.

Something inside had shifted.  Instead of going outside to work, I thought of things to do in the house or errands to run.  I was anxious, restless, and couldn’t concentrate.  I couldn’t bring myself to return to the discipline of daily outdoor work, which I’d arranged for my own health.  Instead I’d sort a linen closet or clean a desk or oil the dining room table or shop a secondhand store for some bargain (a $90 Sabatier cleaver for $4- oh ye of little faith keep shopping!).

So, I watched this tension and fear moving in me and wondered at its source.  It took a few weeks but on a long drive through beautiful Vermont farmland on a gorgeous summers day, it became clear.  As I worked outside I could feel my body change.  Muscles were more flexible, blood pressure lower, and my posture shifted from fat out of shape person to fat stronger person preparing to lose weight.  And very quietly deep within me I could feel the young child sexually abused not wanting to lose the protection of being fat and unattractive.  Some moments of sadness, some quiet grief for this young part of me.  And then sorting out the puzzle.

The puzzle- I am on sabbatical to become more healthy and return to work.  Part of more healthy is losing weight.  My blood pressure requires it- I might be able to get off medication if I lose 30 pounds.  I’ve osteoporosis (I’ve testosterone therapy stories that shouldn’t be told in public!) and the weight lifting helps bone retain calcium.  My sleep disorder of not getting down to REM sleep is better with physical work.  How then to tend to this young resistance within me and get back on the path?  Patience, calm, and reassurance- in all ways, at all times- this is what I learned as a Montessori teacher of young children for 10 years.

Today I spent the morning and afternoon mowing our field.  It was my first day back outside working hard.  My heart was into the work and I never got winded as I did mowing back in June- so my body must be getting better.  Resistance came only in hints and calm reassurance seemed to be enough.  It will take me another 2 days to finish the mowing.  And then there are 3 cords of wood to stack.  And I’d like to paint at least the south side of the house before it gets cold.  And I’ll also need to clean out the tool shed and collect kindling before I move the wood shed.  Back in a groove, it seems.  Oh yes, the stone wall should get done in there too along with emptying the night soil from the outhouse. Plus bring in the tomatoes for spaghetti sauce.  10 pints of pesto already in the freezer.

In my spare time, I need to convene a clearness committee to ponder re-entering my work opposing torture.  I’ve some questions to ask others and seek their questions to increase my understanding, broaden my horizon.  Other than that, not much else is new.

July Sabbatical Journal 2008

July Sabbatical Journal 2008 - John Calvi

Marshall and I have just had a week vacation at home, a decision of budget and simplicity.  There was much need of rest, deep rest, spontaneous rest, and some fun- but no planning or effort or schedule.  His work this spring reached 70 & 80 hours a week with counseling graduate students applying to his college, teaching English as a second language to community college immigrants, and taking classes towards his second masters, a masters in teaching.  Insomnia, which has plagued him since doing some work in Ireland in 1988 and his body clock never quite fully returned, made for further wear and tear.  Plus a decision at the upper levels of college administration to decrease and probably eliminate the program he recruits for includes bad politics, some slander, and a growing dishonesty.  Yes, a big rest- empty the mind, be surrounded by favorite possibilities.  So, some lovely dinners with friends, catching up with people he missed in busyness.  And a solid rule that a nap could be had any time.  Helping a friend to move gave us a lovely teak coffee table too big for our house.  Replacing the outdoor gas grill and making some favorite foods and some time with his colleagues leaving the college in a political migration was great fun.  And an adventurous removal of trash and recycling that brought spaciousness to the tool shed.  The list of what didn’t get done is long.  We kept saying someone should mow the lawn.  Rest and time together as a first priority was achieved.

When I was a school teacher, a Montessori teacher of 3 – 6 year olds, there was a month near the end of my 10 year career when I was really tired of being in the classroom.  It was June and the beautiful summer days in Vermont beckoned as I remained in the church basement classroom with 24 kids.  I called a circle and all came and sat on the big green and blue braided oval rug.  “Let’s go to the park.” I said.  “No, we want to stay here and work,” they said.  There was no escaping it, too much success.

I’ve had similar discussions with myself of late.  I spent a month doing lots of outside work each day and then retreated indoors.  It was some combination of heat and lack of discipline.  My body would say- let’s go build that stone wall!  And I’d find something else to do inside.  But I could feel my body was right.  After lots of work I was sleeping better and my body was tightening up, my clothes were looser.  But now this procrastination stymies progress.  So I began the stonewall. How odd that all the disciplines I have for work to serve others seems so elusive in serving myself.  I am wondering how it is that what I need and know to be good for me seems to be just beyond my decision to reach.  How odd human beings are.  How odd I am in knowing myself and not knowing.

Years ago, Marshall removed a stonewall at the entrance to our little house.  Huge rocks were tossed on the slope south below the greenhouse.  I began to move all these rocks down to the terrace.  Some of the rocks are much larger than I can lift.  So, I roll them downhill a bit and hope to stay out of their way.  This creates a showroom of rocks to choose from and frees up the slope where the wall will be.  I have to prepare the slope by ripping out weeds, chasing out snakes, and making straight lines of earth where none exists.  I’ve never made a wall before.  But I am thinking it’s in my blood as a first generation Italian immigrant.  I am hoping it will lean back just a bit as a retaining wall, be parallel to both the greenhouse, which is above the wall, and the raised garden beds I built last month that lie below the wall.  I’m hoping to make more garden beds once the wall is done and to place the heat loving plants like tomatoes near the wall.  As the sun brought over 80 temps, my resolve melts.  As I begin building stone steps I try to listen to the stone as I listen to someone’s body when I place my hands on them to hear what should happen, how to help or place hands.  Stone are more difficult to hear for me somehow or maybe I just need more practice. I stand on the house roof, take a photo of my progress, and see I’ve a long way to go.  Sometimes the placement is just right.

I am interested to watch my thoughts wander as I work.  Ideas, memories, songs, poems, quotes, people I miss- all seem to waft through as I try not to pin my own foot under some small boulder.  I am noticing, at 56, that life seems long.  How many people have I known?  How many circles of people have I moved through of friends, Quakers, healers, teachers, kids, musicians, family, etc?  I find myself wondering where is so and so now?  Did he die?  What was his last name?  How did I end up living with those people in that house in Boulder?  What was it Elizabeth said about writing that I meant to remember that time we went out to Thai supper?  As my body and one part of my brain lifts and moves heavy rocks, another part of my brain wanders and shifts in memory and wonder.  I can feel strength return to my posture as I work.  I can see our home change and become better.  I can feel the space within and without as I release myself into the work and a there’s contentment nothing else brings.  

June Sabbatical Journal 2008

Sabbatical Journal June 2008 John Calvi

It took a month to get the annual Beethoven Letter out- much longer than usual.  Partly because my office systems were not kept up over the last few years with all my QUIT work, so address updates delayed me.  Also I’ve 3 different computer programs for Email, paper mail addresses, and bookkeeping so it’s hard to find and keep complete records. The return to desk work cramped my brain with details and deadlines.  Amidst this was a death in the family and giving the eulogy before my large family in my hometown small Catholic church where I had first communion in 1958.  Sabbatical was derailed getting out the annual letter and as I cared for beloved cousins and waded through my own history of family in hometown.

Now it is early June and I am back working outside and it is a tremendous relief to both my body and mind. At the edge of my thinking is how will I return to the work of ending torture.  What are the parts I am lead to and best at, what parts wear me down, and how to reenter the dance.  But all this is only wondering without deep seeking or research , so as not to interrupt rest.  But each day it comes to mind.  Mostly my mind is removed for this but not entirely, not for long.

We’ve a few acres of meadow on a south-facing slope surrounded by pine, hemlock, and hardwoods.  The meadow lies below the house where the slope continues into the woods down to a beaver pond and further downhill to a college for learning disabled young adults.  Our field is being taken over by an invasive species of shrub called Buckthorn- a European import used to make hedgerows.  We’ve rented a walk-behind brush hog that will cut small trees and I’ll take 2 days to schlep this noisy thing up and down hill and force back the onslaught.  I remember hearing tales of Findhorn and certain plants asked to thin out or become more plentiful- would be lovely to work at that level.  My spiritual communication is less than that.

I’ve been clearing a triangle of land above the house between the driveway and the road where two trees were taken down.  I’ve gathered the logs for firewood and now am hauling the branches off into the woods hoping the deer will use them for windbreaks in the long winters.  But I’ve started too late and each branch is entwined with briars, vines, and more Buckthorn making each move a tug of war until I find my footing, summon all my stubbornness- never really an issue as some know, and haul off another limb to be stacked.  It would be lovely to put all this through a chipper and spread it below the 30 high bush blueberries we have at the bottom of the field, but that’s not a choice for now as this must be done quickly.

This afternoon I began to clear the old garden bed where we grew vegetables before 3 things got in the way- 1- a woodchuck who ate everything, including jalapenos, but the tomatoes and basil. 2- Marshall’s second masters meant he had no time for anything but working, eating, and sleeping.  3- I took on the QUIT work and gave up the gardens and yard.  The whole outside around the house looked so abandoned that the deer began to live right up next to the house and thought it rude when we came out the door.  The crack in the outhouse framing causing an updraft is another story, soon to be history.

I found 2 snakes who preferred I not retake the garden and I uncovered a pile of rocks that I will make into a stonewall if all goes well this summer.  As my energy ebbed I settled into painting some plywood for an outdoor table and taking down 3 wind chimes for repair.  Yards of fish line and a couple hours later, they’re ready to go back outside.  One chime is particularly wonderful- it plays the chord outlawed by the Catholic church called the Devil’s tri-tone which evokes doubt, questions authority, and brings one out of settled patterns- quite subversive for a few notes!

I’ve two challenges at this point half way through my sabbatical- first - keeping the disciplines of physical work each day, staying hours outside and working my body hard.  And the discipline of eating less heavy to lose weight, regain muscle tone, and lower blood pressure.  While I can claim more capacity for stubborn when I decide to do something, I have a hard time changing patterns.  I spent half my life underweight.  And now to have to work to regain my body is more or less a shock as though I suddenly find myself in Japan and having to find a way home- quite odd.   Second is finding ways to keep reverence before me in palpable ways.  I’ve spent decades surrendering to spiritual guidance to do hands-on healing work.  This process has meant being washed as I seek to make a gift to another.  And now, without the urgency of another’s pain, I am having to find the stillness to bring this washing upon myself and interrupt the daily noises of life in the world.  Really, it’s sort of like doing something left-handed for the first time- not impossible, but takes some thinking, some thoughtfulness, and some patience.  Both these disciplines are so out of pattern to the life I’ve built over these past 25 years of healing work that I’m having to navigate new waters and set new ways of being.  Instead of having just enough energy to do the work of healing/teaching/on-the-road/QUIT, now I am working to rest as much as I need and then work as much as possible but none of the previous work and none of the previous ways.  Keeping all this in mind always is a push.

I made good progress on this while painting the upstairs, loss some of this while getting out the B-letter, but now I am back in the groove and hoping to stay groovy.  It helps that summer is my favorite time and that my body is responding so well as I do work.  I can feel my posture shift and muscle tone restored more each day.  I’m feeling very blessed to be here now.

May Sabbatical Journal 2008

Sabbatical  Journal May 2008- John Calvi

Getting my annual letter out was very difficult.  Sabbatical since Thanksgiving spoiled me- staying away from my desk, not even thinking about my trauma or torture work.  I’ve been very successful.  But now face the office mess- 10,000 emails from the last 30 months have to be culled for new addresses- yes, 10,000.  80 pages of street address labels have to be gone over to note who has died, moved, etc.  Oh, merciful heavens- grant me in my next life a secretary and computer literacy!  Changes for the website need to be edited and sent to the new daddy with less website management time.  Envelopes have to be printed and can I get all this done before the rates go up?  No, a phone call about a death in the family changes everything- no matter.  As I go through each persons name and address I have memories of this ones face and that ones story and the other ones pain- 25 years and thousands of people.  I am awash in revisiting my own journey of helping others.  Some part of me aches to stop sabbatical interruption.  And there is also an ache to know what is now happening with this one and that one who I know are in crisis but working without me so I can rest.  Life can be so rich in love and healing and not enough time to feel even half of it as the noise of the world pushes us each along- not enough reverence or time.

Once upon a time I was upstairs making the beds with my mother when she said, “I found a pistol in your fathers dresser drawer.  I’m afraid he will come home drunk one night and shoot us all in our sleep so I’ve given it to your uncle to take away.  If Daddy asks you anything, tell him I told you I threw in it the river.”  Decades later I’m retelling this memory during therapy and wondering if I am remembering right.  I call this uncle one evening and explain.  “No”, he says, “I don’t remember any gun.  Maybe it was another uncle.”  We talk for a bit and hang up.  But 10 minutes later he calls to say my aunt has reminded him of the gun and yes it did happen, it was a Beretta.  He didn’t remember it because he got rid of it- it was broken and could have gone off accidentally.  I asked what year that was and he said he was just back from a trip to Okinawa so 1960- I was 8 years old.  This was the madness, violence, and stupidity I waded through in my parents’ house as a child.  That uncle died today in surgery as they tried to mend his heart, but it was too late, too far gone.  He’d just celebrated his 50^th wedding anniversary with his family all around him two weeks ago.  When I reach back to recall this new man married into the family, I see a tall handsome young man so happy and strong, who loved children and was so clear about right and wrong.  He made me feel safe whether he was teaching me to swim, use a microscope, or explaining the lives of insects.  He was a bright light who did some kindnesses along the way to save a life here and there.  I did have 2 moments of repaying his kindness.  Once when I told him he was the only adult who ever acknowledged how bad things were in my house and offered to take me to his house whenever I wanted, forever if I chose.  He was very happy for my gratitude.  Several years later, when he had lost a leg to disease and was newly walking on a prosthetic, I did some massage and energy work on him in his home.  He was not easy to get to sit still in that big easy TV chair but somehow I was able to sneak up on him and soon found out he was particularly susceptible to energy work.  He lapsed into a trance of calm and quiet he hadn’t known even in sleep for a very long time.  It was a gift of peacefulness, a loss of pain and worry beyond his understanding and very beautiful for me to see- a tiny bit of payback, of returned kindness for him that washed me also.  Giving the eulogy in the big Catholic church was odd and familiar.  I named his essence, made people laugh and cry.  Ministry feels second nature.  But with my large sprawling family with whom I am largely estranged, few of whom know my work, felt like doing the usual in a past life setting.  I was a comfort to his family who are dear to me and know me well.  I was very grateful and happy to do hard work and be of use.

April Sabbatical Journal 2008

Sabbatical Journal April 2008 John Calvi

There is a gearshift in this sabbatical that I am learning, though very slowly.  It’s the question of reverence for the self rather than for service.  I learned over many years to kick into a spiritual gear of attention for guidance and cleansing whenever work came to me either in teaching or touching.  This became a second skin over time, a dance in response to another’s pain.  I am slow to learn and slow to discipline, but over two and a half decades I got to a very comfortable place of spiritual weight lifting before, during, and following witness of another’s pain.

Now comes the task of removing the old stimulus, another’s pain, and keeping those disciplines of reverence for my own well-being.  Can one rest the body and wash the mind and keep the strong back, head up, and careful listening for the continuing spiritual feed that comes?  What is unplugged and what is not?

In receiving messages to help others, I’ve learned to listen for those parts that I need to learn in my own life.  Now the whole task shifts from mutual and vicarious to sole and direct.  What is being given that brings me to my brightest shining light?  Can I hear this over the noise of the world, the noise in my own thinking, the clutter of life?

In this new paradigm, I think I’ve rated perhaps a C- where I used to consider myself a solid B+ student or better.  As the physical body rests and my mind steps out of the traces of constant chronic tasks, as space opens and there is the time to feel what is, I can see I don’t spend enough time in wonder but am still of a task orientation.  As the body rests more deeply, the mind needs more washing, the psyche pulled out of old patterns and refreshed.  Mostly this used to be done via the disciplines I surrounded work with.  I am having to recall and refit these disciplines without the work.  And so I am having some learning, some confusion, and some trying to be patient with my own learning style, which appears most often as my brain squinting and mumbling, “huh?”

Amidst this the last of the firewood is brought in, bookkeeping for taxes done, and now I prepare to do the Beethoven Letter before stamp prices go up.  Each month brings a lower gear for me to move more slowly.  The stillness and quiet necessary for wonder seems to be a vital part in all this unfolding.  How not to hear the noisy self?  How to be at attention without the tension of a work posture?  How to be given more to delight?

I try not to list everything I want to get done.  But this keeps creeping in – paint the outside of the house, repair the air vents near the roof and drive out the squirrels, re-establish the vegetable garden, tear down the old wood shed, super clean the tool shed, build a stone wall to warm up the tomato patch, prune the blueberry bushes, edit a book of speeches and self-publish a book and recordings.  And how will Marshall and I settle on a color to paint the downstairs of our little home?  Goodness only knows!

March Sabbatical Journal 2008

Sabbatical Journal March 2008  John Calvi

I don’t know why I have a small excitement for shopping at thrifts stores.  Maybe it’s the long shot of finding that lovely old thing that has somehow survived until now and isn’t too broken or worn for me to enjoy at some ridiculous price.  As this sabbatical began I found a small stuffed Bugs Bunny positioned as though flying through the air with a big smile on his face.  Bugs has always been a hero for me- very important teaching, spiritual teaching, that Bugs is never afraid, keeps his sense of humor, and enjoys adventure.  I have him flying through the air (fishing line from the ceiling) near one of my desks.  A reminder that I too am in mid-air, having an adventure, and will eschew fear.

As I cleanse myself from trauma and torture work, I am noticing-

- I choose music that is more upbeat and less sad

- I rest more easily and sleep more deeply

- My thoughts are not stuck assuming the worst possible outcome to any scenario

- My appetite for people is slowly returning

- I can clean out a desk in my office unattached to slews of undone projects 

- My prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude are returning

- I spent 3 weeks painting the upstairs, enjoying newly flexed and sore muscles

- I’ve begun to think creatively again on teaching about torture, but not too much

- More than tired, I am happy and grateful to be resting, washing, restoring

I have begun a new adventure, unexpectedly.  I’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis.  I am reluctant to discuss this and still somewhat in shock.  No sign of illness, except on the bone scan.  No pain or symptoms, just some caution on ice etc.  I am just learning what this means and how to respond.  I hadn’t expected this part of being an elder at 55.  I am still finding the handles on this new reality to eschew fear.

I did some hands on work with a friend and felt the rush of Grace and compassion with some longing and warm familiarity.  To enter into the dance with Divine energies even for a few minutes washed me with delight and the other person felt better too.

The return of light as spring pushes through, moving the glacier on our roof, is a time of some struggle coming to hope.  Our little home in Vermont, embedded in snow and ice, begins to hint at the end of frozenness.  The woodpile is low.  The biggest change comes soon- we go from ice to tons of mud to green growing things.  And it all seems so fast.  But first another ice storm tomorrow that we’ll try to see as character building rather than the cause of some slouching and being disheartened.  Spring has always come before, hasn’t it?  

Of course, the great spiritual discipline that suggests maturity is to behold the most wonderful with the most difficult and to be in awe of all creation.  And failing surprise quizzes only means one is more ready later to do better, one hopes.

February/January Sabbatical Journal 2008

Sabbatical Journal February 2008 – John Calvi

I’ve begun to paint the interior of our house.  In so many ways this is a 3 dimensional metaphor of the sabbatical itself.  When I think of how wonderful it will be as it’s accomplished, I’m delighted.  But when I think of moving, cleaning, repairing, organizing, sorting, learning how to fix, etc- it’s almost too much to begin.  Organizing this sabbatical took one year.  Preparing the bedroom to paint took one week, the painting itself- 4 hours.  One wall falling down is another story altogether.

In my life at this time I need to stop all desk work- all work related to trauma and torture and use my body physically and fill my mind with simple everyday life.  And so I’ve come to know the paint guy at the hardware store.  I found a huge drop cloth at a second hand store that covers everything and then some.  Marshall and I settled on the color of a deep blue with a touch of purple- think of the kind of blue that would most set off a gold frame around a wedding certificate.  

In the midst of much non-verbal work, ideas and thoughts come forth like a parade.  There are so many people whose health and well-being I want to know about.  But I must keep a disciplined firewall and not inquire, return that inquiry and care to myself and choose the salad over the bacon cheeseburger.  I wonder about my 2009 work calendar and contact 2 Quaker conference centers to confirm dates.  

But in a deeper quiet, I realize that torture is particularly difficult to learn about and work with because it involves such malice more or less absent in other justice efforts.  My first thought is that I will have to continue this work as so few people can be with such malice and I’ve already learned so much.  And as I am thinking this, I am also thinking why should it be me that wades into such darkness and pain.  Torture is the worse thing humans do to one another.  The capture and willful hurting of another is the worst.  Is it really my work to reveal how deeply woven this is into American policy and ask Quakers and others to oppose this practice?  Is this leading continuing, concluded, changing?

When I began work in the crisis of AIDS, I remember learning numerous aspects of medical knowledge as it slowly became known and doing AIDS education.  At the same time I was helping many people to die.  It seemed overwhelmingly huge.  In retrospect and considering the AIDS work I do these days, it is finite- dreadful and horrendous, but still there are limits and borders, less ignorance and meanness.

Can it be that all I have done in my life from Montessori pre-school teacher to songwriter/singer to work with AIDS, rape, refugees, and prisoners is all preparation for a great work the second half of my life or is ego speaking?  Am I not strong enough to do more on torture?  My leadings in the past have all been fierce, without question.  I’ve experienced them as shining Light that informed and prepared my body, mind, and spirit clearly.  I’ve been too tired now to feel fierce and so my usual barometer to discern leading is switched off.  The sabbatical in some ways is the luxury of time to rest and restore, pose questions that don’t need to be answered right away, and to feel how it is I am changing in my awareness in how I am to be used, remembering that the Light is strong and we who hope to carry Light are fragile.  Today I’ll begin painting the balcony with my desks and bookcases on a frigid winter day and wonder some more about what has been, what is, and what will come.  Education- necessary, luxurious, and only mildly frightening today.  Wonder, gratitude, hard questions, rest, paint.

Sabbatical Journal January 2008 John Calvi

     So, what would be a good beginning to a sabbatical, a sabbatical for rest and to change highly productive and very unhealthy habits of over-work?  Travel.  So, best to marry someone from a warmer place and go home for the holidays and someone in the midst of his second masters (tuition-free) who has to bunch his vacation time together so as not to miss classes and internship teaching.  Marshall has been working 70-hour weeks.  He grew up riding his bike through the orange groves in the small towns east of Los Angeles.  We slip out between 2 large snowstorms for 3 weeks in California.

    I had pushed very hard to get my Year End letter out.  My last work trip, Oregon and California, was the week before Thanksgiving.  We both needed deep rest.  Marshall’s folks live in a suburban ranch style home.  They are both avid gardeners so as I sit in the backyard to write in my journal I am surrounded by roses, vegetables, bird of paradise, but mostly camellias entering flowering time.  In that setting I can finally stop rushing- the to-do list is done, the schedule gone, and email & phone far away.  I begin the let down physically, emotionally, mentally. 

    We have a few days at the beach.  Our room allows the sight and sound of the ocean surf to pound our senses.  We leave windows and doors open all day and night to be washed by sound and sea air.  How wonderful to be humbled by something so much larger than the self.  We walked 2 hours each morning on the beach watching seals and dolphins.  

    For me there is the slow awareness that all the learning I’ve done on torture the past 3 years burdened me.  As I had foisted myself into leadership I had postponed much of my emotional response for later.  Feelings from my early life arose brought on by the study of torture.  I’d been wondering why I was feeling restless, like a 2 year old resisting a nap.  In the quiet, I could now remind myself that the time of my own violence was over as it was for the numerous torture survivors I’ve come to know.  This brought deeper sleep each day and night. 

    The large family Christmas was loud and fun and best were the nieces and nephews who have grown so and are reaching for hopes and dreams.  Uncle Marshall and Aunt John had brought the right gifts from afar. We verge on coolness.  Soon we travel to the desert with Marshall’s folks.  We pass Palm Springs and Joshua Tree for a smaller town more removed.  Crossing over badlands where nothing grows and coming into the most remote area imaginable, we have a few days viewing a vast landscape where life has a tiny rainfall.  

    Here there was more deep sleep and two feelings come clear for me.  The first is an assumption from grade school- that things generally get worse. This idea has been washed by years of healing work.  I thought it had disappeared.  But learning of torture as a world-wide system had brought this up again- my own dance between hope and fear.  Again I’ve the need to be open to listening to deep stirrings, to embrace whatever aspects are revealed, and to cradle all with some tenderness and the Light of a broad overview showing things do get better with work and time.  Again deep sleep.  A second feeling came entwined in all this- that of grief for all of humanity, grief that we wound ourselves and each other with such meanness, violence, and poverty.  We are in times of great meanness and all people are part of a parade of consuming greed bringing injustice.  The payment for this awareness is simply staying awake to make careful choices and not loose track of the real story.  I can see why the desert features so prominently in so many religious stories of seeking.

    And now we are home.  Vermont has just had more snow and more is on the way.  The wood box is filled and refilled and the woodstove brings us cozy heat when the greenhouse is dark and cold.  I’ve some letters to write but next week I’ll start to paint the bedroom and remove myself from desk, computer, email, & phone entirely.  It’s mid-January and I’ve set sail on sabbatical leaving port after a year of organizing for rest and refreshment.  All made possible with good help and care from many.