LEE KLINGER LESSER
Newsletter - Fall 2008
Warm greetings,
Recently, I saw an Italian film at the Mill Valley Film Festival entitled "Calm Chaos." This title seems timely for all that is happening around us. Even in the midst of so much chaos, unpredictability and change, can we find calm?
I am learning about finding ease from surprising teachers. The other day, I walked outside and without seeing it, I walked through a spider web. I didn't mean to destroy the spider's home and diligent effort. The sticky fibers clung to my face as I brushed them aside. I imagine the spider didn't worry about what was happening, but swayed with the flying fibers and found a place to land...a place from which to spin new.
This summer, forest fires converged and swept through Tassajara three days before the Sensory Awareness workshop I was supposed to give there. I am deeply grateful for the work of so many people that went into saving and protecting Tassajara. A few weeks later, in the aftermath of the fires, I went down to see this place I love and treasure so much.
At the top of the ridge, I decided to walk the five miles down the steep mountain road. It was a long, wondrous journey. I kept stopping and seeing. Soaking in the sights from all directions. Awesome to see both the devastation and regeneration of nature. Ash and black skeletons of trees were all around. The landscape was barren and vividly stunning.
I could still smell burning leaves in the air. The power of the fires was evident as far as I could see - the intense clearing away of layers and layers of history and story. A lonely bee buzzed desperately around me, looking for some non-existent source of food or sustenance. Even amidst the bee's desperation, green shoots were sprouting from charcoal remnants of trees. No matter where I looked, I saw life reclaiming itself. A friend said, "Life doesn't wait."
Along the Tassajara road, many times I thought all I saw was barren, burnt landscape with nothing left alive. As I stopped and landed in stillness, I invariably discovered that the new growth was everywhere. I just had to be quiet and still enough to see beyond my expectations.
I must admit it is hard for me to find stillness when I listen to some politicians or see ads that play on racism and primal, unrecognized and unnamed fears. My stomach clenches, my heart tightens and I wish a forest fire would come raging through and burn away this historical undergrowth. When I calm down, I seek what I can do to help this fire burn along its own path.
Nature does what it does....burning through accumulated old growth to make room for the new. I don't have the same trust or confidence in people...and yet, I do. No matter what our own life stories, political perspectives, or present challenges, all we can each do, is feel our way moment by moment. I trust the deep, abiding capacity in each person to do that.
Martin Buber said, "All real living is meeting." As I walked further down the road, a few flies swarmed along my eyelashes, and we traveled together that way for a while. I think we were both happy to find other living beings. Maybe they were thirsty and drank the sweat from my skin. Buber didn't say "good" meeting, or "happy" meeting, or "bad" meeting or "sad" meeting. We don't get to pick and choose. We can only meet what is actually there to be met. And show up with our own energy. Life reclaims itself, no matter the conditions. I know this is true, even when I forget.
Stillness helps me see and feel and be. And that is the gift of Sensory Awareness practice...tools to cultivate presence and to strengthen the capacity to meet whatever is there to be met. There are no 
boundaries to breath. No matter how barren the landscape, breath finds its way through.
So, I learn from the flies, and the bee, and the spider, and the fire...
And I look forward to learning from, and with, any of you who would like to join me this year in the classes and workshops I will be offering
Lee Klinger Lesser