Crane Tree

The day after the hospital move, Tom and I went to see Metamorphoses at Berkeley Rep, preceded by lunch at Au Coquelet. It was really wonderful—inventive, beautiful, hilarious at moments, touching—and also rather moistening if you were sitting in the first or second row, as we were. Afterward, we chatted with a woman with a visual impairment who said that her seeing eye dog got freaked out when she was splashed with water and went to sit with two ladies in the row behind her owner.

On Ash Wednesday, always a hectic day for chaplains, I met the interim director at my paying job and also our new full-time staff chaplain. I asked the new chaplain, Felicia, if she would like to have lunch, and four of us chaplains ended up lunching together. Felicia is cheerful and energetic and has been a great addition to our group. (Although it gave me a pang to see a new full-time chaplain start while I languish as a per diem. My former boss asked me to apply for a full-time or .8 job, but I felt that, with school still underway, I could not.)

I got a book: Dream Work: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams, by Jeremy Taylor, who has written several books about dreams. I gather he advocates using every form of dream interpretation—considering dreams from a variety of perspectives, even including the Freudian one, to see what might be discovered.

I actually figured something out about a recent dream, in which I was in the backseat of a car being driven by my grandfather. Someone honked aggressively at us, but, knowing my grandfather to be quick to anger, I was sure he would defend us. Instead, he got out of the car and strolled off, not even locking all the doors. I always sort of know I’m dreaming, so I wasn’t afraid, but I was mystified that he had left me vulnerable to attack. I realized that this is about the part of myself that is quick to get angry and to mount a vigorous defense: maybe not always needed.

In mid-March, I went to Santa Fe for a week or so at school. SuperShuttle drove off without me, so I had to take a cab to the airport. Two of my fellow students were on the same flight, and one of them switched her seat to join me. She gave me a lot of helpful tips about the thesis we are writing in this second year. She had rented a car, so the other student and I decided to drive with her instead of taking the shuttles we’d reserved. How much it cost me to get to school that day, besides the airfare and $30 to check a suitcase: $21.06 for SuperShuttle, $43.65 for a cab, $20 cab tip (purposely large to restore my own good mood), and the $40 I chipped in for the rental car.

But it was worth it. (SuperShuttle did give me a refund later.) We had a fun drive together, stopping at Annapurna’s in Albuquerque for lunch. While we were at school, we had a chance to discuss our project proposals with the person who is in charge of helping us with our theses. We were not officially going to get feedback until a month later, but during our meeting, she told me to go ahead and start writing, meaning my proposal was approved.

Toward the end of the week, my cohort did final preparation for jukai, an inspiring ceremony in which we received the precepts. The day beforehand, our teachers led a session on the meaning of jukai. My cohort had begun a scholarship fund in honor of Roshi’s recently departed teacher, Bernie Glassman, and had raised nearly $10,000. We designated someone to present this to her. While we were at school, someone had the idea of us each folding a paper crane and writing a note to Roshi on it; someone went and found a beautiful branch to attach the cranes to. Someone else said we should learn a song to sing to Roshi, and so on and so forth. So on this day beforehand, Roshi came into the room to hear us singing the song, and she saw the crane tree, which was indeed a gorgeous thing, and then we told her about the scholarship. She was bowled over.

When I began this program, jukai had zero meaning for me, but by the time I did all the work to get ready for it, it had immense meaning. It was a really wonderful day. We meditated for an hour or so that morning in another temple on the property, and then the “Band of Joy” came to escort us to the zendo, where our family and friends and the cohort of chaplains after ours were in the audience.

I didn’t want to make anyone feel that they had to schlep to Santa Fe, so I invited only one friend who lives right there, but wasn’t sure if she would make it, per health issues. I told her it was fine if she didn’t come, or if she came and stayed for five minutes and then left. The ceremony was about 75 minutes long, and I was touched when I saw afterward that she was there, and had sat through the whole thing. We went up front in groups of three or four, and I feel that in those moments when Roshi was speaking to me, she truly became my teacher. It was a great week at school. It was fantastic to see my fellow students. I also had a good work assignment: grounds (i.e., making compost heaps), under the direction of a particularly delightful resident.