Equanimity and Resilience

Hello beloved reader! I’ve missed writing to you. May you enjoy reading this writing❤️🙏🕊️

This post has been composting in my subconscious for the past couple of weeks.

Jamie and I arrived home on Thursday evening from a 2-week hiking trip through Banff National Park in Canada, and through Glacier National Park in Montana. Hiking in Banff had been on my wish list for maybe ten years or so.

But what I want to share with you is what I learned from our travel adventures.

You see, our trip started off with some challenges.

We were booked to fly out of Boston on SAT AUG 17 at 10:20AM, and to arrive at 5:00PM in Calgary, transiting through Toronto for 2 hours. This did not happen.

At 4:00AM Saturday morning I got up to shower, dress, and have my coffee. Jamie had showered the night before. By 5:00AM we were on the road and we caught the 6:00AM bus from Nashua, arriving at Logan Airport at 7:30AM giving us nearly 3 hours until our flight departed. Or so we thought. (The previous bus would have only given us one hour and 20 minutes to check our bags, get through security, and to the gate. It would have been a better choice, in retrospect.)

By 7:45AM we sat at the departure gate in Logan airport playing on our iPhones with the free WiFi, waiting for the 10:20AM flight to board. But just after 9:00AM, I received a text that our 10:20AM flight to Toronto was cancelled — no reason given.

The airline rebooked us on the next flight to Toronto, which was supposed to depart 11:40AM, 1 hour 20 minutes after our original scheduled flight.

We walked to the next gate. We were then informed that this flight was delayed. It finally departed at 12:30PM. Two hours and ten minutes later than originally scheduled, we were in the air. As we approached Toronto, we thought we may still have just enough time to connect with our flight from Toronto to Calgary.

However — and this was beyond any airline’s control — severe thunderstorms were sweeping through Toronto.

The pilot circled the plane a couple of times hoping the thunderstorms would pass, but he did not receive permission to land. We were re-routed to Montreal, North East of Toronto. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated that we were going backwards.

When we touched down in Montreal, they kept us in the plane on the tarmac for an hour or so. The Captain then announced the plane would refuel and fly back to Toronto. Many passengers cheered.

At this point, Jamie and I would not have made the connecting flight to Calgary, so to minimize our frustration/suffering, we began to consciously practice staying detached from outcomes.

This was all out of our control. Did we want to suffer? Or did we want to keep our equanimity? Our choice.

One hour on the tarmac turned into two, then three hours, with periodic updates from the Captain. Jamie and I sat in the very back of the plane where it was warm and stuffy — very little air conditioning made it back to where we sat.

At about three hours of waiting on the tarmac, the Captain announced that at that point, neither the crew nor the captains were permitted to work any longer, as they’d maxed out their shift. He said that many flights had been diverted from Toronto to Montreal because of the storm, and we were now in line to get to a gate.

At this point Jamie called the airline, who were able to re-book us to fly from Montreal to Calgary. But they had not told us that this included an overnight stay in Edmonton before flying to Calgary at 7:40AM the next morning, SUN AUG 18, which we would soon discover.

After what felt like forever, but was a total of four hours of waiting on the tarmac — with many children and several babies crying in frustration, perhaps outwardly expressing the inward emotions of many passengers — we were finally able to get off the plane.

We ran through Montreal airport, picked up our bags, cleared customs (that was the point at which we realized we would be overnighting in Edmonton) and nearly missed the next flight to Edmonton. At 10:00PM we sat in the last two seats of the plane out of Montreal. After a 4-hour and 20 minute flight, we arrived in Edmonton at 12:20AM. We negotiated with the airline staff to get a complimentary night at a hotel at the airport.

We were in bed by 1:00AM. No luggage, but the hotel kindly supplied toothbrushes, toothpaste, and a comb. We woke up before the alarm at 6:15AM, showered, got dressed in yesterday’s clothes, and walked the 10 minutes to the security checkpoint. We then sat at the Gate waiting. The 7:45AM flight ✈️ to Calgary was delayed due to fog🤪😂 it was rescheduled to take off at 8:15AM. But surprise, surprise: it was then cancelled.

I received a text that we were re-booked on to the 2:00PM flight to Calgary — but there was an 10:40AM flight — why were we not on that one? We spoke with one of the airline staff who put us on standby. But we did not get to board that plane.

I ended up lying down on the seats in Edmonton airport and slept for a couple of hours.

We finally took off at 2:00PM and made it to Calgary by 3:00 PM, had to wait 20 minutes for our rental car, drove the hour and a half to Banff, checked into our hotel, and we did get to see our friends in Banff for dinner. We had been texting them updates along the way.

~

It felt like a trip ruled by Murphy’s Law. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Before Covid when we travelled we’d always enjoyed smooth and safe travels. Had we just been incredibly lucky with our flights, with connections, with the weather?

I discussed this with Jamie and he offered the material perspective: Perhaps it’s a mix of the airline industry getting back on its feet since the shut down due to Covid? Maybe climate change means more flight cancellations due to weather?

But I also contemplated the more spiritual, unseen aspect. Perhaps in this kind of situation, many people want to blame something: God, the airline, mercury in retrograde (which it was), fate, bad luck.

But who the heck knows why “bad” things happen?

Perhaps it’s just that sometimes, shit happens.

Maybe also when I was younger, I had been unconsciously conditioned to not share the struggles. There’s vulnerability in sharing the hard parts, in not glossing over the challenges to present a picture-perfect image. Patriarchy wants perfection. But the Divine Feminine knows that everything embodies both the highlights and the lowlights. Both the gifts and the challenges. The light and the shadow. The Yin and the Yang.

I also thought of the Eckhart Tolle quote:

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

So how can I make meaning from this shit show? How can I evolve my consciousness?

Well, Life definitely gave us an opportunity to practice all the spiritual principles we’ve been learning about from our Buddhist monk neighbors to lessen suffering:

• If I’m attached to an outcome, if I’m really clinging to it, if the situation arises where I don’t get that outcome, I will suffer. So it’s great to know what my preference may be — what I may want — but when I’m not attached to that preference, I’ll suffer less.

• If I’m able to practice total acceptance of what is, “it’s like this,” it allows me to go with the flow of whatever may be happening — sometimes I can even laugh about the craziness of the shit show.

• I also remembered how our Buddhist monk neighbors talk about:

  The Eight Worldly Winds

  Gain and Loss
  Fame and Shame
  Praise and Blame
  Pleasure and Pain

And the Buddhist intention — in order to lessen suffering — is to maintain inner equanimity in all circumstances no matter what may be going on in the external world. No matter which of these 8 worldly winds may be blowing.

Jamie and I got a LOT of opportunity to practice maintaining equanimity during the first part of our travels. And I’m happy to say that we did okay. I definitely feel like I minimized my suffering by recognizing Life was giving me an opportunity to practice these spiritual principles.

This also makes me think of the cautionary tale:

On his sixteenth birthday a boy gets a horse as a present. All of the people in the village say, “Oh, how wonderful!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

One day, the boy is riding and gets thrown off the horse and hurts his leg. He’s no longer able to walk, so all of the villagers say, “How terrible!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

Some time passes and the village goes to war. All of the other young men get sent off to fight, but this boy can’t fight because his leg is messed up. All of the villagers say, “How wonderful!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

We can be prone to jump to conclusions about whether something is “good” or “bad.” And often especially quick to label something as “bad.” But perhaps what matters most is our response to the situation — can we maintain equanimity?

In any case, overall the trip was amazing, I especially loved our hikes and was thrilled to share this time with Jamie in some of the most spectacular natural geographic parts of our precious planet earth.

And a few photos of the trip😁

The obligatory selfie at Moraine Lake, Banff National Park😁 It rained a bit, but I was so happy we didn’t leave, as the rain stopped, the sun came out, and there were fewer people as most had left to seek shelter from the rain.

I LOVED the color contrasts.

the view from one of the sweet, small cabins we stayed in at Swiftcurrent Motor Inn, Glacier National Park, Montana

incredible colors out of that window at dawn

the beginning of the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park

Also on the Highline Trail. I love how this photo looks like I’m walking into the abyss😁

On the hike up to Avalanche Lake after driving the Going-to-the-Sun road. I definitely felt the mystical aspect of the ancient nature of these trees and this geography.

At the grand old Many Glacier Hotel, built in the early 1900s - this photo makes me smile as it shows how windy it was that day.

The dining room at the Many Glacier Hotel. I was particularly struck by the history of this beautiful old building. (The link takes you to a great article written by Nate Schweber, who also wrote, This America of Ours, published in 2022.)

Swiftcurrent lake sheltered by the mountains was so much less windy. Soooo many stunningly beautiful lakes.

Each of us also caught a cold on the trip! So siestas in the sun were a necessary rest stop.

As always, thank you for reading❤️🙏🕊️