Street retreat

A few weeks ago I returned from my first street retreat. I promised to write something about it, and I do want to because it is still on my mind, although a lot has passed since then (a retreat, goodbyes at Upaya, long travels and returning to Holland). But at the same time I wonder what to write. There is so much I could say... It was intense, heavy and tiring, and at the same time it was marvelous and even liberating. It brought up a lot: I felt joy, sadness and enthusiasm, I felt inspired and grateful.

But let me start at the beginning. On the afternoon of thursday june 30th 9 people and 1 dog started the street retreat for Upaya residents in Santa Fe. In my previous post I mentioned Albuquerque, but Joshin finally decided to do it in Santa Fe. During the last street retreat in april, Albuquerque turned out to be quite dangerous (the retreatants witnessed a shooting). So Santa Fe it was going to be...

That thursday afternoon we left Upaya Zen Center on foot, following the Santa Fe River to down town Santa Fe. Heading to the unknown... I didn't know what to expect and what I would encounter, also in myself. I did expect hardships, and suspected that my heart could be broken open. While I generally like new experiences (to some extent) I was quite aware that street retreat was probably going to be unlike everything I'd done experienced.

Regarding the hardships, it turned out to be not too bad, it wasn't as tough as I expected it to be. The weather was nice: it was dry and not too hot, except for the last day but then the Upaya showers were not too far away anymore.

Eating also went well. That was something I had been somewhat anxious about beforehand, my appetite tends to be quite sizeable, and I also do have my preferences and peculiarities around food. Actually I guess I'm quite spoiled. But it went fine. For breakfast and lunch we would go to places where meals were served for the homeless. And there were some things on my plates that I did not finish, but I generally just ate what was offered (including bugers and red hot dogs). For diner there wasn't a place where we the homeless are served a meal, and we had to fend for ourselves. That turned out to be surprisingly easy, I haven't been hungry at all. For instance, on the first night our first attempt to find food was at Sage bakehouse, a really nice large bakery. We were lucky right away. Kosho and I headed for a large dumpster behind the bakery and we found a large amount of discarded breads. Some were clearly burnt or otherwise bad, other breads looked fine to us. We ended up taking two huge loafs of bread, that tasted pretty good. Meanwhile, some others of our group had gone into the bakery and asked the employees if they had some stuff laying around that they were going to throw away that we could have. Succesful again. They came out of the bakery carrying a big garbage bag filled with about a dozen small and medium sized breads. At a nearby shop the same strategy earned us some brown little bananas. More than enough for that evening, we even had leftovers.

And sleeping wasn't too bad either. Our first option for a place to sleep was a park next to Trader Joe's (a supermarket). And that turned out to be a pretty good spot. In the park there were 2 baseball fields, and in the two dugouts of one of them we slept. One dugout was labeled 'HOME', the other one 'VISITORS'. Behind Trader Joe's we found dumpsters filled with cardboard. They were mainly filled with the giant boxes that are used to ship bicycles in. Excellent matras material! We also found garbage bags filled with lumps of plastic saran wrap, that we shaped into pillows. During the first night I didn't sleep much. I was cold, I had forgotten my blanket. The next day I had gotten a sleeping bag at a thrift store that also helps homeless people. This helped a lot. Furthermore, during the first night my hips were not so thrilled about the cardboard on concrete surface. After that I found out that a little saran wrap pillow around my hips would do the trick, and my sleeping was pretty decent after that. When I woke up after that first bad night I was surprised to hear from the others that during that night there had been a lot of noise nearby in the park. A couple of young guys had gotten into a heated argument (or a fight), which had been pretty threatening to those who were awake. Apparently I had slept right through it :-) I never felt unsafe there (or anywhere else, for that matter). Since we liked the place, we kept returning to it. Of course, sleeping there was not allowed, fortunately we did not get any nightly vists from the police. After a few nights there we started to refer to our place in the park as 'home'.

And I really did enjoy street retreat. At times it felt so free, open and light. Wonderful! Something that was very nice to notice was that I was less and less concerned about what other people might think. Doing tai chi or sitting meditation in a park without being self-conscious was very nice. On the first afternoon, while walking from Upaya to down town Santa Fe, we passed a pretty fancy restaurant where all of a sudden Aïne started to go through their garbage bin, looking for coffee or so. I wasn't quite prepared for that yet. I saw that passers by were looking at her (and us), and I felt embarrassment. A few hours later I had gotten used to it already and I was dumpsterdiving myself, feeling contented to find some bones for Maia (Aïne's dog), or the breads behind Sage bakery.

But what may have been the most valuable and beautiful thing about this street retreat was to be around and among the homeless. It was great to let go of a feeling of being too good, too succesfull or too whatever to sit down between these folks. Just plunging in, mingling with the homeless, without a plan or an agenda felt liberating and so right.

In my perception, in the world of homeless people there is very little pretense. It seemed to me that they spend very little energy trying to show to others that they are special or do amount to something. Anyway, what I noticed in myself is that in that setting I did not feel a need to put on airs or make myself look good. No image to uphold or protect. How marvelous! This experience made me more aware of how much of our communication and interaction is about projecting an image of ourselves and how much our energy and awareness goes there. What a shame! So unnecessary!

So the meals for the homeless were the highlights of my street retreat, although they certainly weren't always a picnic. It started off beautifully on the first full day. In the morning we went to the Salvation Army, where breakfast is served for homeless people. The long tables where people sit down to eat were fairly empty. I did not take a seat next to someone I knew, instead I sat across from an unknown woman, who I quickly learned was named Janet. We exchanged smiles and almost right away Janet started to talk. A really nice conversation developed, which was open and beautiful. She was sober for a few months now, she was about to be evicted from her house, but at least she had a plan. And she was sober, and she was very happy about that. So was I. She told me about a very difficult period in her life when a close friend was killed by his girlfriend (both of them were drinking) and she hit rock bottom, also in terms of alcohol. I was moved and touched by her story, her eyes, her vulnerability and especially by her newly found hope and faith. I think she saw in my eyes that I was moved, and that in turn that moved her. Such a beautiful encounter, so precious!

We had lunch that day at the catholic church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I took a seat across from two men I didn't know, and had a short and fairly superficial conversation with one of them, and that was it. Which was also totally fine. I really enjoyed being there. I felt relaxed and at ease (like I had felt that morning at the Salvation Army). There were no thoughts like "they must be wondering why I'm here" or "they can all tell I'm not really homeless, they must think I'm an imposter or a fraud" going through my mind at all. On the contrary, that afternoon during council I shared that I would almost say that I felt at home there. At home, imagine that! While eating my lunch I sat facing a long table where food was being served. A tall, slender, grey haired lady who was serving drinks there kept catching my attention. She was treating folks to gorgeous smiles (and sometimes on a sweet touch of her hand) with a warmth and love that I just found so beautiful, so moving and so inspiring! lt reminded me of mother Teresa's words: "Treat all of them as if they are Jesus in disguise." Again, so precious!

On the second and third day I was eager to go back to the homeless shelters for meals, and again I really enjoyed being there, although it did feel a lot more heavy. We went to Pete's place, a homeless shelter where lunch is served. I had nice long conversations with Lori, who had been homeless for 6 years and had spent most of them living at Pete's. During our first encounter I sat next to her for quite a while right next to Pete's front entrance, waiting for lunch to be served. Some other regulars came by, and some had interactions with Lori that I witnessed, and through that I got to see a bit of what life at Pete's place must be like. And that didn't look to great. For instance, there's a lot of addiction in that population, and even if you're not addicted yourself you do live among addicted people. And of course, people with addictions are usually nof good at self care, and they can be quite inconsiderate and obnoxious. Heavy stuff!

A number of faces and looks from homeless people have really made an impression. For instance, there was a fairly young woman who had served three tours in Afghanistan for the Americam military. I can tell that not so long ago she must have been a strong and tough woman. But she isn't anymore. She is drinking heavily and in how she moves and how her eyes look out into the world I see the damage, I see the devastation that war and alcohol have done to her life, to her body, to her spirit. A broken woman. Heartbreaking!

On the final evening as we are walking to our dugouts, all of a sudden Joshin, Kosho and I walk into a big Indian/native American guy who is obviously in a very bad place. He is high, seriously high, and it's awful to watch in his eyes. In them I see despair, and serious suffering. He says: "I wanna shoot myself". Joshin hopes to have misunderstood or perhaps to help him change his mind and he asks: "Do you want to shoot up?" The guy doesn't really seem to respond, and they he repeats: "I wanna shoot myself" We don't see a gun or anything, but stil... Joshin asks if he wants to have something to eat, and he affirms with a nod and a mumble. In my backpack I still have some food that I got that day, and I hand him some bags containing different foods. I'm happy I can at least do something, then I wonder: "Now what?" Suddenly he walks away, through the cars across the street, where there is still quite some traffic this time of night. He stops in the middle of the road, cars passing him from both directions, drops one of the bags of food, bends down to pick it up and getting up he just barely keeps his balance. He starts to move again, crossing all the way to the other side of the street through through cars that are slowing down and honking their horns. Again I think: "Now what?" He keeps going, and then we start walking again as well, in the opposite direction. From time to time we look over our shoulder or turn around to check out where he's going, and later to see if we still see him. What can you do? Finally, we continue our walk.

Now, looking back, I do still feel drawn to street retreat, to the streets, to the shelters. Especially during the first days, but it's still there. I'm pretty sure this won't be my last street retreat, I've already looked for new opportunities. I haven't found any yet, but I will. I can also see myself volunteering at a homeless shelter, which is something I did not expect beforehand.

In the week after our street retreat we had a meeting with particpants to talk about how we wanted to spend the money we raised. Now the plan is to not only give money, but also to get active. Within our group there was a lot of enthousiasm for that, and we thought that in the larger Upaya community there will also be enough interest to make it happen. During the winter months dinners are served at Pete's place. Groups of volunteers can sign up for that, and we intend to do just that once a month (for starters) with Upaya people. We have experienced ourselves that the quantity of food is not so much a problem, but that the quality of the food is not too great. So our aim is to provide really nice and nutritious meals. We have the infrastructure to do it: a kitchen in which we are used to make good meals for fairly large groups, our regular suppliers, and people who can make the meals. So what's extra is getting the meal to Pete's place and to serve it there. And then to sit down ourselves and eat among our customers. Our group was quite excited about this idea, and so was I. I'm looking forward to it. I'll be back in Upaya this winter, and I hope to see it happen!

#streetretreat #BernieGlassman #SantaFe #UpayaZenCenter