In this episode, Sanju talks with Catherine on relationship, gender questions, and life experiences. Catherine (now 79 years old) shares her experience of growing up through 1940s and onward.
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S: This is the DRBU podcast, and I’m Sanju. In this podcast we’ll be talking to students and faculties of Dharma Realm Buddhist University about topics concerning human experiences, meaning, lifestyle, and philosophical reflection. For the second episode, I talked with Catherine Shaw. Catherine is a graduate student currently doing Master’s in Buddhist studies here. She’s also one of the oldest students we have here. Catherine has had very interesting life experiences; she’s learned with her Tibetan master for several years, and her practice still informs her every-day. So here, I present my conversation with Catherine.
It’s such an inspiration that you have come here to join us in this master’s program, because you have so much lived experience; what you bring to the table is not just like these ideas and knowledge, but also something deeper and richer. So, for someone who’s starting off – I’m 24, and you are 78 – the difference between our ages is 54. And that’s exactly as many years you were married – you know, wh at… what comes to mind when you think of all those years?
C: Well, we definitely supported each other over the years. Now I guess that goes back to the thing of what’s good about a long, stable relationship – and also back to, I’m remembering a friend who was the generation before me in her 70s speaking to me about it, and said that there’s a depth of passion that takes years to develop, and people who keep changing partners will never experience that. On the other hand, I’ve heard, you know, people who don’t keep changing partners don’t experience that variety, so—(laughs). But Larry and I definitely supported each other. I definitely felt that my life was enhanced by being with him and I think he would have felt the same way. Okay, so that’s it – and I think the next question is, you know, what do you do to stay together for that long, right? People often talk about how important it is to have a common interest. And that’s certainly true. And I think, probably he shared all my interests and I shared almost all of his. I think even more important than common interest, and this is for any relationship – not just spouses or lovers but also like good friends – is a similar approach to living. I think that’s the most important thing. If your approach to living is really different, it’s going to be hard to be together in any close, intimate, mental, physical whatever – emotional, spiritual relationships. I’ve met people who do manage, but I think it’s harder. So yeah, approach to living I think is the most important thing for people to be together.
S: You know, people talk a lot about how sometimes opposites attract, and then these ideas of like, what is really important: having the similar ground, or having these differences that are making them learn from each other – or is there some kind of balance that’s needed – and you said that it’s the approach to living. What does that consist of, from your actual experience? What were the approaches of living? Was it the values that you had? More precisely, like, what time did you guys wake up? Or how did you feel about the political events that were happening around, or… what was it?
C: Okay, well, definitely not what time to wake up; we woke up at very different times (laughs). But values yes, very much so. I remember some time when our older daughter was, oh, I don’t know, not quite a teenager. I was saying something about the 60s and we were both in our 20s at that time, and that was when our values were popular. And I was saying something about it and she said, (gasps) “Oh, you mean there was a time when there were a lot of people like you and dad?!” First I said “Yes.” And then I thought about it and I said, “No.” There never was such a time, but many people are like whatever it’s fashionable to be like. And for a brief period, it was fashionable to be like us. And I think the world did change a bit. I think that I think the sexes get along a lot better now than before, I really do. Yeah, I think that this goes again into how people can live together a long time. I think the past idea of the opposite sex as being some exotic, unknowable other greatly interferes with the ability for people to live together. And once that got over with, you know, many colleges now have coed dorms, and if you’ve brushed your teeth with somebody, they don’t seem all that exotic and unknowable! So I think that’s a big change, which has helped.
S: You know, there’s this relationship of being human beings. And there is a gender thing that brings this sense of opposites and – that in the beginning, when you’re like really fascinated by this opposite gender, there’s a lot of, like you were saying, exoticness, and there’s a lot of fascination, and then I’m sure that slowly fades away. What I see is after that fades away, the relationship either breaks or it entersanother period. How do people have a smooth transition? Are you able to identify any sort of transition that happened in your relationship?
C: I don’t think there ever was such a change (laughs). I think we related to each other pretty much the same way for the whole time. Earlier, you said something that I didn’t address about the idea that opposites attract, which is often talked about, and those relationships are good for people who love drama, right? Because they lead to lots and lots of drama. And if you love drama, that’s the kind of relationship you want, for sure, because you’re going to have plenty! But if what you love is mutual fascination, doing things together, you know, mutual enjoyment together, that’s – that’s a very different type of fascination. And, of course, it really is important, if people are going to be lovers, that they be physically attractive to each other – and mentally attractive – and spiritually and emotionally attractive. You know, if you’re living with somebody, not even as a spouse or lover but in any kind of close situation – if you find some part of them unattractive, it’s gonna make for a very big difficulty. It really is – and that again has to do with approach to life.
S: One of the poets that I really admire, David Whyte, talks about how a long term relationship is built on mutual forgiveness. How much of that was part of your relationship? And what was the thing that held you guys together?
C: Well (laughs), some time in the early part of our marriage, we decided that we should get married again every seven years. Because there’s a thought that the body over time slowly renews itself in seven years, and by seven years it’s pretty much renewed. So we did. And it happened that some very close friends got married within a month of our first re-wedding. That was their first re-wedding. And – I’m not talking about renewing their vows; that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying a real wedding ceremony. And to me, a ceremony doesn’t just honor some change in life; it actually facilitates it. You know, when you get married, you’re not just honoring the fact you’re getting married; you are getting married. It’s causing you to be married. And so every seven years, we would be causing each other to get married again. And each time, we added another couple, and eventually there were seven couples. Actually the last one was after Larry was dead. It was 2019, and he died in 2017.
S: I think you said that you had a remarriage ceremony with yourself after your husband passed away. How was that like?
C: The other couples were still there. I mean, although we were the founders, we weren’t the only ones. And some of the other couples were very, very enthusiastic about it. And it has been commented that none of those marriages ended in divorce. They’ve all stuck to it the whole time (laughs).
S: So you guys founded this process of getting married every seven years, and it was done with seriousness. People were invited – everyone was invited, just like the first one. So – what was it like to get remarried for the first time when you had kids?
C: Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah, the first one, that was before kids and – a good ceremony. There’s a place near the water in San Francisco, a camp place that we were able to rent for the weekend and spend the night – spend a couple there and have a big ceremony in the time. And then we were still there again for the next re-wedding, when both of the original couples had kids in the meantime, and the mothers were nursing, and the kids were part of it. And then the third one, the kids were children, not babies. And so they were participants, which was really nice. We had something called the wheel of life (all this is our own invention, right) it was a decorated bicycle wheel with handles that you could spin, so part of the ceremony was spinning the wheel of life – and the two younger kids came out with the wheel of life and held it for us to spin it.
S: That’s so wonderful. That’s so wonderful.
C: And as they’ve grown older, the children have gotten more involved, you know, that they are doing more and more things in the ceremony.
S: So what was the ceremony like?
C: Okay, well, it’s true that we have self identified as Buddhists for most of our adult life; we’ve also dabbled in a whole bunch of other religions over the time, including Native Western religion. And that’s what the re-weddings have been modeled on. And I at one time was a pagan priestess for a few years, and I guess I came out of retirement to officiate at this last re-wedding, because that’s what the weddings have been modeled on, is the pagan circular magic. And that’s when I say that it’s not just to memorialize a change in life but actually to help cause it. That’s, you know, pagan religion, that’s what you do. When you’re in a circle, you’re, you’re doing magic, you’re causing something to happen. And in this case, it’s these people becoming married. So it’s a circle, and call down the four quarters, close the circle… a series of dances we do during the ceremony, and the first one is the meeting dance. We developed it a bit over the years, and so we developed a procession with music to come in and then everybody forms the circle, and they have little shrines at each of the four quarters and then a big shrine in the middle. So that’s the first dance, and then, I have a dear, dear friend who was a pagan scholar. And so he and I usually write the ceremony the night before. He and his wife finally decided, you know, we want to be participants! So they got somebody else to be the officiants after that. You know, all these different elements come from the native European religious tradition.
S: Reminds me of the Indian wedding ceremony where couples – they have to circle around the fire seven times. And the symbol is that they are gonna be together for seven lifetimes. Something about the circle seems to be very sacred and something that you see in different cultures. You said it’s not the circle to honor the marriage; it’s a circle to actually cause something new. That’s very fascinating.
C: Okay, I usually give a little talk at the beginning – even before I became the official – in which I say something to the effect that for the couples, this is a wedding, this is becoming married. But for everybody, this can be a time to let go of that part of your past that you don’t want to carry forward with you, and renew what you do, and also to enable whatever in your life you aren’t doing that you think you should. And so it’s a time of change. And it can be so for everybody in addition to these couples that are officially getting married today.
S: What comes to mind is the idea of rituals. And various cultures have different rituals to facilitate different transitions or to cause new things to happen. Whether it’s people getting married or you know, someone passes away in the family. I see that these rituals hold much more meaning than what I normally thought. But there’s also, you participate in that, and something happens to you when you participate in that.
C: Yeah, that’s the purpose of ritual, something happens to you. Many traditions – the Tantrists say, oh no, ritual is a way to change yourself; ritual is a way to enable the next step to awakening, and sometimes would say that during the course of the ritual, one in fact is awakened. That’s partly why you’re doing it; you are a Buddha. You know, once you’re done, you try to carry as much of the Buddha-ness as you can into the rest of your life.
S: Some rituals involve everyone in the community to be part of it, like the wedding ceremony. But then there could be some individual rituals, something that an individual can do, in order to bring more life and more harmony to the relationship. Even some rituals that couples can do together. Did you guys have something like that?
C: Yes, of course! (laughs). Being in nature. I think that’s, you know, we both love, love nature. Yeah, being out in nature. Definitely. Definitely.
S: I know that, Larry, the first time I heard about him was that he invented the National Pi Day, March 14th. I know that he was a scientist, an artist, and he had a very passionate work life – and being together with him, how was it for you? Because there’s this idea that everyone actualizes themselves through their work. If we are to talk about from the gender perspective, right, and culturally we are told that men are supposed to be working towards that much more vigorously. But for women there’s always an alternative of being a mother, and transcending herself in that sense in the household. So how was it for you being with someone who was, like, doing all the great things out there and how – how does it feel being in a relationship like that?
C:That actually can be a bit problematic. Because, just physically, very often Larry wasn’t there when he would have been mighty handy at home. That, you know, that was a large thing, particularly when the kids were little. But he always supported whatever I was doing as well as me supporting whatever he was doing. I spent some years doing art, and he always loved my art. But yeah, his devotion to his work did occasionally interfere with our lives together. That’s, I think that’s – I’m probably not the only person in the world who’s ever said that (laughs). When I was working at the Exploratorium too, it was really nice. You know, we’d have lunch together every day. That was very nice. Yeah, there were times when that was a difficulty. Certainly, both of us took pride in what the other was doing. But, you know.
S: You guys were doing different things.
C: Yes, yes. And you know, there’s only so many hours in the day and only so much energy to put into stuff. And if one’s been away at work all day, one hopes to come home and relax. If one’s been working hard at home all day, one hopes when one’s partner gets there that partner will take over (laughs). Right? So those two things are, you can’t do both.
S: You grew up through a very interesting time period, which is from the 40s – 1943, you were born. And from 1943 passing all the way, half of the century. I know that you went to college, to Reed. And during those times I’m sure there weren’t many females going to college like that. Do you feel that you were ever confined in what you wanted to do as an individual because of your gender?
C: I had the good fortune to be an only child, so the gender thing didn’t come up that much. You know, I was the child. And what there was to do, I did it. And I became very aware of that when we were moving from one place to another and spent a little time during the move at some sort of resort at a lake. And there was another family there that had a younger son and an older daughter. And watching that family, and seeing that the younger son could do stuff that the older daughter couldn’t, I thought, oh my word if I had a brother, that’s the position I would be in. And so I was very aware of that. I would have been… nine-ish at the time. Yeah. And I was certainly aware, all stories that I loved to read, the protagonist was always male. Always. If you had tried to get me to read stuff like Little Women, it was just boring! You know, why bother reading about those lives, they’re boring lives!
S: So much of what we want to read is also told to us by, you know, the culture, right – the culture dictates like this is interesting and sometimes this is boring. And we go with that sometimes. Now, Little Women has gained a whole different meaning for women now. Right, right, right. Maybe that’s why I got exposed to it. And I love it.
C: You grew up in a time when women’s lives were not boring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In my time, just looking around, women’s lives seemed pretty darn boring to me. Now, my granddaughter, who is 12, loves reading fantasy novels. She will not read one with a male protagonist, period. She absolutely will not. And of course when I grew up there were none. I clearly remember, I was in my 20s at the time – the first book I read. It was science fiction, of course. And it was about this young lawyer who was trying to help some race of intelligent cats get their rights. And she was female. I devoured that book. Because it was the first book I’d come across with a female protagonist who was doing something that seemed to me worth doing. Yeah, yeah. I have a neighbor who’s a very brilliant lawyer. And she said when she was in law school, she was the only woman in her class. And sometimes, the professor wasn’t able to figure out who this person was with this strange name. That was so strange.
S: What about your college experience?
C: I think among the students I think it was roughly equal male and female. Among the teachers, I can only remember one woman. There probably were some others, but I can only remember one. What did she teach? – sociology. And she had beautiful blonde hair and wore lipstick, and we all thought she was really interesting (laughs). And then in the administration there was one woman; the Dean of Women – had to be female, right? And other than that, I do not remember – I know there were no other administrators that were women – and I don’t remember any other teachers. But classes were roughly equal, and we were treated pretty equally.
S: Especially in a culturally normative, like gender normative society, where gender roles are fixed and that’s so much still there – and I think in the US, it’s a little different.
C: In my lifetime, the change of the role of women is just amazing. But yeah, yeah, I mean you look at pictures of any gathering from the 1950s or I think even into the 60s, there’s no women – any important gathering – it’s all men.
S: How – how was it after Larry passed away? Normally, I just see you very energetic and very joyful – as if you’ve made peace with him not being here, or with your past; you’ve lived a good life. How was the process of making that peace?
C: Well, I have to preface that question with the fact that the last four years of his life he had Alzheimer’s. It was a time, you know. And he literally was a bodhisattva, he really was. And those four years, he still had the innate urge to help people. And by the end, anything he did made the situation worse, not better. And that was really, really hard for him. That was really hard. I’m sure anybody who knows anything about dementia, you know, Alzheimer’s is the most common dementia, it’s not the only one. So when he died, everybody agreed it was a blessing. I think, including him. The last couple of weeks of his life, he got calmer. And I really think that was because in some deep level that was still functioning, he recognized the death was coming. And then it was time. Sometime later, I learned that one of the people from our temple went and chanted with him in those times, so that probably helped also. But over time, of course, I’ve come to be more and more remembering all the good times we had together, you know, 50 years of good times. And I would say that the grief gets greater rather than lesser over time.
S: You know, changing the topic a little bit. We recently had Valentine’s Day, and I’m curious what you think of having a lover, or have you ever considered that or what does it mean for you to have a lover?
C: Well, to me, a lover means someone that that will always be there for you, no matter what. No matter what, you know. It doesn’t mean somebody you can mistreat. No matter what does not include that. But someone that you want to treat as well as possible, and someone that wants to treat you as well as possible. And that of course is true of a good friend as well.
S: I know that in the upcoming months you’re planning on going to the National Pi Day, March 14. I want to hear – what is it really about? How did it start?
C: Larry started it just for the Exploratorium originally, because they needed something and that satisfied it very nicely. So they made a pu shrine, which was a little circle with as many digits of pi as easily went on it. And one of the things that was built in the old Exploratorium was a classroom which was a circular building. So in the middle of the circle, we installed the pi shrine. And on Pi Day, he would lead a procession with people – with sticks with the numerals of pi in order through a hundred or so – up to that circle and then circumambulate the pi shrine. And then at some point, our younger daughter was doing a report on Albert Einstein, and turns out he was born on Pi Day.
S: Oh, really?
C: Yes, March 14 is his birthday. Yes, yes. So once we learned that, then we’ve been singing happy birthday to Albert Einstein (laughs). And for the first few years, it was just the exploratorium staff that did it. And I think, actually it happened to come on a day when the museum was closed. If it came on a day it was open, and some visitors just happened – we’d invite them to join us. But then eventually marketing got hold of it (laughs). And it got publicized, and now, hundreds of people come. I remember one of the last shows – as each of the events got bigger, you know there’s a lecture before all about pi, and people do pi activities. One time, we walked out of the museum into where the people were lining up for the parade, a couple hundred people out in proper order. And Larry came out and he was greeted like a rock star. So a couple of years between when he died and when the museum had to close for COVID, I kind of took his place in the parade. He, I, at the head of the museum, and his partner there who had been very much in it, the three of us would lead the parade. And we found this wonderful band to put on costumes to lead the parade. It’s real – it’s so fun, because math is serious, and yet this is both serious and frivolous at the same time. So it’s really a fun thing. But next year, it comes on a Monday, and I’m seriously debating whether I should go down to be part of it or not.
S: What kind of advice would you give to your younger self – let’s say, your 24 years-old self, if you were to give advice to her now?
C: (laughs) Oh I’d just take myself less seriously. I think that would be my advice to just about anybody at any age. When I was 24, we were living just across the hill from the Hague. And this wonderful flat (I guess you’d call it, because there was another one upstairs) was huge – the whole front of the living room was a huge bowed window at the end of the street – we were number one Douglas, and the street ended at our garage and our Rose Garden (we were just renting of course, but it was still ours). And in the living room, there was a fireplace on each side with a little niche. And one of the things Larry loved to do was make light sculptures. So in each niche he installed concave mirrors and various other mirrors and they used to be these Christmas trees that shone different color lights shining into these mirrors. So the ceiling was covered with lights moving around in all different shapes and colors which were visible across the whole valley (laughs). One time somebody came and said “I saw light glowing on the top of your house, may I come in?” and we said “Oh sure.” So that was, you know, when I was 24 I was having a pretty good time. I think everybody – I think it’s part of human nature that we tend to think that we’re important, you know, and we are. But on the other hand, does that mean that every decision has to be made seriously, every action has to be considered seriously – I think fun is such an important… back to the term important, fun is important, right? (laughs) – important part of life. I think living life easily, enjoyably, I think also helps to make a person a better person. I really think people who are miserable all the time have a hard time being nice to others. You know, I don’t have any particular evidence other than just my personal observation, but it seems to me being happy makes it easier to be also good and nice and that sort of thing. I think it’s easier for happy people. So if you don’t take yourself too seriously, I think that, yeah. And maybe also that means that we give more credence, more importance to others if we aren’t, so much, you know –
S: Stuck on ourselves?
C: Yeah.