Living and Loving
Recently I wrote a poem titled ‘Longing’ that was inspired by an exchange with a dear friend that left me feeling less than valued, wondering if I should have, or could have, done something differently in our past to allow for a more pleasant current exchange.
Sitting heart-to-heart with another precious friend a week or so later, I was stunned to have her say to me, “You are more invested in saving my marriage than I am.”
Later, as I was writing in my journal, some clarity came about all of this, inspired in part by the Thought for Today from Deep Spring Center.
You as a world are inviting conflict but then not doing the needed practice with it, so you must invite it again and again. You are like the child in school doing endless multiplication table drills; they are unpleasant but you have not studied the tables, and will not, so the teacher repeats the drills. Your inattention calls forth the repetition. If you wish the drills to cease, learn the tables.
~ Aaron
The “D” stands for Debra, and the “V” stands for the voice of wisdom I call Holy Spirit, from my journal entry:
D: I know the truth that ‘wherever you go, there you are.’ If she is so easily offended because he yelled at her, she will encounter that energy again. It is today’s quotation from Aaron about calling difficulties to us over and over to learn what we need to know.
V: If you had a lesson you are still learning that expresses itself in the ‘Longing’ poem, what might that lesson be?
D: Take nothing personally. I am not responsible for another person’s emotional state.
Note—As I wrote these words on to the journal page, I could feel something leaving my energy!
V: What else?
D: Wonderings are a symptom of not being present moment where I can gently say, “Oh, this is that old habit energy. I know you. Come, sit, have tea. I’ve been expecting you.” *
V: Tell all who know. They all know. Love, Holy Spirit
A very wonderful message on an Easter morning.
Going right along with that, was the quotation, “When humanity awakens, it will move beyond time,” which came from the Brahma Kumaris with this image:
*This is a reference to the stories of Milarepa (c. 1052 – c. 1135 CE), one of Tibet’s most famous yogis and poets.
I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly,
acutely miserable…but through it all
I still know quite certainly that
just to be alive is a grand thing.
Agatha Christie
Visit Gratefulness.org/
This week’s news out of Paris was shocking, and of all times to have it be Holy Week for humanity to experience such a devastating loss of such history and magnificence and relevance and beauty. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame destroyed by fire.
Reminding ourselves of impermanence at times like this, we could/should read all of my blog posts rolled into one message. The message essentially is Agatha Christie’s: Just to be alive is a grand thing.
We might start with Does the tree still live in your heart? and Tree of Hope.
Then move back to Hey, Ma Durga. The following quotation is from that:
“My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came in this earth, I was the same. As a little girl, I was the same. I grew into womanhood, but I was still the same. When the family In which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, I was the same… And, in front of you now, I am the same. Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same.”
Nothing—NO THING—lasts forever. We know that, and yet we deal with loss as though it is some sort of personal punishment.
Yes, it is loss. Yes, it is sad. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it is painful.
But we do not have to suffer.
We suffer because of our subtle judgment, the way we tell the story in our own heart and mind. Today’s Thought for Today from Deep Spring Meditation Center explains that well.
Subtle judgment is caught up in the story that contracts and says,
‘I’m not good at this’ or,
‘I should be able to do it better.’
I might look at it and say,
‘I can do it better.’
That’s not a judgment.
I know I CAN do it better.
Can you feel the difference?
‘I should be able to do it better.’ Tightness, tension.
‘I can do it better,’ is a relaxed and spacious perception.
~ Aaron
I have been dealing with Comcast this week, updating router, cable box, and DVR. It took me five trips to the store, and many hours on the phone to finally get everything working. Right in the middle of all of that frustration (and I was feeling frustrated!), I knew nothing that was happening was eternal.
Whatever is happening, watch the stories you tell yourself about what is happening.
Make this a truly HOLY WEEK. Give up suffering….
This past winter has been the f-a-s-t-e-s-t in my memory. We enjoyed visitors beginning the last week of January, and continuing right up until the week before we headed north.
Some groaned when I shared that, speaking of how difficult they found it to maintain balance with guests. I would clarify how fortunate I am we enjoyed everyone (well, maybe not everything about having brother-in-law, Jack, come down with stomach flu was altogether enjoyable).
We found an easy schedule, and I had time while many of our guests rotated activities they did without me—like shuffleboard or Tuesday night 60 cent shrimp at The Waterfront.
I honored my Tuesday afternoon meditation group, my Sunday morning online meditation, and my Tuesday evening Dharma Path study group. I attended my writers’ groups. I wrote my daily pages in my journal.
We enjoyed boating with Florida neighbors, going to Karaoke, playing dominoes, and watching HGTV and Wheel of Fortune.
I rode my bike, I enjoyed eating one meal per day, and I ORGANIZED.
As we prepared for departure, my organization really made the difference between struggling and savoring. For example, days before we were to leave, I took everything out of the fridge, washed all the shelves and drawers, placed clean paper towels on two shelves and in one drawer, and placed all of our stuff on those. I returned the homeowner’s fridge items to the door. On departure day, all I had to do was put our stuff into the cooler and toss out the paper towel carpeting.
Voilà!
Maybe because my overall birth number is 2, I live Habit Number 2 of Stephen R. Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®.
The morning of our departure, I rode my bike to the Snowbird Poet’s group. There was confusion about the time and I sat waiting, writing in my journal: What gift to just be.
Workers were trimming a tree two houses down the canal. The heavy-duty equipment was VERY loud. I continued to write: What do I do with the noise? Do I story tell? Do I acquiesce? Might my peace coexist with the sounds? It has been a holy season. I’ll let my heart savor the sound, grateful I can hear.
Then a poem came through.
Saddest of Days
We buried her today
way too soon
Nothing prepared me
for the shock
Then soon she rose up
gathering all of my memories
Reaching the depths
of my despair
Singing my sadness to sleep
so our joy could dance on….
Debra Basham 04-01-2019 (WC 40)
My journal entry included: It is a time of releasing. Notice how easily it is here, then it is gone.
I’m very aware we are all here and gone, too.
You are, and you aren’t. Many of you are “gone” more while you are “here”, and will be more “here” when you are “gone”.
Just be present. That is enough.
You are enough.
Tell all who know. They all know.
Love, Holy Spirit
Today is Day 91, writing down my soul in my journal. Today is another day to let joy dance on. The saddest day is any moment we forget that….
I have been wondering about the distinction between self care and nurture (kindness and wisdom) and “distraction.” Might we be doing wholesome actions such as exercise or journal writing, or playing music, without being skillful?
Additionally, I wrote to Barbara Brodsky, Founding Teacher of Deep Spring Meditation Center, asking about all of this. “We are encouraged to skillful practice of support practices, Metta, Tonglen, etc., that are a part of Buddhism. Might it also be appropriate to develop skillful support practices that come from outside of Buddhism? For example, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Tapping on the meridians, while being present with difficult body or mind states, and saying skillful statements can support insight and release of painful karmic patterns. One does not try to avoid the emotion, one feels (touches) the emotion, then moves through a process of working with the emotion at the level of energy and awareness.”
Barbara clarified that the primary distinction isn’t the specific practice but what truly has drawn the practice forth. Was the motivation genuine kindness or was fear present, thereby was the real desire to “fix” something?
Barbara went on to say that all support practices from any tradition are helpful when motivated from a spacious and kind desire to attend, rather than from a contracted fearful need to fix.
Barbara said the ‘Daily Quote’ from Aaron clarified the question perfectly.
When we release some of the self-identity and separation, we come to feel our interconnection with everything. The tree dances with the wind not because the wind forces the tree but because the wind and tree literally inter-are. They share the same core of being. The wind is the tree; the tree is the wind. And so they dance together. You can dance with life in the same way. ~ Aaron
Barbara’s summation was simply, “When our practice comes from that place of interconnection, we are attending with skillful support.”
At the relative level we appear to be separate, but at the ultimate level, there is no separate self. You can understand that no wave is separate from the ocean. The wind and the tree and you and I dance with life. We inter-are….
