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The Second Music

1/18/2020

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(inspired by Annie Lighthart’s The Second Music)

Underneath all the noise,
the constant mind chatter
of excitement and longing,
between email and phone calls,
driving to work and the grocery store,
there is a second music always
playing in the background.

You could almost miss it 
if you aren’t paying attention.

You would surely miss it
​if you forget the best friend
whispering to you through a slow
inbreath and long outbreath,

the one who has asked all these years
I’m here. Are you here?
The one who has always known 
your song by heart
patiently waiting for you to listen.


Do you ever feel like a kite, flying from one thing to the next, guided by some mysterious hands that feel so far away? 

Back into the full swing of work, family life, and gearing up for some mindfulness projects, the New Year’s retreat feels so far way. I know I’m tethered to something important that’s guiding me, but it can get lost 
underneath all the noise, the constant mind chatter of excitement and longing, between email and phone calls, driving to work and the grocery store.

When your attention is split between all the people and things calling to you, how do you ground and unify the heart-mind to greet them one at a time? Who/what do you say no thank you to in order to have authentic energy for loving presence?

Last Thursday on a weekday off from work, I had the option to participate in a mindful mom’s yoga class, collaborate with a friend on an upcoming mindful parenting class, spend time with family, catch up with patient care online, and attend a performance in San Francisco about healing and human connection in medicine. I can’t tell you how many times I went back and forth about these options (especially in the 24 four hours preceding that day).

I was missing a best friend’s whispers until I sat down to meditate Thursday morning and fully embodied a warrior pose in yoga class drawing the line between what was needed, and what would need to wait. Between slow in breaths and long outbreaths, I was asked many times, “I’m here. Are you here?”

I often get anxious with a busy schedule or a long to do list. When I decide not to do something, an inner critic reminds me of all the missed opportunities, all the people I’m disappointing.

This is the time I especially need to listen to the one who has always known my song by heart. I need to trust this heart-mind to  direct the energy where it is needed most. If I can concentrate on what I am doing, one breath, one step at a time, I’m more likely to hear the second music, to confidently step into the Great Mystery and become a part of its benevolent design.
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Reflections from a New Year's Retreat

1/7/2020

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​12-28-19  Softening Ideas of Self

Loving presence doesn’t ask why
I’m going on retreat, leaving family behind
Why I didn’t bake cookies on Christmas with my sweet-toothed daughter 
Why it’s tempting to sleep in for a 6am sit when the season encourages hibernation 


Loving presence doesn’t award certificates to a maternal safe harbor holding her daughters emotional waves 
To a physician’s compassionate heart making space for each patient’s story
To a writer and yogi trying to wake up from dreams of identity and safe passage


Loving presence becomes the heater when a yogi can’t sleep in her dorm room
Puts a hand on a quivering belly and heart 
Finds sacred in the mundane, the profane 
Sensing the potential in a winter’s branch
​Without needing to see the bud
​
​
12-29-19  Never Enough

winter trees, clawing fingers
grasping for spring 
for something they don’t have
this moment is never enough
​

​
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​
12-30-19  Enough

winter trees, bare fingers
not needing spring 
to remind them
​this moment is enough
​


12-31-19  The Indriya River

The river knows it is destined for the ocean. It does not resist meanderings away from the suspected path, energetically flowing in the direction it was meant to flow. It is aware of each stone it caresses, each leaf, each fish, each root it touches moment by moment. The river does not wish it were further upstream or downstream, honoring exactly where it is at any given point in time, surrendering to an ever changing scene.

​The river knows it is destined for the ocean. When it forgets, may it remember again, and again, and again. 
​


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​1-1-20  Ode to Wool Blankets

You’re scratchy. You keep slipping off
the bed in the middle of the night,
leaving a hole for cold air to 
wake me up before it’s time.
Do you understand why I don’t like you,
why I long  for the down comforter 
my husband insisted I bring here
knowing how cold and grouchy 
I get with poor quality sleep?


Maybe it’s not your fault.
Maybe it’s the way I’m relating to you,
insisting you transform into something you’re not.
What would happen if I trusted you to keep me warm,
​gently pulled you back over this body when you’ve slipped off

rather than yanking you into submission?
What if I accepted you here and now
without rewinding or fast forwarding (in time)
to a high and lofty bed at home,
knowing this can’t last forever?

What if these words could form a soft quilt,
the five faculties stitched into the fabric
of a metta-loving heart?
Wool blankets, may you not be so irritable
as I wrap myself in your embrace.

​
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A new year...trying a different way to make the bed.

​
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The next morning...it worked!!!
​

1-2-20 

sitting on top 
of a stone sculpture 
i am not afraid to fall
knowing how to rebuild
the structure of samadhi
​when needed
​


1-3-20  Listening

Sit as if you are supported by 
an invisible chair made just for you,
it’s contours molding to your body 
better than any lover can.
Breathe into the areas of discomfort,
massaging them with gentle patience.
How is a masseuse on some tropical  
beach supposed to know your body?
The terror, the longing, the hope 
that one day no part will remain uncharted, 
that all the cobwebs will glisten with tears
in the light of loving awareness,
that a heart can radiate
Brahmavihara blessings
above, below, around and everywhere,
inviting integration.
One body. One breath. One home.
​
​
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Realizing what I experienced on 1/2/20 was not samadhi. Hindrances were absent but senses were still present. Darn! And trusting it will happen if/when it is meant to. Let’s redo that poem again.

sitting on top 
of a stone sculpture 
i am not afraid to fall
knowing how to rebuild
the structure of ego
falling again 
...and again
​and again...
​


1/5/20  Coming Home

devoting my life to the teachings 
i am not afraid of what lies ahead 
dying again and again and again
​resting in the arms of truth 


​
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    Kaveri Patel, a woman who is always searching for the wisdom in waves.

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