​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
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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
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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.

​

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

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The next morning...it worked!!!
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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
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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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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 

​

Expectations. Many of us have them. They aren’t bad or wrong. And, like weeds disguised as flowers, they can proliferate in the mind with false promises of beauty and permanence.

Have you ever wanted someone, yourself, or a situation to be different, directing the show and dumbfounded when life plays out a script you haven’t written? Are you tired of trying to control each scene like I am? Do the actors listen? Are the props and artwork of each backdrop good enough? Are they even real?

If you resonate with any the above inquires, please know you are not alone. I’d like to share some ways I’ve been practicing with expectations to cultivate contentment.

1. Acknowledge, name the expectation. Once known, it can lose it's automatic pilot power over you.
2. Breathe with what is happening internally, bow to it as a divine messenger of wisdom not yet recognized. When there is internal space, other possibilities can be seen/heard/felt.
3. Get curious about the need beneath the expectation. Do you really want safety, connection, love, acceptance, peace? Ask the question gently; the answer will not come before it's ripe and ready.
4. Deepen the attention with compassion- an ally, word, image or phrase that feels comforting. (For some, humor, gratitude, etc. may be more accessible than compassion to deepen attention.)

This process is not cognitive gymnastics. You don’t get an Olympic gold medal for overthinking. If you find the mind or body are contracted, try softer, not harder. Let go of words, the need to know, getting it right. Let go of the practice itself. 

It’s common for fear and doubt to arise. If you let go, what’s left? Do you lose others? Do you lose yourself? When you are fully inhabiting this moment as best as you possibly can, there is nothing left but space for seeds of love (or whatever wholesome word fits here for you) to grow, for silence to give birth to the answers you seek.

This process is also not linear. Though I’ve chosen ABCD as acronyms for ease of remembrance, A doesn’t necessarily lead to B, C, and D.

It’s helpful to think of this as a template, a skeleton. How you fill in the missing parts and embody them is up to you. What feels true in your experience? What feels like home?

May this post inspire a contentment far beyond the false facade of happiness advertised in comparing mind, on Facebook, and many other modes of media.

May we find peace and let go, knowing we will forget, trust, and confidently find peace again.​

Meditative, Qigong Healing
 
Sitting upright, supported by Earth
Warm breath of compassion
Forgiveness, wisdom
Releasing holding patterns of dis-ease
Permanence, a self in control
Clear recognition only gentleness heals


Then standing, feeling the exchange
Of energy between this body
And its surroundings
Invisibly connected to all life
The possibility of universal benevolence
Always a choice despite chaotic patterns
 
The last week and a half were challenging. From viral gastroenteritis to a cough and cold, from asthma like symptoms to worsening muscle strains, from irritation, impatience, disappointment, and exhaustion, it felt like illness was taking up permanent residence in the body. There was so much self-identification with dis-ease states and the mental formations they invoked. There was also a frantic rush to swat the emergence of each new symptom with a medication as if it were an annoying fly that would never go away. Killing it was the only choice.

​Or was it?

As I start to regain some mental clarity and physical strength, it feels important to reflect on what created more suffering, and what eased the suffering. (The word choice of suffering is very personal. If it rubs you the wrong way because you may have a heavier, incurable illness or stress that feels more significant than what I am sharing, feel free to substitute suffering with another word.) Identifying with any symptom, dis-ease or mind state was painful. Trying to overcome it with wholesome mind states like kindness, compassion, even joy was also deceptive, because I wasn’t allowing true feelings like irritation, impatience, and disappointment to throw big tantrums. I wasn’t allowing the fear to be felt, the dark cloud of doubt to be seen and known. The choice to reach for certain medications for relief was wholesome, but there was a subtle aggression against the body for misbehaving and falling apart. The belief in permanence of it all was so strong, that the urge to control the situation felt paramount.

When I chose to feel the cough and compromised breathing with gentle compassion, surrendered to supine meditation posture and gravity, released a known timeline for healing, and reached out to others for loving, healing energy, something changed. There was less identification with an invincible or dysfunctional, in control or chaotic, mindful or mindless, compassionate or critical being. Most days there was a certain percentage of each one.

We live as if everything is black and white, a dualistic mentality that does not allow for shades of gray or degrees of uncertainty. We are healthy or sick, balanced or crazy, paying attention or clueless, kind or vengeful. Is it possible most of us might just live in between the two extremes, always trying to build a reliable house on one side so as not to fall into the abyss between two cliffs of ego?

The need to know, to have things planned and figured out is strong in me. It’s a survival mechanism based on causes and conditions. Now there is recognition, compassion, forgiveness, wisdom to cushion each fall into the abyss of becoming.

The karma of now always offers two choices, suffering and the end of suffering. Robert Frost wrote that two roads diverged in a yellow wood. If you are anything like me, you might see trails in the wood well-trodden in the past from deeply ingrained patterns. There aren’t just two roads, but many paths.
​
Through meditation, Qigong, wise friends, writing, or whatever your support systems might be, may you feel connected to all life, the possibility of universal benevolence always a choice despite chaotic patterns.

Marriage Mandala

I’ve waited my whole life for you
to say the right words,
to woo me with poetry
and an instrument to play
the song in my heart
that I sing to myself
when the world misunderstands.

How could I have missed
the gentle intimacy,
the drunken look in your eyes,
palms pressed in Namaste
to the sacred feminine flame,
the humble bow to your consort
in all her many moods?

Let’s circle the fire like we did long ago-
no one leading, no one following,
the earth bearing witness,
the air surrounding us offering
space to move as we must,
tears of frustration and joy marking
each brave step into the unknown.
 
Just when you think your partner isn’t looking, listening, or understanding, look again. Listen. Patiently wait for understanding based on cellular memories of gratitude. Memories of disappointment and deficiency will just weigh you down and induce amnesia for the sacred.

There is no such thing as a fairytale relationship, romantic or not. The grass is always greener in a movie, a book, or someone else’s story. For me, the magic occurs inside the heart mandala when all the moving parts invite me to look, to listen, and be patient for understanding.

I don’t always like the entangled pattern I see. The elements of earth, air, fire and water ask me to wait, to feel their presence internally and externally till the pattern alchemically transforms into something I recognize but didn’t trust before due to past conditioning.

The emerging pattern cuts through greed, hatred, and delusion with fierce compassion, gentle wisdom. All moving parts begin to settle.

The elements of wind and fire are strong in me. How do I not blow past and burn everything in the way? How do I allow the neurotic wind in this breath to be carried to the place it needs to be, rather than striving to get there? How can this passionate fire for practice burn with wise discernment?
​
Intuition, lead the way…