Greetings, Monkey Mind! I come in Peace.

"Taming the Monkey" Source: http://www.projectevolution.net

Ahhhh, the end to the week has arrived. This morning's sit filled my cup, so to speak. I am sipping soothing quiet, as my friend Kay might say, from a very full and grateful place inside myself. I sat for quite some time, first reading and reflecting in my sitting spot, before growing still and putting my book-companions aside.


 During sitting, I have changed my tune. Prior to sitting this year, I anticipated the need to quiet thoughts gently and often, allowing them to move along as a leaf on a flowing river in order to stay present in the moment. The very purpose of sitting, in my mind, was to take a break from thinking, and just be. 

While I still appreciate the 'sits' during which I experience my mind as quiet, relaxed and peaceful, I am also starting to notice the content of my thought and view it is as valuable and useful information. I notice if I am looping on one thought track, or if a very old memory emerges, for example. Whatever the thought, I am learning so much about my 'monkey mind' by paying attention to what comes up rather than feeling disturbed by the very thought that I am thinking.


In essence, I am beginning to make peace with my thinking mind. What a thought!

On Rain and Being in Charge

Double Alaskan Rainbow from www.wikipedia.org

This Earth needs the rain. In North-Central Florida, the water levels are despairingly low. And yet, if I was in charge of things, I can't imagine a day in which I would SCHEDULE rain in advance. Of course, you'd have to find time to send rain along, but rain is so often considered a hassle, a bother, it slows down the work commute and we can't go outside to play. Rainy days can be considered sad or low energy days. Most of us wouldn't bike to work on a rainy day unless we had to. How short-sighted we humans can be!


And yet, when surprised by a rainy day, I am delighted! Rainy days are resting days. The music of a rainy day is the best cadence in all the world. Rainy days are merciful days.


My word, how we need and love the rain to make our gardens grow, to nourish our vegetables and fruit and grains. How we need the rain to live!


My friend and wise teacher, Kay, taught me years ago the utter beauty and grace of the Gray Day. Kay understands deeply about color and light and shadow; and she loves Gray. From Kay, I learned that we have the opportunity to shine the brightest against a gray palette. Colors sing on a gray backdrop!


May you shine today . . . no matter the weather.

Walk to the Well

 Source: http://www.google.com/images - Search: Wells

Rain falls softly outside the window. The house is dark and cool and quiet. As I sat this morning, I noticed a pensive, worried quality during my sitting. My solar plexus is tender, and saying so. Radiating to my upper-mid back beneath my shoulders, I stretched and breathed deeply into this place to honor and acknowledge the language of the body.


What came up for me is fear. My dear old comrade, Fear, is a consistent reminder that life has its own set of plans and I am along for the ride. It is not always comfortable to take my place as passenger. I am enamored with the concept of Queen and Commander in Chief of my life, but it simply does not serve anyone well when I act out this fantasy. My view is limited to my perspective in any given moment, and the fiction of the past.


This morning, I am reminded of a very favorite line from Coleman Barks' translation of Jelaluddin Rumi in The Essential Rumi.

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move. Walk to the well. Turn as the earth and moon turn, circling what they love.

day of heart

Arms Wide Open

Top of the morning to you. Just up from a long, resonant sit on this February morning. The fresh, warm scent of whole grain pancakes shaped like a heart and piled high with strawberries fills the air of our home. The floor is scattered with tiny red sequins and atop the art table sits a bright pink ink pad and a swirly Hummingbird stamp carefully chosen by my DD's and DH. 

Cost of a box of 24 premade Valentine's cards = $3
Cost of supplies to make 24 cards = $20 (well, the stamp will get lots of use!)
Value of a homemade Valentine's card = priceless

On another note, today's sit was especially wonderful. I was almost sucked into computer time BEFORE my sit, but I stopped short of entering a password to my work email, set the computer aside and sat. Whew! What a gift!

Speaking of gifts, I have been given great gifts in my life in the form of human beings who have loved deeply, offered wisdom, provided hours of listening; Teachers of play, creativity, and laughter. All told, these teachers are soul-friends who bring me closer to the Mystery and allow me to begin to trust the uniqueness and worth of my life. 

You know who you are. I dedicate this beautiful Heart's Day to you. May it be a bright, warm, peaceful day for you; and as the sun shines upon you, know that this one small life is richly and abundantly blessed because of you.

13 February 2012

Rugerero, Rwanda sculpture in process

So as far as numbers go, for whatever reason, DATES I like. I like to add them up and distill them down to one number; and then make meaning of it all. Very much.


Glad to be back to a Monday in my own home. I had a nice quiet sit this morning in the center of the rug until Lela cat decided to take a bath beside me, reminding me it was time to do the same.  Off to the day's work and play . . .

Mad about Mary

http://www.fineartsamerica.com

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Source: http://www.maryoliver.com

Published in Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver

Travel week

A mid-week sit was especially tender on a boardwalk along the Apalachicola Bay and the largest estuary in the Southeast. Travel weeks are tough. Rethinking where to sit, and finding space and time to do so, can present a challenge. Still, when I sit, I see the world differently for a little while. I remember what a small part of a whole each one of us is. It is time so beautifully spent.


In order to contend with the changes in schedule with travel, school, work, family time, etc. I have decided to adopt my DD's cello teacher's practice suggestion. The cello teacher has been teaching for many years and strongly encourages five minutes of daily practicing. However, when her students miss a practice, she invites them to double up. If they miss two days, they can practice for fifteen minutes on the third day. I find a sweet redemption in this plan. So I think I will follow it . . . still aiming for my five minutes of sitting a day, but also allowing myself permission to rest easy on days that I don't sit knowing I can 'make it up'.

From Rilke's Onto A Vast Plain

Prairie Oak by Jenny Lee

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real . . .


excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Onto a Vast Plain", translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Sunday Sit

Image Source: www.favim.com

I sat this morning for a bit and enjoyed the juxtaposition between children's music on the television and birds calling to one another outside the bedroom window. Easing into Sunday morning with a sit is such a gift. I notice that my mind is set on autopilot with thoughts of the future. With each thought, I gave full attention to the content, and let it move on, calling myself back to the present moment and the gift of simply sitting.

Saturday Sit

I sat this morning for about 20 minutes, sliding right out of bed and onto a pillow for sitting. My mind was full and busy thinking, so it took a little while before I settled into true quiet. I notice that I am fairly attached to arriving at the delicious-feel good parts of quiet; often accompanied by all-over warmth, peace, and a sense of well being. I have to keep this attachment in check and remind myself that my commitment is to simply sit. 

Some days, I do not feel connected as deeply or quickly as other days. These days are somehow especially important days to sit.

The most potent sitting for me has been to pay attention to what comes up and witness it fully; be it tears, worry, anger, irritability. This practice has allowed deep releasing and more times than not, a deep rest follows.

Rilke's Onto a Vast Plain

Wild Horses on Paynes Prairie
Image Source: Jenny Lee, Canon Digital Rebel

“Onto a Vast Plain”

by Rainer Maria Rilke;
 translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

You are not surprised at the force of the storm —
you have seen it growing.

The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees' blood rose. And now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit;
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

Sitting on Friday Morning

Image Source: www.theartofqi.net

I enjoyed a short sit this morning. I lit a fire on this warm morning because our house is cool inside and also, I am experiencing a draught this week on the inside. I am using my Mindfulness Mantle daily, along with sitting in the center of the circle rug and on a pillow. I find that I rotate other tools such as poetry, tingshas, chanting, to prepare or close quiet time.  The quality of my inner scape this morning is achy, chilly, and foggy; and the quiet soothes the ache, attending as a mother might soothe her crying child. The quiet lifts the fog, like sunshine. After sitting, my inner fire is lit, tended and blazing.

i am listening

Image Source: Lida Arzaghi - http://www.flickr.com/photos/lida_arzaghi/4610896678/

Now be silent.
Let the One who creates the words speak.
He made the door.
He made the lock.
He also made the key.
 

Rumi ♥

Catalysis

Image source: www.computescotland.com

Catalysis  

We reach
out through
all our differences
to touch
the tender parts
where we are the same.

Though each of us
would be pierced
by love rather than
accept its vulnerable
responsibility,
we must take care
to avoid stepping on it
with the hasty,
heavy boots of our defenses.

Through our solos
we learn to read
each other's music,
and only then can say
the softest things
in unexpected places.

catalysis - modification, and especially increase, in the rate of chemical reaction induced by material unchanged chemically at the end of the reaction


Vi Ransel
Source: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/catalysis/

Submitted Date

:

Monday, August 28, 2006

A Sit or Two

Yesterday, I sat embraced in a Mindfulness Mantle (Source: https://www.facebook.com/OnSlenderThreadsWearableZenMoments) and felt fidgety. I sat with moments of pure quiet, interspersed with mental fits and starts. I am restless. Catalytic. 

This morning's sit had a similar quality with longer periods of quiet and clarity. Sitting with this idea of sitting. 
Do you ever find yourself in these sorts of metanalyses?

I came to a clear sense of entanglement in my own self image. 

Elevated. 
                   Deflated. 
                                    Self-doubt. 
                                                           Fear. 

I imagine and fantasize that I am capable. In the next moment, I am less than complete and not good enough. Throughout the day, I mill over the image of myself; who I am, who I am not; what I can and can not do or be. It felt important to relinquish, again, and come back to the origin of my decision to sit this year. To be okay with what is. To come to the Circle; and take my place in the family of things, in the Great Order of Life. To remember who I am at the core; and then to quickly forget by dancing into, within and through the Web to the Center . . .
 - - - - - - - - - - 
So I hunt for the word: Catalysis . . . and you can view my discovery from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/catalysis

To dissolve; to loosen; acceleration; the process of decay or deterioration . . . hmmmm . . .

1. ca·tal·y·sis: The action of a catalyst, especially an increase in the rate of a chemical reaction.

[Greek katalusis, dissolution, to dissolve : kata-, intensive pref.;  to loosen; see leu- in Indo-European roots.]
 Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
 

2. Catalysis: (Chemistry) acceleration of a chemical reaction by the action of a catalyst

Source: Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

3. Catalysis: Rare. the process of decay or deterioration. See also change.

 

the process of an agent that affects a chemical or other reaction without being itself changed or affected. See also decaying. — catalyst, n. See also: Change

Source: Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.