Idea

My brain is oft of late not the cooperative generator I desire.  My on-demand idea maker muddles through many a morning with not much to offer me aside from the rote motion of making peanut and butter and jelly sandwiches and tucking them into their expected spaces in lunch box containers, driving and dropping and doing normal stuff that is all good, but not much to write about.  I’m feeling uncreative about what to wear, what to prepare for meals, what to read next, what to plan for family adventure.  I find I am not actually musing a thing come sunrise many a Monday morn.  Today, I sit at my computer with coffee in hand to write and no idea arises.  No word worth a whit winds its way worthily out into animation.  Maybe I’m looking for too grand an idea to arise.  Seems my mind is a mush, not discontent but simply without an idea.

Dictionary.com offers entries to define the noun idea from the Collins World English Dictionary.
1.  any content of the mind, especially the conscious mind
2.  the thought of something
3.  a mental representation of something
4.  the characterization of something in general terms; concept
5.  an individual’s conception of something
6.  the belief that something is the case
7.  a scheme, intention, plan, etc.
8.  a vague notion of indication
9.  significance or purpose

A friend pointed out recently that I have been saying since January that I am abundantly busy with every daily moment scheduled, but I’m bored.  Every numbered calendar square has plenty penned upon it indeed, but I am admittedly uninterested in my general thoughts of late - bored with their basic banality, their continuation of commonness, their series of same-old same-old. I know this is part of a writer’s life, part of mid-life perhaps in general is this feeling of having been doing much the same things day after day.  As a kid who began early in life receiving “talks too much” remarks on report cards I just haven’t dealt often with having nothing to say. 

I feel restless because I love the flow of inventive energy that comes with fashioning poetry or prose that flows and finds a way to say what I am thinking.  But indeed, the mental representation of something must come first for me to find the words to work onto it like papier-mâché on a shape – eventually the strips of gluey sticky stuff dry and harden and become the object itself around the unseen, untouchable  inside that once held itself up to provide a palate for construction.  Any shape, any sound, any syllable sent into the world to communicate content of the conscious mind starts as an idea.

I love words.  I like to play with them.  They are my crayons, clay and paints.  I keep plenty in my personal pockets.  I want to use them to make something.  I simply have no significance or purpose in mind at the moment.

 

 

 

 

Baby

Human offspring arrive in a state of total physical neediness.  Squishy little people emerge experts of food to feces conversion with few other skills - except looking cute which compels us to stare at newborns in complete rapture as they sleep or sit and do nothing (this is how they rope us into total devotion).  A baby arrives primarily cranium and torso with short, scrawny limbs which for months remain non-useful for ambulation.  They cannot even hold up their own heads!  Human infants require constant tending, holding, feeding, wiping, cuddling, diapering, nail clipping, and protecting.  While still continuing to hone their best skill – poo production – a baby will hopefully learn and grow under the watchful eye of dutiful adults.  How delicate is the balance of molding without mangling, fine tuning without fencing the growing baby!

 

The noun baby is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  an infant or very young child
2.  a newborn or very young animal
3.  the youngest of a family, group, etc.
4.  an immature or childish person

I struggle with the balance still as I look back over thirteen years to the birth of my first baby.  Currently outnumbered by that kid and the additional two that followed, I see some moments of my mothering leaving room for individuation.  Mixed in are a few places where I’ve managed to do so much that I made myself essential in ways that are neither good for me nor the baby grown over time to be now a medium size human.  Constantly there is trying and trying again on all our parts.  I consider it a conglomerate kind of progress.  And so it goes - little growth, little steps, little learning, little and little adding up over time allowing movement away from the stage of baby toward someone more mature.

And thus it goes all our lives I aver:  pint-size progress as we expand in knowledge and experience.  I was 31 years from my own birth when I brought another person into this world.  Some days I feel having a baby has taught me to have tantrums of epic proportion myself and other days I see baby-strewn training ground for patience yielding results.  There are absolutely days born into where I don’t have the skills needed and I must acquire them as I go, sometimes feeling tired enough to cry.  Other days my once wobbly arms and legs carry out a multitude of tasks with the celebratory glory of check, check, checking things off a list.

We all arrive bodily as helpless babies.  We grow, learn and are trained by those around us.  As we age we determine what amidst all we have learned will serve us well, what makes us strong, what is true, and what ideas or habits must be discarded. Tending a baby reveals quickly how much room there is to grow even after living two or three or four (or more) decades.   

I grow and learn on my human journey developing from helplessness toward self-sufficiency.

 

 

 

Hole

Sleep is a healer.  Monday arrives mildly when I’ve gone to bed early on Sunday.  It is a lesson learned with great pain over the years – training somewhat like a dog’s shock collar.  The sting of stepping out of necessary sleep forces me at some point to cringe in agony and remember the protective boundaries of restedness.  Lack of sleep is often a factor when I find myself in a mental hole, the dark place where one might retreat when worn, worried, wiped out.  It is not a happy place nor is it compelling for long-term habitation.  A hole opens for many people from things like illness, heartbreak, addiction, abuse, exhaustion, confusion, stress, loneliness, delusion. I see connection between hole and a potential synonym, depression.

 

The noun hole is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  an opening through something; gap
2.  a hollow place in a solid body or mass; a cavity
3.  the excavated habitation of an animal; burrow
4.  a small, dingy or shabby place
5.  a place of solitary confinement; dungeon
6.  an embarrassing position or predicament
7.  a cover or small harbor
8.  a fault or flaw
9.  a deep, still place in a stream

 

An important thing about the hole is to know when I am in it.  That I can get out.  I may need help.  And I most likely have fallen prey to unhelpful habits.  It’s a habit, crawling into the hollow place where we have forgotten our connection to our Source.  The bad habit of believing that we are not enough is fortified as we humans live hearing society’s mistaken stories of how things “should be” and how we have fallen short.

As life’s sticks and stones find their way to our hearts they bring weight, heaviness that drops us to our knees.  Curled up in a small, shabby mental space we might feel safer in darkness even though it hurts there in a constant, predictable way.  Maybe the hole happens because only in total darkness can I see clearly the path toward light?  As such, the hole might be a teacher.

Animals often go into a burrow or seek darkness to have babies.  Only from a grave can someone rise from the dead.  Life comes out of darkness all the time – every birth, every spring, every lighting of a candle.  The deal is not to stay in the dungeon.  We suffer there when we are hiding and it doesn’t end until we reconcile.  A little wallowing might be necessary sometimes just as a seed goes deep in the dirt to find its purpose (which is, of course, to grow toward the light).  Creeping into the hole is not necessarily a bad thing - choosing never to come out is. 

In self-watching, we learn what revitalizes us – sleep, exercise, meditation, support groups, therapy, friends, prayer, yoga.  It generally involves time and practice and patience.     

I can recognize when I find myself in a hole, accept what is, and find the desire to rise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perspective

My daughter’s school hosts VIP day, previously Grandparents’ Day renamed to include a wider range of Very Important People.  No previous generation folk of our clan were available, so my daughter invited me.  Upon arrival I received a card she wrote.  It stated she was glad I attended and, “Now we can finally spend some time together.”  This sentence took me by surprise because, as far as I can tell, we spend A LOT of time together.  Being that she is only in 2^nd grade and I have spent the last thirteen years primarily in the occupation of homemaking and child rearing I thought I was around pretty much most all the time.  I was immediately struck by the pertinence of her perspective.

Three entries from dictionary.com define perspective for my thoughts today.  I am not writing about art or dimensional drawing.
1.  the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one, etc. in having a meaningful interrelationship
2.  the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship
3.  a mental view of prospect

Perspective is how things look from one’s point of seeing.  My young daughter perhaps sees that her time with me is often shared because she is the third child and we regularly travel as a pack.  I see that the majority of my time is spent with kids in general.  I see that including her in cooking and baking or grocery shopping helps us find time together and get essential tasks done.  She might see that as work, not quality time.  What the deal is with our different perspective regarding reading together at bedtime or watching a movie, just the two of us, I don’t know.

That’s really what is on my mind right now.  I don’t, can’t, will never really know her perspective because I am not her.  She is not me.  We are not each other.  People can certainly endeavor to be respectful of other’s mental view of things and to try to see our own perspective as one of the options, but we all walk in our own shoes. 

Perspective was on my mind this morning as I chaperoned a school trip to see a play about Harriet Tubman and The Underground Railroad.  Beautiful seven-year-old faces stared toward the stage, some white and some brown, some rapt and some dozy.  I chatted with a few kids on the bus ride before the show.  Two were incredulous people had ever been slaves, as if it was news to them.  That made me smile, not because I think they should be ignorant of history, but because they thought the whole idea stupid.  One girl remarked, “Those people must have been crazy because everybody should treat everybody the same nice way.”  Blue, brown, green, and in-between eyes all watched together the staged story woven of injustice and bravery.  I wondered how it looked through each set of eyes.        

I welcome differing perspective so that I learn many ways of seeing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

History

A narrated tour, meanderings along the river, pamphlets, and my restaurant placemat educated me Sunday in Savannah, GA.  The oldest city in Georgia was established in 1733.  James Oglethorpe (a leading London social reformer) envisioned a colony between English South Carolina and Spanish Florida as a place to resettle Britain’s poor - especially those in debtors’ prison whom he saw as tragically mistreated.  Oglethorpe’s initial Colony Charter prohibited four things:  slavery, lawyers, Catholics, and hard liquor.  The king, keen on keeping Catholic Spain away from South Carolina, thought a new colony in betwixt would be an excellent buffer.  As history of the city deposited bits into my knowledge bank curiosity grew.       

History is defined as a noun at dictionary.com.
1.  The branch of knowledge dealing with past events.
2.  A continuous systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc.
3.  The aggregate of past events.
4.  The record of past events and times, especially in connection with the human race.
5.  A past notable for its important, unusual, or interesting events.

Regrettably, I didn’t pay enough attention to history as a subject in school.  Now I find it fascinating.  I feel fervently curious about people of passed times because their stories, like ours, are the threads that weave together the tapestry of the tale.  Just as presently, there was hope and heartbreak, pride and passion, greed and good in government leaders, wealthy people increasing wealth off the backs of the impoverished and wealthy people building schools and opportunities for improvement, murder and marriage, individuals working for personal good and individuals spending their lives working for the good of many, birth and death, despair and celebration.

Pirates and paupers, natives and newcomers, slaves and spinsters, artists and artisans, indentured servants and intrepid explorers are present in the history of Savannah.  As I descended steep cobblestone paths leading from the high bluffs of Bay Street down to River Street I realized the rocks beneath me traveled across the Atlantic Ocean as ballast stones in ships craving goods from American colonies.  Stones out, cotton in - what to do with the rocks?  Pave the streets and shore up the wharf.

As my ankles worked not to turn on the uneven surface, I thought of bare feet plodding though that port against their will.  Throughout the day, I thought of the numerous people who had knelt to pray in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on Lafayette Square, of folks who heard the first draft of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream Speech at the First African Baptist Church on Franklin Square, of the people whose homes were burned in fires that wiped out half the city in 1796 and 1820, of young boy-soldiers from all sides of different wars who marched and camped in Forsythe Park, of people like me who wander along city streets planned long ago and remaining in use today.

History teaches me to see people in the past and the present.

 

 

Gut

December was a gluttonous month.  Late nights, large portions of food, egg nog, and cookies were indulgences I embraced.  As January progresses, I return to more healthy sleep and food habits and my physical body rejoices!  No one made me over-consume for the holidays.  I celebrated whole-heartedly and rather enjoyed it.  I own responsibility, but if I had been more rooted in the moderation guidance of my gut, I think I would have felt much better come New Year’s Day.       

 

Gut is defined as a noun, a verb, and an adjective at dictionary.com.
As a noun gut means:
     1. the bowels or entrails
     2. courage and fortitude; nerve; determination; stamina
     3. the inner working parts of a machine or device
     4. the belly; stomach; abdomen
As an adjective, gut means:
     1. basic or essential
     2. based on instincts or emotions

 

Much fascinating current research is being conducted and published on the importance of the internal, intestinal milieu in our overall health.  Amazing, awesome stuff!  I suspect we knew somehow innately, even before science supported the feeling, that our gut is important.  Being out of balance physically often manifests itself there.  When we are stressed we frequently know it in our digestive system.  When we are dishonest, in love, or afraid we have physical feelings in our stomach.  Even the dictionary shows gut as physical and non-physical.

 

When one’s gut is malfunctioning who can think about anything else?  Inner workings will supersede all other thoughts and actions until resolved.  Maybe that’s why fasting, in various forms, is part of many religious and spiritual practices.  Restrict food and you will be drawn into your gut to listen and feel in a difficult to ignore way.  If we clear away that which binds, blinds, and blocks we make room for new choices and clearer sight.

 

Culturally, I think we are not trained to listen to our gut, in a physical nor an intuitive way.  Do we think about how food makes our gut feel?  Making life decisions by looking inward, asking ourselves how various options make us feel, what our instincts reveal seems not to be encouraged.  Perhaps we have lost touch with our bellies!

 

Let me be first to say it can be hard to love one’s belly bombarded with images of what a belly should look like on the outside – both male and female – young, six pack abs, flat abdomen, smooth and hairless.  If you have any of those attributes, fabulous!  But the soft, mid-forties, slightly poochy perching place for a bellybutton on my body is not from a magazine.  Can I love it anyway?  Yes.  Maybe.  I’m trying.  I do know the instincts residing there are essential to my happiness.  Fluffy or flat, the inner workings gut is a place to find and feel intuitively and that may indeed lead to love of the outside. 

 

We know Truth, but we forget or loose the way in lack of practice retracing the path.  The gut is where our fire lives. 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindful

Do you know how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I have made?  Me neither, but I suspect it’s a mighty magnanimous figure considering my personal lifetime consumption and the number prepared for kids the last decade.  The quantity climbs as I crafted two more just moments ago.  As I layered creamed peanuts onto bread today I noticed a developed ritual in my approach.  With a method of minimal strokes I hope to make evenly distributed peanut butter without tearing the bread.  A blob in the middle with scarcity at the edges is, in my determination, an inferior eating experience.  It dawned on me that even something as simple and routine as making this food can be a mindful experience.

 

Mindful is defined at dictionary.com as attentive, aware, or careful.

 

I enjoy reading texts of philosophy, health, spirituality and psychology.  The mind, body and spirit fascinate me!  So many words and wisdom arranged differently and from diverse authors come to a similar message:  when we act with intention, keeping our attention in the present, we are more content. 

 

I realize peanut butter to bread is hardly the stuff of spiritual quest, but it brought my mind to a specific place as I mulled my routineness.  I tend to look for a grand or more important action as one into which I sink my soul like music, meditation, fasting.  Indeed, all those are wonderful!  I do believe practice of specific actions like yoga and meditation hones our skills and makes us aware of our mindful abilities so that they can carry over into every day.  But, those of us who have not chosen an ordained or monastic life spend MOST of our time on regular tasks, daily routines, ordinary stuff.  We have the call to bring mindful to our often mundane:  the commute to work, answering of emails, eating lunch, carrying out the trash, attending meetings, shopping for groceries.

 

Today as I made a sandwich I tried to really see what I was doing.  I loved kids as I cut off crust.  With smooth knife strokes I thanked George Washington Carver for the boon he provided to Southern farmers with peanuts as a crop and peanut butter as a product.  Settled at the computer I searched the history of peanut butter and appreciated the Incas in South America who first grew peanuts and smashed them into tasty paste.  I learned that Carver did not patent peanut butter because he believed all food products were gifts from God.  (I suspected peanut butter was holy.)  (http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpeanutbutter.htm)  

   

Seeing clearly is a result of being mindful.  In my admittedly conventional life I remind myself – as I wash dishes AGAIN, or pay monthly bills AGAIN, as I feel my tasks are a lesser undertaking compared to more lofty work.  Seeing clearly nourishes seeds planted in our inner sanctuary, a holy place, true and unchanging regardless of the ordained or ordinary task at hand.      

 

I want to be mindful, careful of my thoughts and actions.

Gift

Oh, blessed first Monday of 2014!  This day I DETERMINED to return to my blog after months of not making time.  Monday, despite its negative reputation, is often my favorite day.  It is the day I write (although the school year thwarted my plans in the last months of 2013 as I adjusted to three different school drop off times).  Monday sets my week in motion extending an open palm invitation.  Monday morning’s ambition-filled quiet often feels a gift to me.

Dictionary.com defines gift.
1. something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward 
someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present
2.  the act of giving
3. something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or 
without its being earned
4.  a special ability or capacity; natural endowment; talent

I do not have the entire day on my laurels.  As I sit to write at 8:30am I have already prepared and served breakfast, packed lunches, ferried kids to school and started a load of laundry. I do not suggest a life without work, but one in which an hour of space to sit and be still resides.  There have been times when I felt guilty for stopping my household hurry to sit and write on Monday morning.  Knowing how much exists to be done I sometimes notice an internal voice that tries to tell me I am greedy to take time.  As is often the case with an unkind voice from inside, this is a tape of ideas rooted in undervaluing oneself.  I suspect we all must be wary of that mean voice in our heads.

 

Accepting quiet space to read, nap, write, enjoy music, or meditate is nothing to beat ourselves up about.  We are created to lovingly receive the blessings that arrive into our lives and appreciate them.  Certainly we are not to hoard nor allow ourselves to take so much that our lives become out of balance, but neither should we feel guilty to receive and enjoy something bestowed upon us.  Today, I will also have a hot shower and three meals.  Instead of feeling guilty for not living in poverty or lacking in opportunities, I suggest we feel grateful for abundance.  Deeply, expressively grateful. Not superior but super appreciative in our words and deeds, hearts open and lifted in endless thankfulness.       

 

Having just celebrated holidays of giving and receiving, newly acquired things likely exist in our lives.  The way in which we embrace physical gift exchange is a learning opportunity.  Accepting a gift sometimes feels uneasy especially if you received a present and didn’t have one to offer in return.  Is it possible to simply, graciously feel thankful without guilt?  If we are the giver in the scenario can our gift be voluntarily given without expected recompense?  Can we give to and accept from ourselves and others without judgment? 

 

Accepting today gratefully as a gift is the way I want to start 2014. 

 

 

 

 

 

Habit

Monday Mornings don’t feel complete without time tapping away at my computer, screen-scribbling my thoughts in five hundred words or less.  This activity began as a tool for me to create repeatable behavior that would keep me writing on a regular basis. When longer projects are too lofty, wordsmithing finds a fun, first of the week outlet.  When time feels limited or the thought of “what to write about” is looming large I release to just one word and get started.  This blog was intended to form a habit of regular written expression.

The noun habit defined in several entries at dictionary.com.  I share the following six.
1.  an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary
2.  customary practice
3.  a particular practice, custom, or usage
4.  a dominant or regular disposition or tendency; prevailing character or quality
5.  addiction, especially to narcotics
6.  garb of a particular rank, profession, religious order, etc. such as a monk’s habit

I have the habit of eating breakfast.  I also have the habit of sighing audibly upon arriving in a living room littered with abandoned toys and books.  I have a habit of using food to fill empty spaces in my body that have nothing to do with my stomach or hunger.  I have the customary practice of arranging my clothing by color.  My behavior pattern includes brushing my teeth, regular trips to the library, daily vitamins and yoga. 

Humans are rightly apt to deem some behavior as a “good” or “bad” habit. Indeed habits can both benefit and harm us.  But even a noble custom, like a regular meditation practice, can become a problem if I choose to meditate during the time I have committed to pick my children up from school.  A glass of wine may be just the perfect thing to round out a meal but it can also become an addiction. 

Life is an opportunity for us to watch ourselves, to choose our habits and to let them go as we see necessary.  Habits shape our days.  Addiction and excessive aversion come to the human being so easily.  Only in wearing the habit of a self-watcher can we intentionally form and free ourselves from acquired behavior.  We can choose our customary practices and decide our actions.  We must look at ourselves with love and guide ourselves gently, starting whatever small changes we can muster in making habits that bring us joy, health, and balance. 

 

We are what we repeatedly do. 
Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. 
                                        - Aristotle

 

Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habit.
Watch your habits, they become character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
                                        - Lao Tzu

 

 

 

 

Mug

Few things offers simple, satisfying comfort like a warm mug of __________ (fill in the blank with whatever comes to mind).   Coffee.  Soup.  Cider.  Mulled wine.  Green tea.  Chili.  This morning for me it is black coffee, decaf for the good of my nervous system and the world at large as caffeine, unless in dire fatigue circumstances, makes me unpleasant to myself and others.  Insert memories of my inside head voice saying, “stop talking, stop talking, just stop,” and my inside body voice responding, “Can’t.”  Really, caffeine in my body is ruthless, unlike the merciful mug which proffers plainly a two-palm-sized gift to ourselves each time we fill it.  On this August morning I don’t think I have ever enjoyed an ebony swig more.  I am alone in the house early on Monday for the first time since May.  I raise my mug today to toast the first day of school.

 

Mug is a noun defined at dictionary.com as a drinking cup, usually cylindrical in shape, having a handle, and often of a heavy substance, as earthenware.  Also there is a slang noun form meaning the face or the mouth.

 

Many of my mugs are from garage sales and used stuff stores.  I feel an exquisite, thrifty thrill when my mug budget of fifty cents reaps some ceramic cast off that fits my fingers just fine as I wrap them through the handle and around the body of the cup.  Never mind the plates and spoons, a unique mug makes me swoon!  Seems silly, I admit, but it is a simple joy that keeps me from sorrow at the times I inevitably drop a mug or absentmindedly smash one into the side of the sink.  The original twelve matching tea cups with saucers received as wedding gifts thusly are reduced now to four - dainty and lovely and just what a bride should choose but failing to satisfy the weighty warmth of a sturdier stein.  Indeed my tea cups have never crossed over into mug territory.  Fine for a lovely table, luncheon, or dessert tray but never hoping to hold chili with cheese nor fat, fluffy marshmallows swimming in Godiva hot chocolate.  Never.

 

Today takes its place in a long line of soggy days.  I don’t mind.  Serendipitously the term to describe today’s air is muggy!  Quiet is all the more compelling in such weather, damp from recent rain and still with anticipation of more predicted thunderous precipitation.  More captivating also is my mug.  Mine alone for the first morning in months.  Silence.  Sipping.  Sitting in space that has been a bustle and acutely active for well-lived summer’s steamy stint but now slowed just for the moment.  The day holds much and will be busy in a matter of minutes, melding from languid linguistics to droves of to-do demands.  But in deep gratitude I find myself truly loving my matchless Monday mug.

 

 

Mommy Cup

mug resting in palms

sip light after offspring leave

what now can I hold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Content

 

Recently I lived a morning in the library sipping an unexpectedly delicious smoothie brimming with a bounty of fruit, veggies, and seeds.  The room was a sacrosanct silent.  The white-light air offered a blessedly cool repose from the swelter of July outdoors.  I sat solo with my laptop surrounded by words wound in lines hunkered between hard covers standing as an attentive guard.  I was content.

At dictionary.com I find content can be
1.  an adjective meaning satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else; mentally or emotionally satisfied with things as they are; willing to accept circumstances
2.  a noun meaning the state of feeling or being contented; satisfaction; peace of mind

I documented the moment in notes that sit on my desk today that indicate being so satisfied made me pause.  Granted, my library is magical.  It wins awards. It employs fairy godmothers of children’s literature that satisfy every topic wish.  It is a respite for writers seeking solitude like myself, city-dwelling homeless, and corporate board meeting planners alike.  We all appear to find peace of mind there, if our expressions are true.   But the library does not magically transport us away from our respective lives. 

I think I was surprised because nothing BIG was happening.  All was simple and everyday and wonderful and only planned to last an hour.  It is our natural state – peace of mind.  We arrive alive in it but then bury it in experiences.  Piling on of the past and furtive seeking of the future distract us from the one single present moment in which we can be content.  

Did I suggest our natural state is peace?  Yes.  Yes, I did. What about responsibilities and war and poverty and immorality and economic doom and deadlines and ethical governments and proper nutrition?  Is the idea of peace of mind, of being emotionally satisfied a ruse?  Right THIS moment I can only remember it as a feeling from that day because my monkey mind is swinging from thought tree to tree with this day’s duties plus the two interruptions per minute from life in my house!   

But I know moments of not wanting.  I can shut my eyes, look inward and appreciate on the inner level I have been there.  Being content is a practice, an intention, a habit. Being content does not distract from motivation or work or getting things done or improving one’s situation or allowing ourselves at times appropriate dissatisfaction.

I’ve struggled with giving myself permission to feel content. My mind wrestles with feeling that I do not deserve or am not good enough yet or that admitting contentment belittles life’s real difficulties.  Instead, we might all give ourselves consent to be content in little sacred moments that just may lead to longer ones.

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don’t compare or compete, everybody
will respect you. 
                                                - Lao Tzu 

Be content to seem what you really are. 
                                                - Marcus Aurelius

 

 

 

Work

Why should we keep our bodies and minds healthy and in balance?  So we can do our work.

 

I predict a widening of eyes at my assertion.  Reaction, perhaps, to the narrow meaning we attach to work.  Work may be finding a job, performing its requirements (happy about it or not), collecting your pay.  Work, indeed, might include this employment activity but is much more. 

Work, as a noun, is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  Exertion or effort to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil
2.  Something on which exertion or labor is expended; a task or undertaking
3.  Productive or operative activity
4.  Employment, as in some form of industry, especially as a means of earning one’s livelihood

Work’s dictionary definition says some of what I am thinking about.  It does not though touch on how we decide what our task or undertaking should be.  In yogic philosophy, meaningful work is guided by dharma.  Dharma is woven with threads of one’s own unique qualities, duty, vocation, morally upright behavior, the unique qualities of the universe.  Dharma is rooted in Truth.  One’s life purpose, of which our exertion to accomplish something is part, is ours to consider. 

Work evolves through ages and stages of life.  A baby’s work.  A monk’s work.  A parent’s work.  A housekeeper’s work.  An inventor’s work.  A chef’s work.  A doctor’s work.  A poet’s work.  An accountant’s work.  Productive activity abounds!  We might assume several roles at once.  There are tasks, sometimes seemingly menial like laundry or paperwork or budgets, we complete under the umbrella of our work that may not seem replete with deep meaning.  We might endure a so-so job as a stepping stone to something better or a means to afford different use of time otherwise.

Our dharma is active, energetic, and a source of happiness.  If we do NOTHING our Self knows.  Stillness is not necessarily doing nothing nor is constant toil always accomplishing something.  Internal stillness might look like relentless activity on the outside.  No one can say sitting still is inappropriate or that twelve hour workdays are inherently wrong either.  Every person’s work is different, theirs to determine and execute by looking inward daily. Self-study and quiet are essential to discover our work.

Work relates to our inherent value and our connectedness to one another.  Our Truth is unchanging, constant, eternal, and loving and does not modify to suit desires, aversions, prior conditioning or social pressure.  Meaningful activity helps us see our value.

I realize that higher levels of thought are easier when basic needs are met and that generally needs money.  Yet, I believe we can remember our dharma and follow it in work.  We might merely ask, “What is my work, and what tasks does it offer me today?” 

 

                                Nothing will work unless you do.
                                                                - Maya Angelou

                                Far and away the best prize that life
                                has to offer is the chance to work hard
                                at work worth doing.
                                                                - Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

 

Interdependence

My Fourth of July festivities as a kid occurred as a military musician’s daughter.  In my fond recollections they were a picnic, patriotic music and a laser show culminating with my dad directing the firing of canons for the 1812 Overture and a fireworks show.  The salty, sweat-scented memories are watermelon red, gun smoke white and uniform blue.  I was proud.  Of my dad.  Of my country. The Independence of America was imbedded with family celebration that included the community around us: friends and strangers, living and dead.  Together, all these people made my experience great.

Interdependence, a noun, is defined at dictionary.com as the quality or condition of being interdependent, or mutually reliant on each other.

The people who created the July 4^th event were connected from 1776 to present day.  In the 20^th century we sang along with the show, “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.  And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me. I’ll gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.”  Interdependence did not historically or presently detract from freedom.  Instead, I think it enriched/enriches it.  America’s forefathers fought so that we might have a more perfect union knowing independence is not free nor easily won but intended to allow a better life for the collective citizens of the new nation they envisioned and its posterity.

Interdependence is rooted in the truth of our human connectedness, the real and ever-present certainty that we thrive when we work, celebrate, mourn and rejoice together.  This requires that each individual bring to the table the best they have to offer, whatever it may be – the more varied the better! Independence should not be greedy, lazy, hateful nor narrow-minded, but passionate, purposeful and compassionate.

This connection of self to others in no way diminishes individuals nor undermines independence.  It acknowledges that many hands make light work or a band of skilled hunters often bring back more food than a lone huntsman or a circle of quilters make a warm bed faster than someone stitching solo or educating one person benefits all they contact and a single person’s prayers can produce change.   

To say a person should never endeavor alone is too extreme, the greatness of individual generals, single inventers, stunning orators, courageous writers bears merit.  But, in order for one to rise, there must be multitudes that bear arms under direction, accept new ideas, lend their ears, collect their voices to sing and shout.  We all count.  We all matter.  We all have duty to ourselves and to each other as independent but social creatures - people in a state of beneficial interdependence.

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. 
                                                                                - Thich Nhat Hanh

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness
of the interdependence of all theses living beings which are all
part of one another and all involved in one another.
                                                                                - Thomas Merton

 

 

 

Flexible

Occasionally when folks discover I teach yoga they state, “I’d love to try yoga, but I am not flexible.”  I assert that my gentle yoga classes do not require flexibility and can increase it over time.  Bridled with fear of how far away they perceive their toes to be, some seem to believe being flexible is a thing one is born with or not.  

 

Flexible (adjective) is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  capable of being bent, usually without breaking; easily bent
2.  susceptive of modification or adaptation; adaptable
3.  willing or disposed to yield; pliable

I get it, really.  I myself do not possess copious in-born elasticity.  Pictures of pretzel poses performed in second skin outfits can scare us away from our bodies. My history does not include personal fitness, sports or being a dancer or gymnast.  Yoga arrived first in spiritual devotion (bhakti yoga) and knowledge seeking (jnana yoga).  Still searching, I began to practice yoga postures in a class where, over time, I connected all the stuff in my head and my heart to my body.   As a dedicated couch potato it had never dawned on me that I could find joy - yes, joy - in physical training. 

 

What a revelation! Acknowledging all bodies, just like personalities, are different and a wide range of natural available movement exists from one person to another, as embodied beings (like all humans, we have a body) moving, stretching and strengthening increases wellbeing.  I lapped this up like a cat at a saucer of cream.

 

My hamstrings and heartstrings cooperate in tandem because I tend them, coax them kindly, and deliver to them challenge and rest.  All yoga poses may not be available to every body.  So what?  While we are embodied, we are NOT merely our bodies and certainly not the bodies of others.  Being flexible is much more than arching into a backbend.  Yet, let me be clear in my expression, increasing physical flexibility helps us learn about mental flexibility in our daily living.  How important is it to be capable of being bent, without breaking, as we control our reactions to life’s circumstances or other people’s actions? How beneficial is it to our relationships to be disposed to yield in shared spaces, not as pushovers but as strong, adaptable selves?  Over time, bending toward our toes or leaning our bodies deeply right and left gives us physical manifestations of effort that can create habits we take into everyday living.

 

Being flexible feels like something we want, it’s the “over time” part that gives pause. We deceive ourselves if we wait for flexibility to preclude effort in our bodies or our minds.  We become pliable through intention to be so and we rob ourselves if we reason being flexible physically or emotionally does not require practice.  

 

 

                                                A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind.
                                                                                                          - Lao Tzu

Be ready, be flexible, be poised to respond
when the time is right.
                                                         - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer