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

 

                                               

Whoosh

A substantial amount of human energy seems spent lamenting what has passed, fretting over what may come, and tap dancing around what is at the present.  This chaotic choreography of life is brought into balance for me with yoga.  In yoga’s sequenced movement matched to controlled in and out breaths resides respite from the fast feel and weight of life’s momentum and magnitude.  Practice on my mat carries over to daily life allowing time to pass more mindfully, difficulties to be persevered in patience, work to be balanced with rest.  

Even amid attentive acceptance of time I am astounded that the month of May and the first part of June went by for me in an activity avalanche that feels like a bleary-eyed blink. Whoosh, it is summer.  Whoosh, 2013 is reaching its midpoint.  Whoosh, my first baby is as tall as I am.  Whoosh, breakfast blended to bedtime day after increasingly hot day.   

Whoosh defined as a noun means a sudden movement accompanied by a rushing sound.  Whoosh as a verb means to move or cause to move quickly or suddenly with a rushing sound.

Whoosh – a thing and an action, movement and sound, a feeling I recognize as adrenaline in my body every time Superman plants his feet, flexes his knees and shoots up into the sky.  With that sensation, I become aware of a two-sided sense of whoosh, one that makes me feel akin to a superhero: strong, reliable, and kicking butt.  The flip side feels like a kid at the start line of a race not sure where to stand so that when the gun goes off she’s left twirling like a tiny tornado as everyone else shoots off the starting block and sets to running.  Whoosh! 

When we feel lost with no sense of where to begin we might consider how to feel as superheroes, albeit likely lacking in otherworldly powers and steel flesh, and connect to our abilities.  We possess the ability to commit to our duties, love unconditionally, increase our personal integrity, make and manage our mistakes, find and direct our personal power, feel our way with facts and faith, to breathe. 

I work to accept that life’s whoosh won’t stop, but the whirling post-whoosh spin response can.  Reframing whoosh as an exultant exhale we might honor ourselves as regular folks getting super stuff done.  And on those days when we are left spinning, twisted like a top pinched in the fingers of unfettered circumstances, the whoosh can still be our breath as an amazing inhale filling us and drawing our attention inward where we start all activities in acknowledgment of ourselves as we are in each moment. We can only begin where we are, wherever that may be and with whatever way we arrived there.  Where we go – whoosh – is our daily work.  

                                    Suddenly

who o sh(e)

born as me

super light see

matter mindfully

breathe energy

simply to be

who o sh(e)

Reward

A sore shoulder declared my purse too heavy and mandated a pocketbook purge.  I dumped the handbag’s contents in a heap. The site of a bulging wallet among the miscellany was unexpected because it strained with effort against snaps ready to release their duty of holding two flaps of brown leather together.  I wondered, could there be cash I don’t know about? Alas, no, it was a collection of membership reward cards accumulated beyond capacity. 

 

Reward is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  a sum of money offered for the detection or capture of a criminal, the recovery of lost or stolen property, etc.
2.  something given in return or recompense for service, merit, hardship, etc.

 

I accept the marketing prowess behind reward cards.  I am not pointing a disapproving finger at having them.  I think a savvy shopper rightly reaps benefits from regular purchases, accumulating perks for products.  But I worry that reward may lessen the gratification of an item bought and further encourage us to be rampant consumers.  I myself read coupons at the bottom of a receipt which oblige I shop with my reward card and then maybe decide I require different hair products or a teeth whitening regimen or a double scoop sundae when just a moment before I had no inclination of need.  

I am not suggesting that shopping at a specific store because they reward us is wrong, but that we might consider if we are drawn to buy more than we might otherwise.  Mindlessly purchasing products only to save $2 or reach preferred customer status or get free fries might not benefit us.  Do I need a reward for everything I buy, every place I visit, every treat I eat?  Am I letting myself be trained like a puppy to perform certain tricks for a treat?  Without care, we might lose sight of our current actions with our eyes on a future prize instead.  Moving our attention from present actions to future recompense takes us away from the moment where we might find pleasure or joy in what is now. 

When I flipped through my cards, many were for stores I have not been in for ages.  Over time, I always answered affirmatively about accepting any and every reward membership.  They wanna give me something for being a customer?  Oh yeah!  Faced with the physical sight of having said yes to so many cards in hopes of the promise of reward surprised me because I had used my wallet daily without seeing.  The cards were not bearing the large part of excess weight of my purse, but trashing most of them so that my wallet was not pulling at the seams was the perfect start to the tossing of other, weightier junk that cluttered my purse. 

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
                                                - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Infinite striving to be his best is man’s duty; it is
its own reward.  Everything else is in God’s hands.
                                  - Mahatma Gandhi