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Early Morning Rain

This morning I stayed in bed after the alarm sounded and listened to the rain.  It was peaceful and pleasant, but it was not meditation.

Listening to the rain made me extra glad to have spent so much of the weekend in the garden.  The new plants are drinking up the fresh water and will almost soar when the warm sun returns at the end of the week.

Thinking about how the garden will flourish because I laid the ground to enable it to get the best of the rain and the sun inspired me to get up and take my meditation seat, even though I was late.  It is practicing consistently that lays the ground for us to be ready to have the fullest, most joyous, and most optimal experience of ourselves, the world, and our spirit whatever comes and whenever it comes.

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    I saw this beautiful roll of chicken wire in the Enid Haupt garden when I was walking back to the office after a quick visit to see the Gods of Angkor exhibit at the Sackler Gallery (sorry about the absence of links; blogging from the BB).

    I was first introduced to the idea of “found poetry” in junior high school and have developed a life-long habit of photographing words to change, enhance, and/or question their meaning and hidden beauty by the act of extracting them from their original place and presenting them as a photograph. Marcel Duchamp and others did what poets and photographers were doing with words with ordinary objects by presenting them as sculpture.

    Here, where I have photographed the chicken wire roll, is the art a sculpture (because I could treat it as such) of which I have taken a photograph–the photograph being mere documentation? Is the art the photograph of what I have seen to the extent I am offering it as a vision and a dialogue generated by what I saw? Or is the photograph merely a snapshot taken with a hand-held computer device documenting an object that happened to be sitting there–not art at all? If it were not for artists such as Duchamp, could I or would I even be able to ask this question?

    I think that analogous types of questions have been and can be asked about the variety of religious and mystical experience. Is there a particular way they must be experienced? Do such experiences have to fit within a prescribed framework to be valid? When are such experiences madness or delusion and when are they the voice of the spirit? Who gets to decide? Does it depend on the era and the culture in which the experiencer lives? Does the answer to any of these questions matter if the experiences lead one to a more loving, compassionate, and beauty-filled life?

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    Steadiness of Silence

    During one of our sessions, one of my fellow students asked whether she was really seeking a life of renunciation because she sometimes really craved sitting quietly for meditation. For her, having first experienced meditation as an adult who has a rich and comfortable life, even the shortest time sitting with eyes closed looking only within felt like it might be a denial of the outer world.

    The practices Paul Muller-Ortega is teaching, and as he makes absolutely clear, are very much for the householder and are not the rarified path of a renunciate. Sitting in silence is a blissful and steady; it is going towards the inner world and not going away from the outer world.

    We do not have to renounce our lives to sit regularly in silence. We can frankly delight in the sweetness of inner light and stillness and honor our desire to do so (a true renunciate would have to renounce even that desire). Meditation as part of the daily life of a householder, is a bedrock of support so that we can be ever more fully engaged in our lives, no matter how noisy they can get sometimes.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Wheat Berries with Beet Greens, Garlic Chives, and Feta Cheese

    Pantry items, long storage organic cheese, greens from the garden.

    As I eat these simple, inexpensive, nutritious meals, I ask myself:

    How much do I need?

    What kind of economy do I want to support for when we can go out again?

    What kind of businesses, of food delivery systems, of community support and interaction?

    I have reorganized my budget–not having eaten out or bought anything in weeks and thinking about how little I miss it except as a treat, and having already come within range of this as these dark times have been progressing, I have now dedicated a full bi-weekly paycheck to monthly giving. I am blessed to still have a steady paycheck, health insurance, and the knowledge to live well on a budget.

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