It seems timely for a new category to emerge (they manifest more than I create them intentionally) just as things are about to be soaked and spun about and tossed around. Be safe wherever you are and don’t forget to vote.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I am delighted to be going on a short trip to a warm place (Tucson) to do nothing but yoga and visit with friends and acquaintances.
My work life is such for the next several months that I cannot take a long vacation. I can find a few days here and there, though, and it is critical to my working well. I find if I work with too much effort or for too many hours or days in a row, I lose my sense of humor and my creativity. These are truly essential components of doing a good job.
If you cannot get away for a day or two or five, take five minutes to just breathe without following your thoughts. It is not a vacation. It is meditation. It will not serve in the way of a vacation, but it will provide a needed break from attachment (perhaps to the point of misalignment) with the mindstuff (citta) and will enable you to continue with your efforts more at peace with both the efforts and yourself.
The light is growing stronger as we approach the Equinox.
As I was walking to work and passing through the park on the north side of the Capitol, I saw this young woman first doing pranayama and then settling into meditation.
I do not know whether this is her neighborhood or where she works or whether she is in town as a tourist or to petition her elected officials. What I do know is that whether this is home or a new and different place and whether she was pausing before play or work, her reactions to all around her will likely be deeper, steadier, and brighter for having paused to meditate.
If you have not yet sat for meditation today or otherwise practiced in a way that brought you to the center and essence of your being, I invite you to start or renew your practice today. You might not have a half hour or an hour, but no matter how busy you are, you have 10 minutes.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
We hear the stories of a the tragedy unfolding in Japan, and our hearts cannot help but cry out. This is a wonderful aspect of humanity. A friend sent me an insightful article from Caroline Myss in which she very articulately lets all her readers know why we need to work to ensure that we do not have nuclear weapons (and, I would add, new nuclear power) with which I wholeheartedly agree.
The unfolding tragedy also drives home for me how important it is that we speak out against the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and on the verge in Libya and for sustainable environmental policies. On the 11th of March, I wrote this in my journal: “Mother Nature is wild and fierce no matter how much control we try to exert. I pray that a nuclear disaster does not follow. U.S. military is working with [later note: I think that was just an offer] the Japanese to share experience and skill to get in back up power to bring water in to cool the reactors. Peaceful military work, I am behind. Some fearful reflection of Hiroshima.”
My question is this: why are we sending money to those living in the third largest economy in the world (Japan’s own citizens are reportedly wondering why their government is not doing more to help–sort of how people like us wondered and may still be wondering about the lack of assistance from the government of our wealthy country after Katrina)? We are denying money on a societal level to help those in the poorest countries or perhaps are not making offerings on an individual level (or not speaking to our elected officials about such topsy-turvy, anti-compassion policies?) Why do we send our hearts and prayers to those suffering from a sudden natural disaster, but forget to do so for the tens of thousands and their families our own country has killed or wounded? Why do we spend or allow to be spent in our name billions on killing, but let it be determined that we do not have millions on aid for the suffering or for enhancing life through the arts, education, taking care of our cities, our parks, the natural beauty around us?
I, like all of you, am filled with a sense of horror and loss and love and compassion and an impulse to help. How I am choosing to use the energy of my upsurge in awareness of suffering from the unfolding disaster is to give more than I usually give to organizations that work to heal the environment and to prevent new damage by virtue of the current political policies, to seek the end of war, and to give humanitarian aid to the poorest of the poor who are dying and suffering every day at home and around the world in numbers far exceeding the sudden loss in Japan, and to support the increase in light through the arts and education and parks.
What do you think is the best way you can transmute the natural compassion you have been feeling from reading the news of Japan into making the world a better place?
On the way home, it being twilight because I’d stayed talking about the state of our country and what William Penn House can do to support action and resistance, I was fortunate to see bats swooping for mosquitoes. In practice, we contemplated dharma and integrity.
