I’m finding reentry more challenging than I first thought. I thought it might be helpful to remind myself of my travels–and that I travel to come home with more capacity to participate as much and best I can. The Garden of Endurance was at the Madhuban retreat center where I spent most of the trip.
Snowdrops have been showing up for more than a week, but crocuses? They seem a little incongruous with the bitter winds and as much a reminder of global warming as of spring. I feel a bit confused seeing them, though delighted.
It has been a good winter. I have learned to appreciate the cold and dark, which gives us time to enjoy the pleasures of home and introspection. Now, I am looking forward to spring, the effusive colors, the warmth, the ability to get back out into the garden.
This time of year, with the radical contrasts of cold winds and flowers does highlight the play of opposites, the very pulsation of existence — in yoga terms, the spanda. This time in society seems to have a similar play of bitterness and sweetness. Staying steady with our yoga practice and our community, we can delight in what we see and what we have, even as we may be worried and working for change. That too, is part of the play (lila). To invite in a steady warmth and support from our practice and our community, even as we see difficulties and challenges, want things to be different, and know that our work may not necessarily bring about the change we seek.
January 6 is yet another day so historic it warrants reflection and impetus to action on every anniversary. (That might be resting, by the way, if you spend much of your temporal, energetic, and emotional resources in the efforts to make change and ward off evil.)
One of the yoga practices is exercising discrimination and acting with discernment (viveka) in response to changes in the world, the human collective, and ourselves. Discernment requires learning and admitting to the difficult truths and learning from experts and innovators.
Meditation, contemplation, reflection, and being present to oneself is all very nice, but without study and discriminative participation in the collective, it starts being more like spiritual bypassing than not.
What are your thoughts on this day? How does staying present to the reality of it make you feel? How are you balancing taking care of yourself and participating in shifting the narrative?
It seems somewhat fitting that DC has been crippled today by the first significant snow storm in quite some time.
After sitting for meditation and writing in my journal this morning, I went out in the garden in my slippers to see what opened after yesterday’s juicy rains. My journal-writing is feeling lonely because that was one of the times Becky (and Henrietta before her) and I always sat together. Once I was in the garden, though, my heart lightened. The beans and snow peas I planted a couple of weeks ago finally have started germinating. Some of the seedlings I planted on Saturday have already doubled in size. There are a few buds on the peppers that were not there Sunday and twice as many leaves on the basil. The clematis seems to be a foot taller; is that possible? (The okra still has not germinated; will it ever appear? I do not know, not having tried okra from seed in a container in my yard before.)
Though, as my sister said to me on Sunday, I will always miss Becky and Henrietta, I appreciate that my grieving is in the time of renewal, new life, and expanding light, and that I can spend the morning time that I used to devote to Becky and Henrietta nurturing the garden and myself in the process.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I left the house this morning around 7:30 to go up and teach my regular classes at Willow Street, Takoma Park. In the afternoon, I led a restorative workshop. It was delightful to be with two dozen yogis who decided the best way to spend the last Saturday in July was to take a mini-break from the heat and the bustle resting deeply and exploring inside. I felt wonderfully supported, having had amazing assistants, an excellent work-study helping at the desk and with clean-up afterward, and truly enthusiastic students. I could not have asked for more, especially given how long a day it was following an intense return to work immediately upon traveling back from the retreat with Paul Muller-Ortega all in the same week. After the workshop, I went out for an early dinner at Woodlands (Indian food) with a friend who had taken the workshop.
When I got home, feeling ready to do my own deep relaxation, I found tall ladders leading up to the roof. I had been warned by the project manager for the solar panel installation that I am having done that the roofer who was working on putting up the parapet structure to hold the frame might be here today. I hadn’t expected the roofer to be here at 7:30 pm, though. As long a week and day as I might have felt that I had, these guys, whom I am sure worked hard outside all week in the heat, were really having a long day.
