Love is…
I briefly went out this morning to mail my absentee ballot for the DC primary election. While I was out, I wrote a thank you note for those who deliver the limited things I have ordered.

I briefly went out this morning to mail my absentee ballot for the DC primary election. While I was out, I wrote a thank you note for those who deliver the limited things I have ordered.


Mark Dion, “The Field Station of the Melancholy Field Biologist, Storm King Art Center
The problem with trying to run away to make things better is that we still bring ourselves with us. We don’t have the luxury of hitting the “reset” button after we’ve done things that we wish we had not done.
Yoga and meditation practice can help give us a sense, though, of being reset by giving us more and radical acceptance and compassion and the ability to simply marvel at the very intricacies of the dance. From there, we can release what binds from our history and continue on, knowing that it is a choice to respond in the same way as we have in the past when the old patterns confront us again (which they inevitably will).
My walk in the neighborhood led me to Eastern Market this morning although I was not looking for anything in particular. A small group of people were standing at the four corners of 7th and C Streets Southeast, standing vigil for the children in Gaza and asking for ceasefire.
I asked if I might join them and they offered me a sign. The demonstrator next to whom I was standing was most curious about what led me to be supportive of Palestine and we mostly talked about Quakers and Quaker emphasis on peaceful and fair solutions.
How could I not, in this small way, not add my voice and add my physical presence when I imagine how much more brave to be speaking out and how much more painful for those with friends and family and familiar places under siege.

It was already hot when I went out into the garden after I sat for meditation. I try only to water every third day it does not rain and have used soil supplements such as “soil moist” to make that possible, but it was critical that I water so that the plants survive today’s blazing heat.
Before I went out, while listening to the weather forecast, I drank my second glass of filtered tap water. I thought how lucky I am to have fresh drinking water from the tap, shelter from the heat, ice if I want it, and water for the garden. All those warnings to stay inside, keep cool, and drink plenty of liquids are meaningless unless one has access to those things.
I am grateful, too, for my practice. I know that a slow, quiet practice helps keep me cool and rested, and that I can get extra enjoyment from the way the heat warms my muscles without any effort at all on my part. In the heat, stillness is so welcome that sitting is as sweet an activity as I could know.