They Grow Yet Closer Together
No matter what happens this week, there will be those who attribute it to the relative alignment of the planets and the stars.
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Whether It Feels Too Soon or Not (Day Light Savings Time Is Arriving)
It still does not seem right to have daylight savings time start before the equinox. I remember it used to be the first night I cooked outside. Now it is always too cool and not quite light enough, and my morning meditation goes back to finishing before it is light. Whether it matches with the weather or my mood, though, it is here this weekend. I’ve had a much more intense work week than usual, which is resulting only partly from having been out of town for the previous week. The coming weekend promises to be very full (assuming all goes as anticipated) with teaching my own class and studying with Ross Rayburn up at Willow Street both Saturday and Sunday, trying to go out to see some friends dance Saturday night, going to the contact improv jam on Sunday, and then having dinner with neighbors.
To try and not get too off cycle by getting a socially induced equivalent of jet lag, I am starting to get ready for bed an hour early tonight and planning to get to the office before 8 tomorrow morning. Try doing the same things you would do if changing time zones. Get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, keep down the caffeine intake and if you really want to have caffeine, make sure you stop drinking it earlier in the day than usual; have any protein in the morning and then dine lightly on grains and vegetables in the late afternoon or early evening. Don’t eat anything heavy at night. That way you will have energy when you wake up too early and be sleepy when it is time to go to bed way before you think it is.
And most important, use the change in time as an opportunity to celebrate the respective joys of shadow and light by having extra attention brought to them whether you will it or not. It is always exciting the first night, particularly if it is warmish and bright as is in the forecast, that it stays light unnaturally late.
Darshan or Puja?
The other day I was telling one of my regulars that I’d described the group house practice as starting with receiving darshan — receiving sacred knowledge, sitting in the presence of the divine embodied in a great being — from Uma and Sully, who wait downstairs for the students to arrive and expect a petting before everyone goes upstairs to practice.
” Is it darshan or puja [performance of ritual worship]?” my student asked. The two are intertwined. We naturally offer our gratitude and worship for those in whom we recognize the divine and from whom we learn to know the sacred.
What would our lives be like if we treated all our encounters and relationships as both darshan and puja, if we came to each person and being open to receiving a glimpse of the divine and the knowledge the divine imparts and approached each encounter as an opportunity to make puja, to formally act with reverence? The cats certainly expect it.
Some Wild Light
I interrupted a work conversation with a colleague for us to watch the light and have a moment of awe.
