It is hard to imagine even one day in a single year when we could lay down our country’s weapons. I am hoping that the upside of the rancorous budget battles will be an end to the United States’ current engagement in war (because in the worst of things, there is always cause for hope). Today is International Peace Day. What are your plans? Might you make it a theme for your practice or, if you teach, your classes? If you have the money, make a donation to an organization that works for peace? Call or write your elected officials or write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper on an issue important to you that impacts world peace (this would include budget issues, education, environment, infrastructure, disaster relief, and family planning, and not just involvement in war itself)?
I had lunch the other day with a friend whose life is suddenly brimming full with a variety of opportunities. Any one of them by itself would feel like a bounty. With multiple ones arising simultaneously, because they are not necessarily in perfect sequence with each other, making decisions seems like a conundrum rather than a blessing. Over a rather delightful lunch, my friend gave me many details of the various things that were going on, and the places where they seemed not to synchronize in a way that would allow her to have it all with ease. “Any words of wisdom?” she asked. When I was younger, I might have tried to make specific suggestions. Specific suggestions, though, are always colored by our own particular preferences, prejudices, and desires. Instead, I said, “In the style of yoga I practice, the first principle for starting every pose, which I find works for what I do off the mat as well, is to ‘open to grace.’
“Opening to grace means to soften, to listen, to open ourselves to the universal in which the details arise, to allow what is to be in the flow,” I added.
“Without getting into the details, the essence of the next alignment principle [muscular energy] is the application of proper boundaries. Even though we want to be soft and open, we still do not say ‘yes’ to everything. Although open to everything, we steady ourselves and use our knowledge to discriminate and find a good container for ourselves so that we can act with more light.”
“Ah,” my friend replied, “I’ve been trying to control everything without allowing things to unfold. What you are saying makes sense.”
My friend will find her own way, and I look forward to witnessing the great joys potentially unfolding for her. Any time she invites me to share some of the wisdom I’ve received from my teachers, it will be my delight to pass it on.
Someone has been walking around Capitol Hill with pink chalk and drawing circles with smiley faces inside. Impermanent graffiti made longer lasting by the drought. What is the message intended? How many people have noticed (at least one friend of mine has asked about this offering on Face Book)?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
