Percy Wakes Me -Mary Oliver

Percy wakes me and I am not ready.
He has slept all night under the covers.
Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.
So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter
Where he is not supposed to be.
How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you
Needed me,
To wake me.
He thought he would a lecture and deeply
His eyes begin to shine.
He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.
He squirms and squeals: he has done something
That he needed
And now he hears that it is okay.
I scratch his ears. I turn him over
And touch him everywhere. He is
Wild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then
He has breakfast, and he is happy.
This is a poem about Percy.
This is a poem about more than Percy.
Think about it.”

― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Big mind

When you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm.  This is called Big Mind.  -- Suzuki Roshi

Leave your mind as it is and open your awareness to the world around you.  When was the last time you really tasted your food, or really heard the birds sing?  Do you really listen to the rain?  Do you really listen to your family, your friends?  Meditation is not just us alone on a cushion.  Meditation is us in a world of interconnection; us opening fully to the world as it is.  Our minds become calm enough to allow us to participate in the world around us.  We are happier when we feel connected to the world around us.  You are more than your to-do list.

Gratitude

When we're busy we become a small self: a small, doing self.  It takes doing to keep tight.

When we slow down and get quiet we expand and become a big Self.  When we are expansive gratitude just flows.

It takes doing to keep tight.  Gratitude is not doing, gratitude is a relative of Being, or Presence.

Live from a big, gracious space in your being.  Let your awareness expand to include the world around you.  Your awareness can reach to the snow on the Cascades and the water in Puget Sound.

What are you grateful for?

Positive emotions breed more positive emotions.  Positive emotions, like gratitude, lead to healthier bodies and healthier relationships.

Then intention with the sequencing on Thanksgiving Day was to ground us and root us in gratitude and what is actually most important to us.  To slow down the busy-ness and feel gratitude just flow.  To let the doing self just rest and the expansive Self breathe.

Tilicho Lake-- David Whyte

Tilicho Lake

In this high place
it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.
Step toward the cold surface,
say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished
there, in the cold light
reflecting pure snow
the true shape of your own face.

David Whyte

Two poems about pleasure and happiness

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
       love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

TRIPPING OVER JOY

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.”

― Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

Busy-ness

"Busy-ness less" -- Thich nat han

It's natural to protect ourselves; if we open up we don't know if we'll be accepted by the other person.  One of our ways of protecting ourselves is by staying very, very busy.  We don't hold still because it's dangerous.  When we create space and stillness that's vulnerability.  When we step out of scheduled time, when we stop doing so much, then we get in touch with what we've been running from.

In the Tibetan tradition there's a teaching that "busy-ness is the ultimate form of laziness."  It's easier to stay busy than to stop doing and be with oneself.  We speed around, doing doing doing, on our way somewhere else.  It's really an avoidance tactic.  It keeps us from the places that most need attention.  It keeps us from the places that are tender.  It keeps us from the places that are creative.

When time is structured we leave ourselves; we become this small, doing self.  We need unstructured time to dream.  We need space to let the journey and adventure happen.  Children without unstructured time don't develop in a healthy way.

-- ideas from Tara Brach's podcast

"You are more than your plans for the day"

Invest your energy down and in.  Forward bends, child's pose, restorative poses.  Busy-ness feels like energy moving up and out.  Instead, invest your prana down and in.  -- idea from Karen Sprute-Frankovich

When I rise,

let me rise joyful

like a bird.

When I fall,

let me fall without regret

like a leaf.

-- Wendell Berry

Thoughts on transitions

Transition times are governed by air and space elements: vata, in ayurveda.

We tend to feel scattered in transition times: we get busy, we snack mindlessly, we check our phones.

Learn to be present during transition times.  Be present and go slow as you transition between asanas.

Transition times can be ungrounding or give high creativity.

In general, vata (and transitions) are soothed by: warmth, oil, closeness and pressure.

For example, if you are in transition in your life, if the seasons are in transition, if it is a transition time in your day-- such as from sleep to waking, from work to home, from dinnertime to sleep-- you could:

cover yourself in a blanket, wear a scarf around your neck, rub your feet/legs with lotion or oil, have a bowl of soup, drink some herbal tea, hold your child close, be close to your pet, light a candle, practice a restorative yoga pose....

Make sure nutrition is adequate at transition times so that you don't snack mindlessly on unhealthy things.

Be aware of transitional spaces and moments.  Have a transition space in your home where you can leave your things, take your shoes off, put on some slippers.  It is nice to just sit down during transitional moments instead of getting busy with menial tasks.  One yoga teacher I know sits on the couch with her husband each day as soon as they finish work.  They sit there together during the transition to their evening: closeness, warmth-- vata is soothed, the transition is smooth.

Be aware of and have rituals at transition times: for example, songs help children make transitions.  Changing of clothes, washing, sitting quietly, etc.  Because transition times tend to be ungrounding, a ritual changes the energy and grounds it.

During transition times in life it is very useful to practice restorative yoga.  Practice a restorative pose at least once during your day.

Upon waking in the morning it is very soothing to have an hour or so of quiet practice.  It is ungrounding to wake up and get busy with email, chores, etc.  Let the transition from sleep to your day be slow, quiet, and soothing.  You could meditate, take a walk outside, practice some gentle yoga, read a book, sit with your children at the breakfast table, etc.