Tag: mindfulness

Savoring the moment.

.Reading time 5 minutes.

You are not meant to avoid the darkness. You are meant to go into it, feed it love, illuminate it and transform it into light.
Only love has the power to heal the darkness within you.
– Alyonna Parveen

I hesitate to describe my “new normal” anymore because it is, indeed, only mine. Each person these days is facing completely different circumstances and interprets these circumstances differently. We are united, I guess, in a certain exhaustion or frayed nerves due to emotional and political upheaval. Our coping skills, risk tolerance, and way of dealing with the circumstances we find ourselves in is very different based on age, economic reality, social reality, occupation (or lack of one), gender, race, and disposition. None of this is news to you. It is obvious, it is the day to day reality.

In a divided world, we are further divided.

So, I can only speak to what is helping me find meaning these days. I said to a dear friend earlier this week that I’m learning to “micro-appreciate” each moment. When I find myself off kilter, it is often because I’ve quit appreciating the gifts of each moment and have fixated on some pain, anxiety, irritant or hurt that has captured my mind’s focus.

Stopping in the moment and allowing my focus to shift to my breath, to any movement of the air, the temperature and the surface that is supporting me, calms and centers me. Savoring the light, the view outside the window or right in front of me, allowing love for simple beauty, small comforts, soothing sounds helps me travel to the place where I remember. I remember that I am okay, even blessed, in this moment, I am loved by my dear ones and by the Divine, I am connected to Mother Earth, to nature, to the universe and by this, I am held.

From this simple practice, I ask myself, “Is there anything I need in this moment?” Often, the answer is “no,” but sometimes I need food, rest, a shower, to take care of a task I’ve been avoiding, to tidy my space, or to reach out – to send a note or make a call. I carry the beauty and comfort of that moment into my next steps.

My life these days is lived within these simple parameters. Some days I feel I must “do something!” I feel the need to contribute light, love and hope to the ailing world. Generally, upon reflection, I recognize that this is not my time to “do” anything. I may drop some food at the food shelf, send a card or gift to a loved one, or contribute some money to a worthy cause…but for the most part, my job at this moment is to Be, not to “do.”

One day, probably nine or ten years ago, John and I were hiking and I had the sense of a very, very brief message from the universe. Essentially, the message that came to me then was, “It is time for you to be an observer.” I have resisted this “call” for years. Moving away from all that was familiar and doing so right before COVID-19 has brought me back to this message. My worth, my self-esteem has been so based on doing. I guess in some strange way, this difficult time has at last begun to teach me about being.

I will be ecstatic when I can hug my friends and family again. However, I doubt very much that I will ever go back to “normal.” I predict that our household will spend less time doing and more time being in the years to come. Time to stop and smell the proverbial roses – or in our case, cacti blooms.

Much love to you,
Karen

The “Other” Way Counts

.Reading time 4 minutes.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

                                   – Walt Whitman

The words of the poem, above, were printed on a poster that hung on my wall during high school. I think they were somehow emblazoned on my teenage soul, too, and have stayed with me.

I have so many friends and relatives who, in one way or another, deal with being “other” everywhere they go. They don’t quite fit. They don’t have a traditional career or any career. They are retired, but they don’t fit with the bridge group or the church circle. They are part of a spiritual tradition, but they don’t feel comfortable. They are not part of any spiritual tradition, but they know there is something more to life than what meets the eye, something deeper.

It isn’t a coincidence that my fellow sangha member, family members, classmates, acquaintances, and neighbors fall in this category. So do I. My life has been a richly woven tapestry – its patterns and circuitous routes often seeming without a unifying scheme. Good and bad, up and down, try this, now that, and so on. But as this website indicates, there is a common thread that runs through it all. I call that thread my spiritual path.

These days, I am integrating all kinds of things that I have learned from all kinds of places. I see the golden thread between traditions and non-traditions sparkling like crazy. One friend calls this “energy.” Yes. That’s it. Another friend calls this “God,” another “Vibration,” and another “Goddess.” Yes. Yes. Yes. Another says it is silence, mystery. One of my less spiritually-oriented friends calls it health and fitness, another “art.” Many call it nature. A teacher calls it the landscape of our dreams.

Each of these people is sorting out what it means to live in such a way that his or her life is in harmony with a higher purpose. They have each tried the traditional path and often it didn’t work, or some part of it doesn’t work. They were miserable. I say, “Yay, misery!” Very often it is a gift that sends us in our new direction.

Sequoia hikeYesterday, I was part of a discussion in which a room full of people shared this sense of “social dis-harmony” – or being out of step with traditional values. I could hear the struggle, which is often my struggle: the challenge to believe that our Way counts. Maybe a person gets paid for what he/she does, or maybe does not. Perhaps a person has a degree of fame or appreciation and maybe they’re completely unknown to the world. Is their way valid? Perhaps they have a plan or goal or perhaps they don’t. Maybe, instead of a goal, the present moment, lived mindfully or peacefully or with joy, is the whole reward.

I know that one thing I’ve learned on my circuitous route is that it IS real, it does count. I know this, because my pay is in my inner well-being, not cash. The real currency of this journey is good vibration, grace, peace, wholeness. Whatever our higher path or purpose, living true to it affects EVERYTHING.