 |
| The Morning Flows |
I've come to Day 31 of my January Awakenings with Mark Nepo's, The Book of Awakening. It's been a good practice to show up each day to his offerings, to the cards and my journaling of them. And in fact that is the subject of today's entry, Practicing.
Practice makes for experience, pure and simple. The adage about it making for perfection or even better doesn't resonate for me, focused as those qualities are away from the present moment. Mark talks about making the commitment to 'change our ways' but then stalling in the face of old reflexes as new situations arise. It's overwhelming to consider changing our entire approach to life. And I would add that in my experience it's not a useful approach to deepening. But we can become present to our experience, intimate with it which often leads to softening, yielding which in itself is transformative. How do we become intimate with the walls that took twenty or fifty years to erect? Breath by breath is the answer, moment by moment trusting that who or what has done the carrying, if liberated, will continue to carry us with a strength infused with presence.
I asked the question of the cards, what areas of my life need the focus of practice, which is to say, where do I most need to show up?
 | |||
| Horsetail ~ Plant Ally Cards |
I have an image of sweeping my kitchen floor with the large, battered broom and as I'm doing so to imagine that I'm creating pathways that allow for stagnant energy to disperse. This is something that I can do as often as the floor needs sweeping and given that we have two dogs it could become a very consistent practice!
The other image that comes to mind is with the breath. In the outbreath the body naturally finds release. It's in the outbreath that we're released from the body upon death, it's with a sigh that we release sadness, exhaustion, bliss. And what is a baby's cry, after that first inbreath, if not the release of intention/effort/joy upon coming into manifestation. It's such a powerful and intentional way to look at and be with the outbreath.
Dropping all the burdens we carry about who we might be, in the eyes of others, in our own eyes, in the eyes of society, dropping all our preconceived ideas and reifications of various states, the secret hurts, the ways we feel we've been wronged, the private sorrows, the cherished burdens of self hatred...dropping each of those one at a time with one meditative outbreath after another allows us to drop right into the bodily experience of our lived truth, away from the mentality of constructs and expectations and right into the pulsing, vibrant heart of the One.
This card feels like such a resonant and relevant way to end my January Awakenings journey and combined with the focus on breath as release, a Sufi song we sing based on some of Rumi's poetry comes to mind ::
Go sweep out the chambers of your heart.
Make it ready, make it ready
to be the dwelling of the Beloved.
When you depart Love will enter
In you, empty of self,
God will display Her beauty.
Nepo's comments about practicing sounds like the "cowherd" quote I put on the blog today. :) As a mentor of women in recovery, I find it hard to get across the understanding that the intellectual (learning) part of the journey is just the first step. It must be acted upon for real change to occur. There is such fear in change, that it does seem easier to hold on to our old patterns and habits.
ReplyDeleteI'm slowly learning to respect that wish to hold on to old patterns, to try and hear what it's really asking for, to be with it without criticism or an agenda. It is hard work, I can tell you, as it goes against everything we've been taught to believe about ourselves.
DeletePractice makes for experience. My intention was to practice teh drawing of hands until I could draw perfect hands. I guess I should practice this for the pleasure of drawing hands
ReplyDeleteThe poem made me cry a little.:)
Hugs to you, my sweet friend. xoxo
DeleteBeautiful and hard stuff. I bought a Labradorite stone yesterday. I've always admired them - it's hard not to, what with their shimmery shades of purple and blue and green and yellow and orange. But what really drew me in was when I read that they help to unhook negative thought forms from our energetic fields. Just imagining how many projections from others, and self-critiques, we carry around with us every day......... !
ReplyDeleteLabradorite is first on my list of next-to-buy stones...for its prettiness more than anything else ;) How interesting to read of its energetic properties. And yes, the 'carrying' theme...today in the shower I was letting the hot water ease the intense pain in my shoulder and neck and drifting into metaphor...how many secret burdens we carry...
Delete