Daily Archives: August 24, 2012

Gratitude Friday

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This post is a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.

1. Dexter, home and whole. A week after the “bloody scare,” the boy is doing good. We are accepting that there may not be a reasonable way to get a definitive diagnosis, to know for sure he has cancer, so we are living in the moment with him. And in this moment, he is happy and well, and I am grateful.

2. Eric. I often find myself wondering how I could possibly walk through this life without him. He makes me laugh, but is also right there when I’m having a meltdown. I can always count on him to help, to carry extra weight or take over entirely when it all gets too much for me. I am so lucky.

3. Good friends. The kind that don’t shy way or avoid me when things get really hard, even when I am going publicly crazy. All I have to do is ask, and they are right there, ready to help, giving hugs and good advice, offering support, reminding me that I am not alone.

4. Rocky Mountain Bee Plants in the wild. These were by the back pond in McMurry Ponds Natural Area, the section they rehabbed a few years ago. It’s close enough to our house that I like to think our plants were their origins.

5. Silly sitcoms on Netflix streaming. I have moved past so many of my numb out, chill out, “go to” zone out behaviors that TV is about the only thing I have left, although we haven’t had cable TV for almost ten years. Having access to 20 minute episodes of fairly mindless comedies available to me on days when I just can’t muster the strength for anything else is nice.

Bonus joy: My new class of students. I really like them already, and we’ve only had two class sessions. Yesterday, they shared collages they’d made that showed who they are, what they love. I had been having a really hard day, and listening to them talk about their lives, make each other laugh, got me out of my own head, was just the medicine I needed.

August Break: Day 24

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the sky this morning

Even after all this time
the sun never says to the earth, “You owe Me.”
Look what happens with a love like that,
It lights up the Whole Sky.
~Hafiz

I continue to practice living with uncertainty, impermanence. This shaky, uncomfortable quality of life is so tender, so terrifying. I admit that I have moments of blind panic, where my sanity starts to slip and my perception blurs, when confusion and anxiety and despair cocoon around me. I forget that I can change my mind, take a walk or have something to eat, that I am loved and connected, not alone.

But this is the essence of practice. Sometimes, you can stay with the moment, be gentle with yourself, sit with your thoughts and emotions as they rage and quake, not running away or grasping or rejecting or numbing out, but rather peacefully abiding until they naturally dissolve. Sometimes, you just can’t. And yet, you continue to try, to practice, to show up with your open heart, broken and whole all at the same time.

You don’t give up, but you practice letting go, surrendering, again and again and again, the same way the sun rises and sets, every day–some days you don’t even see it, don’t look up, don’t notice, aren’t even awake when it happens, and other days it makes you stop, throw back your head and stare, unable to believe that a thing so beautiful could even exist. And through it all, it’s the same sky, the same sun, rising and sinking, simply doing what it does, fundamentally good and completely natural–just like all of us.

There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth,
Beyond us all,
beyond the heavens,
beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.
This is the light that shines in our hearts.
~Chandogya Upanishad