Project Reverb prompt: “The race set out for you | Tell us about how you’ve been running along in 2013 and the race(s) you intend to run in 2014. These can be literal races or just the road of life. What did your path look like this year, and are you choosing the same for 2014?”
When it comes to racing, I am more the tortoise than the hare. I am moving along at what seems like a slow pace, externally not really getting anywhere, and then, BAM, I’m done, crossing the finish line. It’s always been like this. It can be incredibly frustrating, because as I’m in it, it seems to me too like I’m not getting anywhere, certainly not fast enough, and yet it always seems to work out. This has taught me to be happy with the process, to not get so caught up in an external measure of productivity. I’ll get there when I get there, and it will take as long as it takes.
Besottoment Reverb 2013 prompts: “Do you remember any of your goals and resolutions from 2013? What were they? Did you accomplish them? If not, why not?”
The last resolution I made was three years ago when I decided to “be a better friend to myself.” In the years since, I haven’t made resolutions or set goals, but rather chose a word, a concept that described best how I wanted to feel, what I wanted to experience, but left the details a mystery. So far, it’s totally worked for me, this year being no different. I chose “freedom” as my word, and what I know now is that the biggest obstacle to my freedom was ME. I needed to get out of my own way.
“What was your most memorable trip in 2013? Who were you with? Where was it? Why was it memorable?”
My three trips to California in the fall of this year blur together into one long magical trip, memorable. I would fly home, spend a month integrating what I’d learned, and then fly back to learn something new. The first trip was about showing up, “taking my place at the table.” The second trip was about simplicity and gentleness, creativity without judgement. The third trip was about honoring my own authority, coming home to myself. 27 Powers Court and the women who practiced and taught there with me were the through line, the “creamy center.”
“What was your most saddest moment in 2013? What were the circumstances? Did the event strengthen you? Humble you?”
Ugh. The morning Dexter had a massive nose bleed, and I knew it meant we’d have to let him go. Remembering the night before when I listened to his labored breathing and said to Eric, “I don’t think we have much time left with him.” Waiting for the vet to come, knowing once she did it would be almost over. Taking him on his last walk, knowing it was the last walk. His last breath. Leaving him at the place we had him cremated. Coming back to a house empty of him. Going to bed without him. Waking up without him. Taking that first walk without him. Yesterday, this morning, and now as I cried, missing him. So much sad. And as always, my heart broke open, is somehow stronger for the breaking. I am humbled, awed, even grateful, because as sad as I am, as much as this hurts is exactly equal to how much joy, how much love.
“What phrase or saying did you pick up in 2013? What is it? Where (or who) did you pick it up from?”
Just recently it’s been, “don’t should all over yourself,” and I read it first in this post on Chookooloonks.
5. 27 Days: Writing Prompts to Grow Your Powers, for FREE! Here’s an excellent gift you can give YOURSELF for the holidays, 27 Days: Writing Prompts to Grow Your Powers, Laurie Wagner’s 27 Day writing prompt program delivered daily to your inbox. It’s a simple way to keep your writing practice alive during the holidays, and an excellent opportunity to start a practice if you don’t have one. You’re welcome.
6. Architect Bypasses Mortgage Payments, Builds a Tiny Home on My Modern Met. My obsession with tiny houses is not that I want to live in one, (my house is only a little over 1000 square feet, so I’m in a pretty small space already), but that I want something like this in my backyard, to use as a studio, class, guest space.
When we’re speeding along, we violate our own natural rhythms in a way that prevents us from listening to our inner life and being in a resonant field with others. We get tight. We get small. We override our capacity to appreciate beauty, to celebrate, to serve from the heart.
Fear contains powerful messages. When we’re courageous enough to be with what scares us, we can awaken our intuition and create a new path for healing. Whether you’re worried about getting sick, you’re currently dealing with a health issue, or you’re scared and struggling in other areas of your life, don’t judge your fears, invite them to tea.
It’s common to belittle our fears and try to pre-maturely cleanse them away. But just because we’re afraid, doesn’t mean we’re toxic or failing or falling off the spiritual wagon. Fear is one of the many colors in our emotional palette, and it’s often there for a reason. There’s nothing weak or less evolved about being frightened. And guess what, you’re not alone. We’re all scared. No one is fearless.
31. Wisdom from Rumi,
Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.
“How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?” asks Stanley Kunitz in a poem.
and
Thomas Merton, the great Benedictine monk, captured this paradox succinctly. “Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and heart has turned to stone,” he wrote.
So whatever you believe about homosexuality, keep it to yourself. Instead, try telling a gay kid that you love him and you don’t want him to die. Try inviting her into your church and into your home and into your life. Anything other than that simply doesn’t matter.
Project Reverb prompt: “The race set out for you | Tell us about how you’ve been running along in 2013 and the race(s) you intend to run in 2014. These can be literal races or just the road of life. What did your path look like this year, and are you choosing the same for 2014?”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 