The pawprint, the box and the ashes inside, all white. I have two full sets of these, one for Dexter and one for Obi, both lost to fatal cancers, treatable but ultimately incurable. Over the past four years, two of them have been spent living with, loving, and letting go of a terminally ill loved one. It’s been hard, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to love that much, to hurt that much. And yet, to do so, to open my heart to them, love them so big even though I knew they would ultimately leave me, break my heart, to be there as a witness when they did, is a precious thing, a horrible, terrible, brutal, tender, beautiful thing.
3. I hope you wake with a gasp, a thousand flutters in your heart, a 10-Line Tuesday poem from my new favorite poet, Maya Stein.
I hope you wake with a gasp, a thousand flutters in your heart **
Not from the whirlpool of worry. Not from a bad dream.
Not from a deadline or a string of demands, or the great to-do
of the still-to-be-done. Not from the lopsided weight of futility and failure
or some wayward mutiny shaking your bones. Not from the loss
of letting go or the grief of giving in. Not from the illusions of your metaphorical
imprisonment or escape. Not from grass-is-greener or anywhere-but-here.
I hope, instead, you rise from the tremble of something finding its edges,
earthquaking its way into being. That riotous pulsing of birth, and the cry that comes
just after, the lungs taking in their first overwhelmed breaths. That same lucid
sweetness of entry and release. The song of your life being sung.
By just allowing our minds to be caring, peaceful, and relaxed, our daily activities and work—even our breathing—can become part of our healing practice and we will gain strength spontaneously. If we are open to it, our ordinary life will turn into a life of healing. Then, even though we may not be spending hours in formal sitting meditation, our life will be meditation in action.
Chances are, you are needing some rest right now…after all, being brave is hard and exhausting work.
Would it be so bad it you took a little break and let yourself recharge? Of course it wouldn’t be a bad thing….to the contrary, it would be a VERY GOOD thing for you to do, especially if you can’t even remember the last time you let yourself rest for a little while.
Choose a good, uplifting book and let yourself read it without interruption, take a hot bath….get under the covers for an afternoon nap. You’ve got to recharge or you will burn out…it’s just a fact of life. This doesn’t mean you are weak, it means you are human…and little breaks here and there are an essential part of a productive life.
Enjoy some time to yourself…you deserve it. You are loved. xoxo
New meditation students often mention the value of learning to focus and settle the mind, but they also name something more basic. As one person put it recently, “Just having those moments to be quiet is a gift to my soul.” It is a gift to the soul. Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else, is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.
17. The Time You Have Left (in Jelly Beans) from ZeFrank
20. More new to me music, Royals from Lorde, shared by my friend Aaryn. Also new to me, what I’ve been listening to for the past few days, the band Daughter, specifically the Daughter radio station on Last.fm.
21. An interesting perspective from Notes from the Universe, “Anger is almost always a sign, Jill, that you’ve been quiet for too long.”
Live as though your life can make a difference, because it does. What difference it makes though is entirely up to you.
and
You have no idea what you’re capable of until you’ve done it, or until you’ve truly failed trying to do it. If unsure, fail again.
26. This wisdom from J.K. Rowling, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.”
“I was lucky in that I had a mother that was full of this colloquial wisdom and she used to say to me ‘You know, failure is not the opposite of success, it’s the stepping stone to success. There is nobody who has not failed along the way.’ So I think its very important for young women, especially as they are starting in life, to recognize that because otherwise, they only see people’s success. So, when I speak, I speak of my failures.”
The pawprint, the box and the ashes inside, all white. I have two full sets of these, one for Dexter and one for Obi, both lost to fatal cancers, treatable but ultimately incurable. Over the past four years, two of them have been spent living with, loving, and letting go of a terminally ill loved one. It’s been hard, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to love that much, to hurt that much. And yet, to do so, to open my heart to them, love them so big even though I knew they would ultimately leave me, break my heart, to be there as a witness when they did, is a precious thing, a horrible, terrible, brutal, tender, beautiful thing.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 