On our walk yesterday morning, the frozen ponds were melting, singing and moaning, and I noticed around the edges that algae was starting to form, bright spring green spreading under the cloudy frozen surface of winter. The sky was bright blue, the sun blazing, and later in the afternoon, it turned gray and thick, and there was snow.
On this day of rest, I am still struggling to get used to my new progressive lenses (did I tell you I needed bifocals?), so the world seems blurry and is making me woozy and dizzy. I can’t figure out where to look, how to get things in focus. My right ear is plugged up, throwing off my balance that much more.
Amidst change, in what can seem like chaos and confusion, I still feel grounded. This morning while folding laundry, I was listening to Brene’ Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability. She clarified that being wholehearted (living and loving with your whole heart, “all in”) wasn’t a thing you had or arrived at, mastered or possessed, but rather it’s a practice, a series of moment by moment choices, what we invite into our lives and make space for, and what we let go of, release.
I’m hearing this message repeated in the Mondo Beyondo class I’m assisting, in the Cultivating Courage class I’m taking, in Rachel Cole’s Ease Hunting class, in other things I’m reading, other people I’m talking to, in the wisdom of my own heart–that with anything you want to achieve, do, be, you can approach it as a practice, a process that is ongoing.
As with any practice, one must suspend judgement, drop the agenda, show up with an open heart, allow whatever might arise, try not to get attached or hooked, stay relaxed, be soft and gentle, be present and mindful. It is so for me with creativity, with my various practices of writing, walking, yoga and meditation, with my life.
You move forward, in the direction of your dreams, on the path towards True North, you have an intention, a goal in mind, a map, but without expectation of arriving or being finished, and open to whatever shifts might happen in the weather or the terrain, allowing for days when you feel strong and full of energy, as well as days you feel tired and sad, accepting what is. You don’t take a breath thinking that once you do, you are now done, or once you do it “right” you’ll never have to do it again. You simply breath in and breath out, and keep doing so. So it is with practice, with life.
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.
~David Whyte
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 