SLOW AND SILENT

I talk a lot about the need, my need, for silence and solitude.  
(and a cup of coffee in a red mug)
It is the easiest way for me to allow for sacred to find me.
It is my welcome mat.

There is a third element that resets my thermostat of craziness in our hyper-active culture of achievement which is to literally slow down. Literally, as in on your way to the bath room.
I like to move fast and get things done.  I come from a family of women who could multi-task at top speed while laughing and talking. The five sisters and cousins were called The White Tornadoes after some cleaning detergent that worked miracles.

But when I am overwhelmed by tasks and competing priorities (which is the worst) I walk slowly. It feels nuts and then good. I'll walk slowly to the laundry. I'll move slowly opening and paying bills. I go five times slower.

And so I love the Buddhist of a walking meditation. It's often done in a circle with others but there are other patterns that are used as well. A patterned path helps. The point is to become grounded in 'now' which is a nice place to live. If doing it alone,define your path. Then walk. One step at a time. Feel the bottom of your foot meet the ground. Feel and see where you are.
Do not take the next step til you feel this kind of now freedom. Here is the secret.
There Is No Hurry. You have the luxury of slow.

I did a day long walking meditation under the guidance of Pema Chodrun, a woman Buddhist monk.
She noted how the women in the group fell into this easily and laughed saying, 'It's because busy women, mothers and working women are yearning for the 'here and now' and their hunger makes it easy."

So add slowness to silence and solitude to your welcome mat for the divine

THANKS

Gratitude is 'in'. The topic is in most magazines almost weekly. There are books about and
journals supporting gratitude to be bought. Many a guru-ish person teaches the vibratory
benefit of gratitude.

I dig it. (That was fun to say--some ancient life as jazz musician appeared) So—I dig compassion on all its levels. As a kind of movement it makes me curious.

Most of my grandchildren don't say 'grace' but they do sing a gratefulness song that honors the Earth. 

I know others who express gratitude with their teeth clenched thinking of it as a cosmic positive thinking duty that will 'manifest' what they are wanting. 

And then there is my husband's kind of gratitude which is appreciation, capital A. We call him The Great Appreciator as he expounds on a building's beauty, a rock, a shadow, a flower.

The mystery begins to enter when stuck by the fact of being alive on this planet with moments of beauty and grandeur, we are awed and struck with the gift of it all.

I once went to a conference in Canada near Banfft. I arrived in the dark at night (and almost fainted when what I thought was a statue of an Elk moved toward me as I headed to my room. In the morning, I saw warning signs for randy Elk. Commonplace as in "let the Elk do their thing. Make room. Oh that we could be as tolerant for one another!) Anyway, I stepped from my room and looked up and there were the Canadian Rockies surrounding me. I fell to my knees. I didn't decide to fall. I fell to my knees holding my brief case. I was in awe and wonder and covered in gratitude. 

Hmmmm. All kinds of gratitude.  All needed.

Here's what ran through my mind this morning.
Gratitude as a practice has become a placeholder for God, the Divine, whatever uncorrupted word you want to use.

Once again, I speak from the middle. It's where I live in my faith continuum. Gratitude remains after the theologies of the world have squeezed the juice out of religion making it unpalatable. It's respectable. It feels right and good. Attach gratitude to humility and there is prayer. There is prayer. Thank Goodness for it. 

I sit here and laugh as I am grateful for gratitude. And I am. May the trend grow and evolve as we are.

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO JOHN O'DONOHUE

John O'Donohue is my go to for comfort of all kinds.
He was an Irish poet and author most famous for his book Anam Cara: A Book fo Celtic Wisdom
My favorite book of his is  To Bless the Space Between Us
It is a book of blessings that he wrote in fresh touching language.

Here is a smattering to start your week.

Blessing for:

Retirement
Have the courage for a new approach totem
Allow it to slow until you find freedom
To draw alongside the mystery you hold
And befriend your own beauty of soul

Breakup of Relationship
Love can seldom end clean
This is the time to be slow
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes

Leadership
May you have a mind that loves frontiers
So that you can evoke the bright  fields
That lie beyond he view of the regular eye
May your have good friends 
To mirror your blind spots
May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth

For One Who Is Exhausted
You have been forced to enter empty time
The desire that drove has relinquished
There is nothing to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

An Offering
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And was my heart on fear no more

These are just snippets.
Check out this book.
It has a blessing and a comfort for all occasions, most rather unique like: For the Artist at the start of Day, 
For an addict, For Suffering, For Loneliness, For the Time of a Necessary Decision.

Try John O'Donahue. He lives on my bedside table