Tag Archives: worries

FORGIVENESS AND GETTING THERE

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I’m on the last 4 days of this writing journey/challenge. I must forge ahead. I’m almost there. But where is there? I’m remembering a quote that Meister Eckhart had supposedly said. When you get there, you find that there is no there. What and where to then?

Today is a good day to ponder on such things. I’m home alone with Sheba. I have succumbed to the cold bug after putting up much resistence. I don’t feel terribly sick but my chest is sore from coughing. I hesitate to put myself out there, not wanting to infect others. I worry about getting some flack from people about not getting the flu shot. I worry about being Chinese and the coronavirus connection. Perhaps I’m being a little over dramatic but it’s a good day to stay put and drink tea.

The cloudy day is not helpful in dispelling my paranoia. Yesterday I found a dead frozen mouse in the yard. At first I thought it was Sheba’s poop. It was an odd shape and not in her usual spot. On close examination, I saw a long tail and little pink feet all curled up. It gave me the shudders doing a bag pickup. It occurred to me that the troublesome woman next door could have put it there. It was where I couldn’t miss it. She blames her mice problems in her garage on our compost bins. Her garage happens to be full of food products.

I’m trying to let these and other liked thoughts go. I’m listening to Caroline Myss again. Some things are not easy to grasp but some are. Even so, understanding and incorporating them into practice can be difficult. It’s a given that Jesus, the Buddha and other higher beings are about love and forgiveness. But to turn my other cheek can be tough for me to do. That’s what my mother teaches, too. I haven’t succeeded yet, though I am getting a deeper understanding of what forgiveness is.

As Caroline Myss puts it, sometimes there is no reason or explanation to things. Why they happen to us. Why people do what they do AND to us. We are all capable of feeling the same hurt, anger, rage, betrayal, humiliation, etc. We all have the desire for revenge, getting even, getting the other person to say sorry, they were wrong. Jesus experienced all that and died on the cross, a lesson in forgiveness. Forgiveness is not saying that whatever done is ok. But it is the destroying your appetite for destroying someone else. Even though the other person has the same appetite, you’ve turned your cheek and the spell is broken. I am finally turning my other cheek. I am no longer demanding a debt to be paid.

Wow, I’m super serious today! I am a very serious woman. However, I do have a streak for fun somewhere in me. Let me see if I can find it to take us out of day 28. Oops, I seemed to have wandered off my intended words. Well, tomorrow then.

 

 

RIDING WITH THE FONZ

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Early morning wakening.  I’m at my desk with my Chai.  I’m browsing Facebook and the Internet.  I am in danger of relapsing into my unfocused/ no mind.  Time to rein it in.  It is like an undisciplined child.  Give it a minute to wander and it will take 2 or 3.  Unchecked, it will take a whole day!

Little things are niggling at my mind, disturbing my zen and sleep.  Little things like – Did I really close the garage door this time?  There’s not much time.  Did I tipped enough? Oh, I wish -.  These little things that niggle, wiggle under my skin!  They are not clear enough, important enough to articulate out loud.  Yet they dig at me, making me mentally squirm.

I feel the furrow deepening between my eyebrows.  No doubt it is from constant frowning. I smooth it with my two fingers.  I could feel my face relaxing and unfolding, the creases and furls smoothing out.  I tap, tap on my keyboard, limbering up the fingers.

Ah, the sun is rising.  I see it peeping through the branches of the spruce trees.  Time to get up, stretch, turn off the lights and get another cup of Chai.  A change of pace might chase away those niggling things.

The sun is shining brightly through the kitchen window, dancing across the room, projecting its presence on the wall.  How beautiful is the morn!  I put water in the kettle to boil and set about opening the blinds.  I catch Sheba scampering off.

I take my Chai back to my office.  I do the 18 moves of Master Wan’s quigong exercise.  I am unsure at first.  My mind is a blank screen, trying to recall the moves.  I have neglected the routine for a long while.  But I as begin the Sunrise Movement, things fall in place. Each move comes to me one by one, finishing with the Sunset.

In the moment, I recognize my dyslexity – my disability of thinking one thing at a time, my inability of finding my way out of a wet paper bag.  I see the whole enchilada, but I have trouble making out any of the different ingredients.  I need the recipe.  I need to take time to register the ingredients.  Otherwise I’m like the cake left melting out in the rain – a MESS.

I was lost, but NOW I am found.  I see my problem.  I rush at life, rush at things, thinking there is no time, no time.  Life is a tough road to navigate with many detours at times.  You cannot jump through all the barricades at one go.  I have to clear one hurtle at a time.

There were many times I had fallen off my bike, thinking I had to stop and get off at the very same instant.  Then someone taught me, drove through my thick skull, that I have time to stop and THEN get off.

IMG_6204I still have relapses into fear, getting on and off a bike.  I breathe and deliberately take the time to stop, get off and start gain.   My brain knows I have the time.  I am working on my mind to catch up.  I will in time become poetry in motion, riding down the street.

I record those moments when I feel ‘one with the universe’.  The phrase sounds nebulous, a little silly, hippyish and as the Fonz would say, COOL, man!

It really is COOL when you are in the flow, when you can navigate life’s highway without stress and anxiety.  You get into the driver’s seat and just go.  You know all the moves of starting up, changing gears, etc.  You know the way.  You can relax and enjoy the ride.