Hari Om
Thank you
, , and many others for tuning into the morning sit live today. If you are not yet aware, we hold this space live as an in-person and in-stream shared practice Monday through Friday at 8:30, most days.Today, we begin where I like to begin, with a bit of focus on our breath. Sometimes this may seem like old hat information. I don’t think, though, that there is ever a time when coming back to the very foundational basics is not helpful. So we begin with breath.
One of the places my personal practice has consistently led me to is the line between discomfort and pain. Both can feel very much the same in our emotional body, and our thought body can only do what it does, which is to think about it (or not) and develop a story to make sense of it. So both pain and discomfort can easily, and often do, become a story of harm. A tale of abandonment, injustice, rejection, wekaness, fear, etc etc etc. It can go on and on, the ways we will attempt to justify our not feeling what we think we should be feeling.
Mostly, though, these stories are entirely historical fiction. Loosely based on something that happened, but prettied up and played by blockbuster actors in our minds. The memory of our unhealed wounds is the hero’s journey. One we are sure we will return from with epic tales of vanquished enemies and stolen hearts….someday. Just not today, right? Anything but here, any time but now, anyone but me. That is the name of the game. So what do we do? We breathe. That is all. Breathe and know that we are breathing and we are, nearly every time, alive. And in this being alive, we are able to find the calm and the peace of living things.
bell hooks takes us there often, into that place of place. That moment we are grounded in our wholeness, and that wholeness is our oneness, our belonging. In Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks takes us over and over through the hills and removed mountaintops of her home place. Today, she reminds us of the peace of living things.
Appalachian Elegy 17.
bell hooks
straight ahead
the road curves
signs signal
no motorboats allowed
this lake our water source
let us drink
clear and true
there are swans
resting here magical presence
all reflecting peaceI love, and I mean absolutely love, the opening of this prayerful poem, which tells us that it is not our concern to waver from moving straight ahead; the road will bend and curve for us, taking us exactly where we need to go. The road will curve for us. Then, to remind us to be in place. To not impose upon the relationships we have an unnecessary intensity. We are nourished here, and must be present with this. There is magic here in this. Thank you, bell hooks.
All In Love,
Michael
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