February 6, 2022
Greetings,
It’s a wet Sunday here in North Florida, complete with rain, a well hidden sun and a wintry breeze. It’s the kind of day when you might question whether changing out of your pajamas and robe is really an intelligent idea. It’s the kind of grey, cold and wet day when staying in bed reading or listening to a great podcast or wonderful music makes sense.
Just for the record, I’d like to say that I changed into my day clothes, with many layers for warmth, by noon. As Ewen often says, “What’s the rush?” I do think he’s right. What IS the rush? So as I type this email, I am properly clothed, and am relaxing as I imagine seeing all of you. I am drinking fresh ginger tea with honey and lemon. So you might say that all is well in my world right here right now. Funny thing is, Ewen and his friend Eric are out sailing by themselves on a 24 foot trimaran sailboat. They are dressed for Alaska, and need to be. Wind, wet, gray and cold (50 degrees) make for some chilliness.
The thing that we all know about surviving bitterly cold or terribly hot weather is that as long as we protect our bodies from extreme temperatures, we’ll be okay. It’s that way with our hearts too. Life brings us plenty of zingers, sharp, hot, painful or frigid, icy and…painful. We know what to do. We protect ourselves with our compassion practices, we sharpen our mindfulness skills (“This too will pass”) and we patiently (well, sometimes) we let go of the misery created in our minds. In this way we are protecting our citta (heartmind) from continuing to go to those stormy, cold, dreary, scary places. Our conditioned, deluded, confused minds really had hoped to fix our troubles by endlessly reviewing our imperfect past and by projecting into the dark, unknown future. We learn to, we remember to practice finding refuge inside. We find home in our hearts with whatever is really happening now. We can slow down, settle in with it and keep it warm by the light of our wisdom and love. We recall: “What’s the rush?”
This takes me to the theme for tomorrow. We will continue our exploration of the wisdom teachings of Willa Blythe Baker from her book The Wakeful Body. Monday at noon we will practice calling in our “field guides” or guides of support. Cause we ain’t in this messy, beautiful world alone. We have our parents, grandparents, ancestors, our teachers, our heroes and sheroes and those spiritual friends. We truly are never alone. Isn’t your body made up of the DNA, the wisdom, of your parents and theirs and the ones before them and so on, back in time for so many centuries? Isn’t your dance card filled with the names of people, pets, trees, flowers, and other beings in nature who have connected with you, loved you or who have taught you life lessons, whether in person or online or from a book or podcast or movie?
With deep gratitude,
Nancy