Sunday, November 27, 2016

Always Be Ready

If you've been reading this blog for any time at all, you know that I watch for "spiritual trends" that are sending me a message.  Over the last five hours, I've been bombarded with the message "Always be ready."

The Old Testament reading in church this morning was from Isaiah, and the prophet was saying to the Jewish people to be ready because they never knew when the "savior" would appear.

A few minutes later The New Testament lesson was to early Christians to always be ready because they never knew when their savior would return. A further admonition from the passage was that you couldn't wait until you thought the time was imminent to change behavior because there wouldn't be that opportunity. We had to always be ready.

I awakened this morning with a raspy throat.  I've been fighting a cold for several days, and my initial instinct was to curl up in bed and get some extra rest before leaving on a business trip.  Almost as quickly as I had the thought, I remembered what I'd written in my last post about consulting my inner compass before making decisions.  When I did, I clearly knew I was to go to church.  If I hadn't, I would have missed those lessons.

As I returned from church and started to make lunch, I thought my mind darted to habit.  Since I was out with friends last evening, I was going to flip on the replay of the "Hallmark Hall of Fame" presentation that I'd missed.  In my last post I wrote that I planned to spend my Sunday afternoon in a meditation on the floor of my bedroom closet, consciously choosing what would be part of my future and what I need to leave behind by December 21.  I thought I was hedging on my commitment to watch a television program that I know will be replayed a number of times in December.

One thing that became very clear to me when writing Choice Point, my as-yet-unpublished book about life as a meditation, was that everything, every thing, is connected.  There truly are no accidents or coincidences if we are listening: we will be led.

The gathering last night was a somewhat impromptu one, or I would have watched the program on its first broadcast.  That is important because, without the scripture lessons this morning, I might have missed that the theme of this television play was also "always be ready" or more precisely to "live your life like there's no tomorrow." Could I have guessed that the gathering was contrived by the Universe to help me "get it"?

Fortunately, when I checked in, it became clear to me that I was to watch the Hallmark program.  I thought to myself that I could bring some of the boxes into the living room and sort while viewing, but again a very clear message: the sorting was to be a meditation, and I couldn't watch TV and meditate.  So I ate and watched, and then I just watched.

The protagonist in the movie was a woman who worked too much.  (Anyone I know fill that bill?) As a consequence to a happy accident, she learns that she has been neglecting what is really important while giving every aspect of her life away to work, which we might say is pretty much what I've been doing over the last 16 years....maybe longer.  Of course, since there are no original story lines in Hallmark movies, I won't be giving anything away when I stay she does get a second chance, and this time she remembers what is important to her and to those around her.

So it is that in five short hours, the Universe has bombarded me to remember what is important in my life, an important lesson any time, but especially as I've been looking at my overly busy December over several days and struggling to find a time to put up my Christmas tree.

I got a headache about two-thirds of the way through the movie.  What is important?  I have known for a long time that I've squandered my relationships, and I've struggled to know how to intentionally choose to build a different life. I am sure that quandary is what gave me the headache, which lingers even as I write.

I truly do not know the answer, but as I wrote in Choice Point, I don't need to know.  I just need to consciously choose my path, and I will be led.  That is all I need to know, and I will "always be ready."

Friday, November 25, 2016

Endings...Beginnings...

While I am by no means an authority, for a long time I've been interested in the Jewish mystical study of numbers.  I apologize for anyone out there, who may actually be an expert in this field if I in any way misrepresent the study of numerology, but I will do my best to share what I have taken from my limited exposure that applies to what has been on my heart lately. I do so completely from memory because, as often happens, I apparently loaned my book to someone who hasn't returned it...and I don't remember who that was.

Numerology looks at the Jewish Tree Of Life, a set of spiritual lessons, which each person works through in cycles of nine years.  Each lesson has a feminine aspect and a masculine dimension. Throughout our lives, we repeat each of the nine lessons, one per year, and then we start the cycle over again. Some years the focus is the masculine side of the lesson; other years it is the feminine. Similar to the hero's journey about which I've written previously, although the basic lesson is the same each time, we go through more advanced versions of the lesson. We go through the cycles individually, and planetarily.

The cycle has been on my heart because the energy of the planet is now transitioning from the end of the cycle to the beginning of a new one.  The transition began at the Jewish New Year (October 2-4 this year.)  It will end at the Winter Solstice (December 21.)  During that three and a half months, it is our spiritual work to "clean house."  2016 has been a "9" year, which is about endings.  People often leave jobs, even careers, end relationships, sell houses, and let go other significant parts of our lives that have served their purpose, but with which we are finished.

By December 21, we should have cleaned out anything that is not part of a new beginning for us. What we carry into the 21st will be with us for another nine years.  I've had this on my mind, but all of the sudden this week I realized that I just have a month left, and I haven't done much cleaning out. Frequent reader of this blog and my friend Amy Frost told me in the Super Moon, which occurred a couple weeks ago, that we should write down anything we wanted to let go of and then set the paper on fire, letting the smoke release the energy of the past into the atmosphere.  That was a busy day, but I did some general letting go into smoke that day.

But I know I have way too much baggage to carry with me into the future.  Let me count the ways.

Besides the energy of spiritual baggage, there is some literal baggage I am dealing with.  Almost a year ago, construction in my apartment building's storage area required me to bring up everything from my storage unit.  It has been sitting in my bedroom closet since then.  I knew I needed to clean out, but I haven't made doing so a priority.

When I left my last job in August, I hastily packed up anything that was mine personally and brought five boxes home with me...also in my bedroom closet.  (Fortunately, I have a bedroom closet big enough to party in.)  I know there is a lot to be left behind there as well, but sorting through my office boxes has not been a priority either.

I thought I was going to have the time to just sit in my closet this weekend and sort, but I have allowed the approaching holidays and associated activities encroach on my time. I am not sure whether that is avoidance or choosing my future to be with friends...or a little of both. While I make an effort to keep my Sabbath sacred, I have decided that this spiritual sorting exercise is an appropriate Sabbath activity, and I will sit in my closet on Sunday afternoon.

I also have a desk at home that I have been sorting through for two weeks, and I am close to seeing the surface of at least a third of it now.  There is more, for sure, but great progress.  What remains are my time-consuming projects, and I am not sure when I will find the time, but doing so is a priority for me now.

There are bookshelves that are bulging as my appetite for new books always exceeds the time I have to read them.  My folder of clipped recipes was so full at the beginning of last week that it wouldn't close.  I am grateful for Thanksgiving and Christmas menu planning for nudging me to begin to go through it two evenings earlier in the week.  There is more, but I have found that some of the recipes just don't look good any more, and pitching them has been easy.

When I think about what I want to take into the next nine years, though, more important than cleaning out "stuff" is being conscious of what habits I am ready to let go of and what new ones I want to choose for my future.  As I reflect back over the last nine years, I think that this cycle has been about the time period during which I've forfeited the intentional life I had built and allowed myself to be overtaken by work, in every variety.

For decades, I ate healthfully, exercised daily, meditated at least once a day, did extended meditation retreats, danced several times a week, practiced gratitude daily, spent time with friends and laughed a lot.  Morsel by morsel, most of that has slipped out of my life since 2007, and I want to reclaim "my" life and let go of whatever has consumed me.

New habits are formed in 30 days. I could be overwhelmed as I look at all the new habits I want to form.  However, at least for me, I respond well to any positive change in my life.  Intuitively, I know that if I change one thing, changing others seems much easier.  I feel it is almost like flipping a switch back to the "real Kay," rather than changing eight different habits.

In my as-yet-unpublished book Choice Point, which I thought was "finished" in 1997, I wrote that life should be a meditation, and in each moment we should consciously ask, "Is this a 'yes' or is this a 'no?'"  When I think about reclaiming my life, the question I need to ask isn't will I exercise or not today, it is "Will I be who Kay's soul intended her to be today?"  A single question, applied to every situation, asked consciously.  Life as a moment-by-moment meditation.

What I know in my heart is that all I want to carry into the next nine years is the consciousness to ask that question a 1,000 times every day...and the courage to act on what I know.


Sunday, November 6, 2016

Falling back

Today is that delicious day we each get once a year when we set our clocks back and get an extra hour of either sleep or daytime activity. I got a little of each.

I expectedly awakened a little earlier than I normally would on a Sunday, and I indulged myself in an extended period of prayer, something I'd been yearning for since mid-summer when I began the chaotic wind down of my old job and transition into what is seeming to be an equally busy new job.

For me, prayer satisfies me most when I do it regularly.  I think of it as being a bit like exercise. When I am doing either every day, I slide into it easily and often get into "the zone"--that enchanting place where time and space cease to exist, and I am mindfully in the present.  However, not unlike being off exercise for a while, when I come back to prayer after time away, I struggle.

Now it isn't as if I haven't prayed for months.  I have.  Yet instead of deep, solace-inducing communion, my prayers have been less two-way communication and deep listening and more pleas for aid, like "Help me know what to do right now," "Show me the way," or "Help me get through this day." More often than not, I heard no answer.  I am sure that the answers were there, but I was either not present enough to receive the answer or overly intellectualizing to figure the answer out myself. Most likely, both.

This morning the need to develop my prayer muscles was clearly apparent.

With that said, I did hear that I should write a blog post, so here I am.  I do often feel that writing becomes a prayer for me, and my listening becomes richer when I allow myself to not know what it is I am going to write but rather just allow it to flow through me.  As I write this post, I understand some of what was missing from my prayers this morning that I couldn't seem to know when I was in them.

Back in the day when I prayed with clients, I used the term "let your prayers pray you."

"God," I said, "would let us know what we should be praying for."  Then we would sit and pray together.  Often what would come up would be things about which my mind would never have thought to pray.  "Thank you for the birds that sing outside my window every morning," or "Thank you for the sun and its warmth on my skin when I walk."  Occasionally, I expressed gratitude for just being still.

The most interesting thing about letting my prayers pray me is that much, maybe most, of my prayers uttered from that space expressed gratitude and, more often than not, they acknowledged the little things in life of which I so often don't even make notice.  I believe that focusing attention on the exquisite order of the world around me diminished whatever might have been on my heart and mind that day to an appropriate proportion.

The practice also reminds me of the non-linear nature of the Universe. For instance, my struggle to pray this morning did send me to computer to write about prayer.  Now I remember what I had forgotten about praying and can go back to prayer again with an open heart and mind.

Soon, I will do that.

As I ponder doing so, however, the thought that nags at me is how I got so far from my prayer practice to have forgotten how to connect.  The answer may go back to the metaphor of exercise.  My actions haven't made either priorities when in my heart I know that I ache for both. Articulated priorities, which aren't acted upon as such, are clearly not the focus of our intention.

In the busyness of a life that seems to be driven by urgencies, like finding a new refrigerator before all my food thaws on a gorgeous fall day when I would prefer to go for a long walk in the woods. Always there seems to be something urgent that cuts into my time. Yet if I want my life to reflect the focus of my intentions, I must act accordingly.

I truly don't have an answer for the refrigerator-versus-the-fall-walk dilemma but somehow I know in my heart that if I spend more time in prayer and exercise, how to bring life to my intentions will become clear to me.  Right now, I am savoring the extra hour to focus on prayer and exercise and feeling comfortable pushing back the urgent for just a little longer.