Month: March 2013

It is Holy Week and despite the winter-y weather, Easter is rapidly approaching. Like so much of life, there is great suffering to remember before the celebration. In church this last Sunday I was reminded by the preacher of one of my favorite intrepid travelers, Egeria. I wanted to share this diary with you for your Holy Week reflections.

Below is a link to the online diary of Egeria, or Ethiria, a 4th century Christian woman who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was there for Holy Week. Her descriptions of 4th century Jerusalem are evocative and vivid. We can thank her and her writing for much of our Christian practice around the world this week.

http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm

Wishing you a blessed Holy Week and a joyous Easter.

I am amazed at how effective a regular spiritual practice really is. I have been really working hard on my yoga teacher training for almost six weeks now, and I notice my hips, while still cranky, are getting looser, and I am getting muscle definition in my arms -(look out Michelle Obama!)and I discovered a muscle in my abdomen last week that I never knew was there. I am inching closer to being able to do a head stand. These are the pleasant physical side affects of an intentional yoga and meditation practice.

What I was unprepared for, although I had been warned of them, were the emotional side affects of a deeper, more intentional practice. There are definite emotional side effects when one embarks on a journey of heart opening and hip opening. I spent almost every day the last two weeks crying. All of the grief I had processed and left unprocessed has been working its way out.

I have also been exploring a practice of prayer with art. Engaging in a creative process of meditation with scripture or sacred writing and responding with collage, drawing, poems, etc…. This combined with the yoga and meditation, has cracked me open, leaving me stronger and more vulnerable at the same time.

I think so much has come up because I am ready for it to come up, and because I have been working at a superficial level on some of this emotional clutter for a long time. But it turns out that I have been continuing to hold on to fear, hurt, and anger that I wasn’t even aware of, and the practice of opening my heart, and opening my mind to my breath and the possibility of something sacred and holy being inside has begun to clear a way to seeing it. I can see glimmers of my strength, and the sacredness reflected in myself and in others. It’s beautiful, and while there is a bit more clutter to clear before I can fully revel in it, I am thrilled to that it is there.

I know that clearing my emotional clutter is a life long process , and I am so relieved that I have found some helpful clearing tools.

Never in a million years did I think that I would be steering a snowmobile, let alone enjoying the heck out of it! Snowmobiles are loud, smelly, dangerous machines. Only inconsiderate trail hogs ride them… right? Until I met my husband this is what I thought. I have learned so much from the sweet sweet man I married. So many of my preconceived ideas about people and things have been blown wide open. So, I find myself always being delighted by a discovery of a new part of myself, just recently, I found the part of myself that likes to speed across snowy landscapes on a loud, smelly, totally exciting snowmobile.

I went snowmobiling because it is so important to my husband, he loves being out in a field or on a hill, running free. He is one of the kindest, most considerate people I have ever met, so I had to re-think my idea of the whole snowmobile crowd.

Like any activity involving other human beings, there ARE the inconsiderate trail hogs among the snowmobile crowd, but I learned on Sunday that there is actually quite a bit of trail etiquette. There are ways that trail riders tell each other how many are in a group and like with any moving vehicle, there are “rules of the road”. Who knew?!

I’ll admit, my first few minutes on the snowmobile behind my sweetie were much as I suspected, loud, smelly, scary. I couldn’t see much, my helmet kept bumping into his helmet… I was afraid I would flip off the back, so I was tense and grabby. There was no way I was going to enjoy this. But then, we weren’t going up hill any more and I wasn’t about to fly off the back, and we went over some bumps, and I actually felt a giggle bubble up….

We entered a field, stopped, and my father in law said I should take a turn on the smaller sled (insider lingo for snowmobile….). My first thought was “no way”!, my usual response when feeling nervous or unprepared in a new situation, and then I thought, this is something I don’t want to regret because I didn’t try.

Too much of my life has been “no”, because I am afraid, or anxious. Afraid of looking stupid, anxious I won’t be able to do something well the first time I try.

It’s true, one should not take a snowmobile lightly, they are large, powerful, dangerous machines. But I was in a wide open field, with two men I totally trust, who are not foolish daredevils. They would not let me be unsafe. I had a helmet… So I said ok, and asked, how does this work? It is very simple: squeezing the lever on the right handle makes the sled go forward, and squeezing the lever on the left handle makes the sled stop . Before I knew it, I was inching, and then zooming, (I never quite got to tearing…) across the snow. I was exhilarated. Yes, it was the snowmobile itself that thrilled me, AND it was because I had stepped firmly out into territory that was totally alien and WAY beyond where I had been previously comfortable.

I had decided that staying “safe” and not risking embarrassment was not the course of action that I wanted for myself. I stretched in a new direction and it was marvelous. I doubt I’ll be tearing up the snow every weekend, but I would like to try again, and I am thinking that there are so many things I need to try without worrying about feeling embarrassed or afraid.

Karaoke anyone?

Here is a link to a Lenten Meditation that I did for the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado.

Following the link below will also connect you to other thoughtful meditations from the season.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=u7d6btbab&v=001bX0lc4lcuhOR27y0GCUdLiGpLaY5i75rwSFticlv3WOmlFsjuot6s4zFtpS5jJ_ZnbcL3ppE-sh_FsAul9ui7iqcz17kpy4I8D2935iYFNMX4287zq7ZmbSwPo8Xz7nC_-WMoPcUGjzvSwXzK_phlK1qfq5fz9FkX6T2h4qFknFCKLw8Bl8Shg%3D%3D

My grandmother used to say “I heard that on tv!” what she meant was, the tv was on while she was ironing, mending or puttering. She could not sit still unless it was to have a conversation with someone, and if she wasn’t serving tea or a meal, she would often be hemming something for one of us grandchildren. I am a lot like my grandmother, it is not easy for me to rest, especially if I am at home, where there ia an endless list of things I want/need to do, not even including basic housework, which I really don’t enjoy doing very much anyway!

What often happens is that I go, go, go until I stop. Most of the time, this stopping is not really resting, because I am just too tired. Rest is something I am working on though, and I am better at resting my body than I have been in a long time. I can sit happily, or take a sweet stroll with my husband, or float in a warm body of water like nobody’s business. Lounging with a good book is hard to beat too.

What is still challenging for me is resting my mind. It likes to race even faster than my body. There is so much to worry about: climate change, the well being of all my nieces and nephews, the well being of my parents and my in laws, as well as the questions like: will I ever have an income again, can I ever get used to my 45 year old metabolism, what will I do when I run out of my favorite show on Netflix? On and on my mind goes, mostly mulling over so many things I can’t control.

I have found a few things that do help me rest my mind. One of my favorites is being in the mountains with my sweet husband, walking with him and discovering new flowers, a new path or spotting wild life reminds me to be present to here and now, being distracted about Netflix means we might miss something amazing right in front of us.

Yoga helps my mind rest, I can’t worry about my grocery list, while I am focusing on my breathing and working to relax into poses.

If I can’t get into the mountain, a walk around the park, or the neighborhood also helps rest my mind.

Given a good amount of time, cooking helps rest my mind too, with the repetition of chopping and stirring and creating.

I like to rip beautiful paper and create collages. As long as I remember to let go of the outcome, and allow the process of creating to be enough, I can rest my mind doing this as well, and sometimes something beautiful gets created!

I am learning how to meditate, or practice what Christians call contemplative prayer, I find just about when the time set aside for this meditative activity is ending, my mind begins to settle. I spend an awful lot of time analyzing myself and wondering if my feet will fall asleep, that it takes a while to settle.

But I keep practicing, because I am noticing a difference, and with each practice of stretching, walking, chopping, ripping and gluing, or meditating, my mind is beginning to rest a bit more easily.