Diversion

Taking my sitting time to work on a gift for my husband. I found these leaf silhouettes, and I've chosen one and am making a homemade screen-printing-style image on a shirt for him. (I don't mean this as a product endorsement - indeed, I'm not even using the product listed - this is simply where I found the directions to make this project.)

River

I was in a wretched space yesterday with my husband, which is my pattern whenever I restart my work to live in a state of awareness, presence. It's as though the sleeping part of me puts up the nastiest fight it can conjure in an effort to keep me wrapped up in my thoughts rather than awake to what's happening around me.

Husband and son let me sleep in this morning, and I woke to find my husband cleaning up after completing a fair-sized house project I'd asked for his help on. I had been lying in bed for a few minutes upon waking, watching my brain list off all the things in my life I was irritated about, but the scene I came upon, of the finished project and happy family, nipped the pattern in the bud, for today at least.

As tense as yesterday was, today outdid it with beauty by far. Spent our hours together, working on little pet projects, napping, playing in the warm yard, eating great food we'd prepared during the week. In the afternoon, shortly before dinner, we took the boy tricylcing on a path down the street from our house that runs beside old railroad tracks. On a whim, we jutted off into the woods on a path I'd followed with the dog a few years back, and came upon the same pretty little peninsula covered with tall pines that I'd found then. Only today, it was exquisite. It overlooks a river, slow and easy and silent but for birdsong and chipmunk chatter.

The afternoon sun glittered on the river that we had all to ourselves and streamed in ribbons of light through the temple of pines, the light and shadow playing throughout, making the forest and river look like a painting of one of the Old Masters - only a millionfold lovelier, because it was real, it was life.

My husband and the boy went to investigate a little shallow sandy area, and I walked along the banks of the river, admiring the bare ledges under the water that had been washed clean over the eons by the river's slow current. At one point, peering into a washed-out cavern under the roots of a great pine, I found myself face to face with a garter snake sunning itself on the rock the roots grew on.

As I walked back over to join my family after exploring, my husband was pointing out the minnows to our boy, then said "Oh, look! Look at this!", reaching into the clear water and lifting up a baby turtle that was swimming by. The scene was already so wondrous, and then this little creature, this ancient new creature, appeared to punctuate how precious this day was.

I found myself several times imagining some unfortunate event occurring, realizing at the same time that it was simply because the scene, the time we spent there, were full of so much pleasure, such utter beauty in nature, that it was hard for me to simply accept it and treasure it. It felt as if we had come upon Eden itself, and I knew that there were places all over the earth that people come upon similarly, exquisite places on the earth still growing as the earth originally fashioned them, the forests still standing, the waters still clean.

Sweet Day

Went out tonight, rested and calm after an idyllic day spent with my family. Peaceful, connected sit tonight, but a lot of self-distraction against writing about it now. Not sure why.

Tuned in to my sense of the web I have written of before. This tool has been coming to mind frequently of late, helping me to return again and again to the balance I wish to cultivate in my life. I believe that sitting and reflecting on my sits regularly has helped the web exercise to resurface as a part of my daily life, and also, I believe, the fact that I am again listening to Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now daily, which is such a powerful support in remaining present and grounded.

Tonight, sensing the web brought me immediately into awareness of my own visibility in the dark yard; the daylily and milkweed garden beside the back porch suddenly transformed into a potential hiding spot that I could crouch behind for cover.

Walked, slowly and silently, out towards the apple tree, sat down under it. Listened to the crickets, felt the cool air hugging me. Reflected on the day, full of so many pleasures: sleeping in, knowing my boy and husband were getting time together, only cooking one meal today, napping on the bed in the afternoon, dinner with my husband's family, and our sweet bedtime, the boy finally getting his wish to have his father snuggle with us when we go in to bed. In fact, my husband did the entire bedtime routine with him tonight as well, for the first time in their lives (I could also say the boy accepted my husband's participation in it for the first time), and I only joined them on the way to bed. The boy lay so happily snuggled between us, his face glowing with a silent smile, the picture of perfect contentment, a happy little being. He turned to me and wrapped his little arm around my neck, but turned back toward his father over and over again, as if to check that he was still there. Then his eyes slowly closed, and he drifted quietly off to sleep more quickly than I can remember him doing in months.

Now my husband is playing an Uwe Rosenberg game with a new friend, a fellow who brings the same gifts to friendship as my husband does.

A lovely day, full of leisure, restedness, enough time to myself, and surrounded by family. It is a great effort for me to recall the details about which I want to write now. I have yet to discover the source of my distraction, but at this point am content to be lulled by the pleasures of the day, the quiet music playing, and allow myself to drift off to sleep as contentedly as my little man.

Senses

Sat on the porch tonight, the moon shining down on much of the yard. A lot of inner resistance to sitting tonight, probably arising from my longstanding resistance to completing projects. Went through the sense meditation. Focused in on my hearing first - crickets, cars, planes, voices from inside the house, my breathing. Then sight - the view of the yard in the moonlight, the darker areas and lighter areas, the shapes and depth. Then feeling - scanning my body from head to toe, the cool on my face, the itches on my neck, the fullness of my belly, my hands wrapped tightly in the pockets of my fleece, escaping the mosquitoes. Smell - a faint sewage smell, drifting on the light breeze from the north. And taste - heavy leftover dinner flavor, the lighter taste of the breeze over my tongue.

Again tonight, as at the beginning of this year's 30-day sit spot challenge, I was overwhelmed by all of the sensations to be experienced through this exercise. I felt I was floating in a vast universe of sensations, unable to sense them all at the same time. I know from past experience that this ability will come in time; glad to have the perspective of my other experiences.

I would like to continue sitting and writing regularly. I am looking for an anchor, like this completed commitment, to hold me to this routine, which is so grounding and enriching for my life.

Postponement

Exhausted already and heading into our weekly game night. Will sit and write tomorrow. May extend my commitment because of this hiatus.

Changing Paths

Sat in the tree tonight. Got a sappy kiss on my hand on the way up, which I inadvertently brushed against my mouth when I got an itch, so now my lips are sticky with the tree's juice.

There in the pine at night, I felt like a child in a boat for the first time, all the sights and sounds I've been missing since my regular sits, so much to see and sense and feel. The immensity of its body, like a massive building of branches and needles and air, of space and life. The view through its branches, the silent movement of them moving in the night breezes. The presence of the neighboring trees, the buzzing and chirring of the August insects.

Climbed down and walked a roundabout route back to the house. Passed by a newly empty spot in the yard where a rock - once our ceremonial rock, and then our sitting and visiting rock - disappeared from a couple of days ago. It surely left by the hands of one family member or another, who most likely wanted it for a retaining wall or the like. I was suprised to see it gone, but only after witnessing my husband's upset at the inherent dismissal of our opinions did it occur to me to be upset by it, as well.

While chewing on the circumstances of its disappearance tonight, I found myself walking very quickly back toward the house, an email in mind, and recognized the state I get into when I am not looking at the whole picture. Upon seeing my mindstate, I looked toward my sit tree and felt a strong pull to walk back to it. I slowed my walk and returned to it, passing again the now flat earth where we have sat on the rock and played so many times, where my mother sat just last weekend as she held the boy on her lap, sharing her paints with him. I reached up on an urging and touched the tree, and a sense of love and peace, of absolute forgiveness washed over me. The tree was reminding me to lead with my heart, not with my head and my ideas, and my heart was saying to be infinitely gentle, to always be gentle when it is possible. I walked back to the house, taking care to walk slowly as a means of keeping myself present. I watched myself alternate between moments of anger and moments of peace, as I worked to honor the tree's guidance.

Up on the porch, still holding only a tenuous grasp on the choice to deal with this situation with my heart, I knelt down to ask for more support. I remembered, out of the blue, the trip I took into town today to dispose of and also give away a large amount of stuff that has been taking up space in our house. I remembered the sense of freedom, spaciousness, joy that filled me to know I had let go of things I no longer needed and sent them out joyfully into the world.

We did not, of course, wish to be free of our rock, but this memory showed me that I can choose to experience its disappearance in the same mindset. Our instinct to keep things, to hold tightly to objects in our lives, does not serve us as well as releasing them freely into the world does. I can grumble over the trespass, the dismissal of our opinion, the absence of what we both consider to be an old friend. I can also open my heart, listen to my heart, and hear what it is saying: that we do not need that rock, any more than we need any individual objects in our lives. We need each other, and our health, food, love. The necessary things to survive. But objects outside of this description can come and go and we can choose to receive them and let them go with open hands.

I believe it prudent that we bring up the issue with our family anyway, to ensure that we do not wake to discover other cherished objects missing from our yard. But I now have the tools to do so in a measured, peaceful way, rather than with resentment or anger under my words.

Workings (Momentum)

Went out in irritation tonight, a disagreeable evening with my husband borne of his afternoon spent dealing with the hurtful caretaker of one of his charges. Her energy lingered in his memory, souring our time together.

On my way out, I again dismissed my habitual crutch of limiting my time outside with a timer. Walked down into the yard, found myself setting my sights on the dirt road behind our house that links our family's homestead together. I usually don't stray far into the back yard these days, and I don't know that I've ever left our yard during a sit, but tonight there was no question. I needed to walk. Strode briskly up the driveway, across yards in the dark beside the trees, and back down. Walked straight down to the main road, which we never walk on for concern of bodily injury, as car fly by at 60 miles per hour. But it was night, no cars approaching down the long straightaway, so I crossed the road. I realized through the course of this walk that I have been living within confines, keeping routine paths that only strayed within the tight bounds of my daily visits: to the coop, the garden, the sandbox, and paths to the houses. Tonight there were no such walls, and I seemed to be exploring the land around our house anew. Instead of our house, instead of the glowing bay window showing my husband at his painting inside, being the anchor for my time outside, the place I am simply waiting to return to, tonight I was freed entirely to go wherever I would go, no sense of inhibition from property lines, from my usual sense of road safety, from the tug to return indoors to my habits, habits, blind habits.

On the other side of the darkened street, I greeted a young larch that stands there, and which I have often appreciated and admired. I walked up the street, looking at houses I normally only see from the car at some speed. I felt the potential for neighborhood, despite the barrier of the roadway on which we live.

I discovered a grand, tall tree not four houses down from mine, towering over a little side street. Leaves thick and leathery in the dark, it rustled like its own forest in the breeze. I greeted it.

Turned back to home, passed by our house at the call to continue moving, and walked up and around the yards again. Paused in the driveway, the moon in her fullness looking down from beyond the clouds, calling me to stop and be with her. She was like an eye within the shapes of the passing clouds, looking down over her family, her charges. I've been reading Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, full of honor for the work of the lives of women: childbearing and loss, infertility, cooking, loving, raising families, supporting one another, midwifery and healing. Tonight, I saw the moon through the eyes of the story, which echoed what we know of many of our human cultures - the moon as a primal force in our lives, on our bodies. A mother watching over us, an anchor for us into eternity. I knelt down, opened my arms to her, welcoming her more deeply into my life, into my workings. The baby wriggled sleepily in my belly.

While the honor of the midwifery trade is powerful in Diamant's story - and I feel deep gratitude to think of how many women are led into this profession through the influence of her book - it is the work with herbs that has called me, and that spoke to me loudly tonight. As clear as was the directive last night to begin my work in sharing fertility awareness with women, tonight's was a deeper tug, a much more encompassing sense of my potential path, should I choose to take it up.

I have, for some years now, thought that if I ever find my way into a career of sorts, I would hope that it be one that is essential. One which, should our people ever find ourselves thrown out of our comfy universe back into a life from and of the earth (whether from war, flooding, civil unrest, etc), would be work that would help to sustain us. Trapping, cooking, healing in all its forms, midwifery, carpentry, leadership, wisdom. Many skills would aid in survival. Healing with herbs and food, which I have an innate interest in, certainly would have a place.

Walked on through the yards, feeling and knowing myself as I have not for years, an almost forgotten quality in myself - competence. I knew tonight, taking and giving myself solitude, that I have it in me to be a healer. When I rush myself from one task to another, when I deny myself and am denied by circumstances the grounding influence of solitude, I lose touch with my own strength, my fortitude, my ability to be certain of anything other than my own weaknesses. But tonight, in the dark with the moon as my only companion, I felt I was reaching into the depths of my memories of who I have been in this life, and found that, given the space and time, I have the same confidence in me that I knew ages ago, in another lifetime. The same surety that I can accomplish my purpose.

As I returned to our house down the driveway, my two dogs - the one who was lost to us last year, and my childhood dog, dead many years ago - trotted along beside me.