cedar_grove (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cedar_grove) wrote2011-04-23 04:53 pm
cedar_grove) wrote2011-04-23 04:53 pm
Coming Home
From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
Once giving full attention, you will come back - one drop at a time - into the tide of the living.
(from 18th April)
Every part of the long day was in focus both emotionally, as well as physically and even spiritually. It was really quite a strange experience. To Explain... usually when travelling the 12 or so hours door to door (it's probably longer than that actually, around 16, give or take), I zone out... doze on the coach, walk around in a daze in the airport lounge, sleep on the plane... and so on, but this time it was not so.
I was too on edge on the coach, and that made me unable to sleep. I could have plugged in the computer (there were ac outlets on the coach!) and read, but I worried I'd get travel sick if I did. Instead I watched out of the window, watched the misty fields, the rising sun, and was struck by the tranquil beauty of it. I wished I could have taken a picture of the sun rising over the misty fields, but my phone doesn't take good pictures through the glass, and my camera doesn't work any more.
At the airport I was struck and noticed the other people in ways I had not before; the families, the children driving their parents mad, and all of the other things that were going on around me. And on the plane, even though I had the whole of the centre section to myself, even thought I lay down and tried to sleep the time away, I couldn't. So I watched the movie, I watched the people, I read my book (until the battery on the computer ran out), and then just existed for the rest of the time. It made for a long flight, but... nothing to be done.
The one time I did zone out and miss something, ironically, was the time when the cab arrived to deliver me to Mir's work, and I failed to notice the steeple of the church, lying on the ground - the only damage in Chapel Hill from the storms before - totally missed that.
When we got home, after unpacking and everything - because I do hate to be living out of suitcases, especially for so long - I was able to enjoy the wonderful meditation garden that Mir's made for me. Before I came, she told me she'd been planning it, but hadn't actually admitted to having made it, planted the seeds, and even put a stick into one of the pots so I could bring out my butterfly windcharm and balance the one of the other side.
Being out there, and being the first time I've actually done something like this in a long time - in far too long - everything was so special. I just sat and soaked up the sense of being there on the deck of the house in the 'garden' that Mir had made for me. It was a moment of homecoming that was deeply spiritual, extremely comforting. I hope to be able to spend a lot of time out there in the garden... perhaps sharing some of the insights into what comes to me as I do... in the coming days.
This is the ongoing purpose of full attention:
To find a thousand ways to be pierced into wholeness.
Once giving full attention, you will come back - one drop at a time - into the tide of the living.
(from 18th April)
Every part of the long day was in focus both emotionally, as well as physically and even spiritually. It was really quite a strange experience. To Explain... usually when travelling the 12 or so hours door to door (it's probably longer than that actually, around 16, give or take), I zone out... doze on the coach, walk around in a daze in the airport lounge, sleep on the plane... and so on, but this time it was not so.
I was too on edge on the coach, and that made me unable to sleep. I could have plugged in the computer (there were ac outlets on the coach!) and read, but I worried I'd get travel sick if I did. Instead I watched out of the window, watched the misty fields, the rising sun, and was struck by the tranquil beauty of it. I wished I could have taken a picture of the sun rising over the misty fields, but my phone doesn't take good pictures through the glass, and my camera doesn't work any more.
At the airport I was struck and noticed the other people in ways I had not before; the families, the children driving their parents mad, and all of the other things that were going on around me. And on the plane, even though I had the whole of the centre section to myself, even thought I lay down and tried to sleep the time away, I couldn't. So I watched the movie, I watched the people, I read my book (until the battery on the computer ran out), and then just existed for the rest of the time. It made for a long flight, but... nothing to be done.
The one time I did zone out and miss something, ironically, was the time when the cab arrived to deliver me to Mir's work, and I failed to notice the steeple of the church, lying on the ground - the only damage in Chapel Hill from the storms before - totally missed that.
When we got home, after unpacking and everything - because I do hate to be living out of suitcases, especially for so long - I was able to enjoy the wonderful meditation garden that Mir's made for me. Before I came, she told me she'd been planning it, but hadn't actually admitted to having made it, planted the seeds, and even put a stick into one of the pots so I could bring out my butterfly windcharm and balance the one of the other side.
Being out there, and being the first time I've actually done something like this in a long time - in far too long - everything was so special. I just sat and soaked up the sense of being there on the deck of the house in the 'garden' that Mir had made for me. It was a moment of homecoming that was deeply spiritual, extremely comforting. I hope to be able to spend a lot of time out there in the garden... perhaps sharing some of the insights into what comes to me as I do... in the coming days.