Today in my meditation, I saw and felt the day turn to light as the earth turns on its axis and we move around the sun. Yesterday, I got my hair cut and asked my hairdresser why one side flips up and the other side curls under. I learned that our hair spirals in a circle around our head, each of us with a swirl as individual as our fingerprint.
I’m swirling in movement today, anchored in the cord of impermanence, change.
Yesterday, I appreciated the notification of a possible tsunami. A helicopter flew and hovered overhead. This morning I find myself remembering different translations of the words of Masahide:
My house burned down
I now see
The rising moon.
or
Barn’s burnt down —
now
I can see the moon.
When I got the notice to move to higher ground, though my house is safe, I left because my medical appointment required dipping down to drive by the bay. Though the notice was cancelled by the time I arrived, the office, which is by the bay, was still in a tizzy. They had evacuated, but my ophthalmologist said at first she didn’t know where to go, and then she thought of what it would be to leave and learn everything was gone. It was a time to reflect. Yes, though everything had returned to normal, what might have happened. Like that, change.
My meditation practice is about impermanence and interdependence. I think the political news has us all awake recognizing impermanence and interdependence.
I come to the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.
We’re being stretched.
The pineal gland is a tiny endocrine gland in the middle of our brain that’s shaped like a pine cone. It helps regulate our body’s circadian rhythm of sleep and wakefulness by secreting the hormone melatonin.
I notice how aware I am of light and dark this time of year. There’s an intensity to my noticing that light now comes earlier in the morning and lasts longer in the evening.
To augment my noticing, I light candles, keeping them going much of the time to massage my intake, my inhalation of smoke, flame and fragrance. I honor the passage and flickering motion and reach and touch of light.
My brother would have been 66 today. I sit with that. I was three though felt quite mature when my brother came home from the hospital. My dad and I shared fun times as we waited. He washed my hair outside with a hose as I stood in our tiny inflatable swimming pool. It was July in Des Moines, Iowa, and hot and humid. Cleansing outside made sense, but the neighboring mothers were in awe as they saw how my father creatively cared for me. Memories flood in as impermanence waves a multi-colored flag, not the white flag of surrender but a patchwork quilt.
I come to these words by Cheri Huber: Conditioning includes amazingly elaborate systems to keep us from facing the simple fact of life: we are not in control.
We want to believe we have control and I do believe we share connections that allow us to weave and sew a quilt to comfort and nourish our needs.
The world is so rich. When you have an hour and a half, I suggest you watch this. Anna Breytenback speaks at Findhorn about how she communicated with an angry Black Leopard named Diablo who changed when she listened to him and explained that he needed to be named as he truly was: Spirit.
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