Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Cleansing

It’s been raining for three days.  We lost power yesterday for almost twelve hours but we have a generator for back-up.  I was involved in a workshop on Zoom, Mahamudra and the Luminous Mind: The Third Karmapa’s Aspiration Prayer.

Our aspiration, our prayer was for world peace. The focus was on unifying emptiness and luminosity, on cultivating awareness, love and compassion, and wisdom.  This is both simple and complex, so I sit here now honoring the simplicity, the gift of it, even as I read the news of Trump. I’m with the challenge of holding it all with compassion and equanimity.  

I’m with these words of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, spoken after the end of World War II, during the military tribunal he organized to hold Japanese leaders accountable for their own horrific war crimes, including the sack of Manila in 1945. “The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being.”

Our commander-in-chief is guilty of war crimes.  Let’s hold him accountable.  We need to heal.

On another note, I highly recommend Lee Klinger Lesser’s book, Return to Our Senses, A Path to Stability in an Unstable World.  It’s a font of guidance and wisdom, and personal examples of how to work with what comes.

She quotes astrophysicist Ethan Siegel: “The air we breathe contains one atom from every breath that every human has ever taken. In fact, right now, if you take a deep breath and then exhale, by the time a year goes by, approximately one atom from that breath will wind up in every other person on Earth’s lungs at any moment in time.”

Like the study of Mahamudra this weekend, that’s hard for me to visualize, and I understand it’s about connection.  We’re not separate; we are one!  Let’s cleanse and purify the air we share with each loving and compassionate thought and breath. We do it for ourselves, all sentient beings, and our beloved planet Earth.  

Earth and Sky
May we slide and climb and build and maintain bridges for All!
Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Black History Month

I was on a poetry/meditation call where a woman shared she envisioned this inner/outer world we share as a teabag immersed in a cup of water. She sees us immersed in an ocean of water and air flowing in and out.

The image is with me as I reflect back to 1976 when Republican President Gerald Ford officially recognized February 1 as the first day of Black History Month, a month to honor the accomplishments and contributions of Black people throughout our history.

Now, the Trump administration denies and stomps on that contribution.  How does that affect us all, this denial of inner and outer flow?  One can only feel compassion for a tragic group of people isolated and contracted in fear and hate.  What a horrific way to live on a planet that teaches and shows us how to thrive in connection, generosity, reflection, and inner and outer flow.  

Sunset in Half Moon Bay
Earth turns and the path of sunlight returns
Waves of Daylight

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Enchantment

I meditated in our front garden this morning.  The hummingbirds were out though not in the mood for photos but a bee obliged.

Flowing
Invitations
Offering
Listening
Lifting



Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Day 19: In Flight

My son Jeff and I are on a plane heading toward JFK in New York. We’ve talked, eaten, and laughed.  We’ve looked at clouds. I think I see happy spelled out in a group of five fluffy clouds floating lightly in a blue sky but Jeff doesn’t see it.  We’ve entertained ourselves but when I look at my watch, I see there are hours before we land. We decide to meditate for an hour. A timer is set.

Jeff looks peaceful.  I’m trying by inhaling compassion and exhaling compassion and pouring the exhalation over my head like champagne. It doesn’t work.  My feet aren’t fooled by the lack of support from the floor. They know I’m 40,000 feet in the air.

In the hyper-alert and hyper-vigilant state I’ve been in since my brother passed, I’m on edge, grumpy, judgmental, over-sensitive, and impatient.

I usually love flying but I’m aware I’m enclosed in a tube and and then I feel it. There’s a hole in my heart. I’m acting like a normal person, or so I think, but I’m a person with a hole in my heart. I look out the window at white, fluffy clouds. I don’t see angels or harps.

Jeff opens his eyes and notices my agitated state. I tell him there’s a hole in my heart. He begins leading me in meditation.  I close my eyes and feel the hole, the ache, the pain, and moving up into my head, I feel how all of this is energy and staying with it, there is expansion and peace, and I trust the ground of the plane, the ground of my being.

My eyes are moist as my personal guru is next to me, guiding, leading.  I’m the angel and I don’t need a harp because I have my breath. I notice the exhale is rusty and stuck.  I cough and cough and stay with it until it smooths and pauses. I come to peace and trust, and in its own circular time the plane lands, and then there is the traffic leading into NYC which comes to a pause as my feet touch the ground under my feet. Relief.

After a lovely dinner in one of the many Italian restaurants that make NYC what it is, I sit wondering why I struggle so with spin and how I strengthen the threads in clouds so I can stand and feel support wherever I am.