Just BEING makes it better

The last three days have set me right up on top of my precarious mountain of things to do. Sunshine! Bulbs coming up! Back into yoga, yummy! We are back to rain today, but that is OK. The mountain is still there, but it doesn't seem like I'll get buried in an avalanche, or that I have to drag myself up it, either. Celebrating return, for sure.

I haven't been meditating, but I have been trying to stay mindful. Observing has sounded a bit like this: where did that day go? did I get the pictures to Alex? why does that hurt so much? wow, I am really tired. sweetie, you make a terrific oviraptor. i can't believe i don't square dance all the time, it is so much fun! last evening swimming class, remember goggles and shampoo. what is the right school for theo next year? be the telemark turn, Martha.

Then returning to meditation this morning we did a different kind of bodyscan. Instead of starting with our feet and working up the body we started with the skin and the energy at the edges of the body and went IN. Fascia, voluntary muscles, INvoluntary muscles (can you tell I was fascinated by that one?), viscerae, blood, cells, spaces----between----cells. It gave me that additional expansion that sitting with concepts (and the breath, always the breath) can.

There is so much room for states and beings and yes, tasks, to exist! Curiosity. Creativity. Relationship. Letting go. A little window into the source of suffering: a distorted relationship with time.

Recent question from T: Mom, what is a sixth sense? and does doing yoga give you it?

Okay, back to daily BEING.

Welcome to Villa Arbole

Experiences of the last couple of weeks are percolating. Devastation in Haiti made thoughts heavy, the good health and safety of my family and myself more precious. When not busy with something completely consuming, would try to imagine everything around me being turned upside down so violently and would hold much sadness for those afflicted. What to do? Read about it. Couldn't watch any video. Send money. How much could ever be enough. Send some each day. Clicking the button along with thousands of others must make a difference.

Thanks reverberated in my head for those who make it their business to be there or go there, and I wondered at all the different paths our lives take when you consider the tangible outcome of a person who builds a dense skillset like doctoring or organizing in disasters like that. Is what I do really as valuable? Am I falling as short of some universal expectation as I am of a personal one to make life better. Inevitable questions.

And then our long-planned trip was upon us. Leaving Theo and Dora seemed impossible logistically and emotionally and so even as I crossed out each logistic and emotional task in preparation to leave I thought of myself in a weird alternative world in which I wouldn't actually leave. Then we went.

Yoga twice a day. Surfing if you dared. Early morning meditation, ears filled with the constant roar of the ocean. A group of 20 or so, every different kind of person, joining together for 6 days in Sayulita, Mexico. Patterns everywhere. At first we seized and appreciated the cultural, culinary, physical, environmental differences. Some had interesting bacteriological experiences. I think we all realized some pacing was required. When I was still home it was easy to imagine doing everything I wanted to do there in a day, it was a vacation from regular home duties and therefore I had boundless energy for it.

In practice my body got tired. Confused. Scared, even. I had a heady first day of surfing during which I caught many waves and vaulted like a tiger to stand solidly on my board as it swished effortlessly to shore. On a following day after ditching on the face of a wave I could barely keep from unraveling as the rest of the set seemed to try to pummel me endlessly into the rockiest place under the water on this otherwise unthreatening beach.

Yoga was good but required reassessing: being outside, being with new people, being with a body that doesn't seem to progress evenly or steadily in one direction--too much else going on. Yoga became something I was able to consider skipping, which here at home simply doesn't occur, if I am going, it's because I want to be there--being already there, I had to say at times: rest. I needed to rest and to guard my moments of appreciation. I needed to ask myself if I'm brave. If I'm strong.

Meditation was hit or miss, dominated by that floating feeling that eludes the simultaneous need for grounding and opening of space--if I'm not connected to anything; your words, my thoughts, this body--what is all of this about?

So lots of topsy turveying, and of course that is what travel is all about, that is as it should be. I didn't really get enough time to make sense of it while away, so I'm still doing that now.