I’m thinking of you with gratitude in my heart!
It’s a wondrous duality that we human beings live. We have the capacity to conceptualize and choose; and choices will be made according to the concepts that populate one’s mind. We can also orient to the wholesome and abide in peace. And, because some human beings orient to concepts that are not wholesome, peaceful or bright, it is all the more important that the majority compass to the good and to suchness.
Radio silence on this blog, no online meditations for the last couple of weeks, and a second truncated off-line group retreat are due to physical body happenings common to advancing MS, to aging, and to having a physical body. Ah, impermanence. Never be fooled into thinking otherwise, my friends! When the neurologist walked into the hospital room on Nov. 10, 2000 to report that this body had MS and that MS is incurable (thus terminal), I smiled – which confused the neurologist. She asked if I needed a chaplain or a counselor. No thank you. Thank you for your clarity, I said. What a gift: incurable, terminal. That meant that there’s nothing to fight, to fix, or be upset about. That meant use it for Path, live fully every moment, meditate, be well from within. Bodies come and go, I thought after she left. Okay, then. Here’s my Path.
The same is so for us all. Those who have the good fortune of not living in war zones or subject to genocidal agendas can truly take each day is one’s Path. Good fortune, in all its variety, gives one opportunities to serve others and to awaken. We have the luxury of living Life and Path as the works in progress that they are and that each person will uniquely navigate. Ah opening to impermanence; ah, recognizing the limitations of concepts; ah, melting into openness and suchness.
So, below is what’s going on physically. Peace of mind is trusting that the body knows how to function; Spirit knows how to design the completion of an incarnation, and why would I -personality- want to get in the way of Spirit’s design? Path, again.
- what I thought was a pelvic fracture two weeks ago (had them before. One does not forget the sensations that accompany a fracture or break to a bone!) But, it does not seem to be knitting. Might have it checked out so that best management can ensue.
- lungs don’t always work well. Usually a great gentleness overtakes such moments and I think “yes, now is just perfect (to die).”
- swallowing can be problematic; choking is occurring with greater frequency with or without food or drink (which are eaten slowly, cut small, and chewed).
- lungs are also filling with fluid or mucus, which likely has to do with lymph not moving vigorously anymore.
- the left-side appendages malfunction on a strong day, barely function on most days. My hypothesis is that the current pelvic fracture (second in six months) is due to one leg not lifting and the other lifting, thus torquing the pelvis – as if pulling it apart- with every step.
- vitality. Fatigue is a subjective measure of vitality and stamina, to be sure. When I used to hike mountains with husband and friends, yeh, after eight hours of hiking I was tired. We all were. When I ran with my girl scouts in the woods, playing and teaching them about Nature, yeh, I was tired at the end of the day. Or working, then home to cook and clean, yeh, tired. But, tired or fatigue, or vitality are subjective. All I know is that now, often, I sit, quiet, no thinking, just peace, because nothing else is possible. Literally.
- My will is done. DNR on the doors. Ah, peace. Peace of mind, meditation and peace.
Suchness opens in various moments through the day. So grateful. We are whole beings with the incarnational intention to express beingness. We are not bodies. What a relief!
Suchness -the mother of beauty. Suchness -the space within the breeze. Suchness – indescribable unity when heart and mind, openness and awareness, dissolve each other. Neither remains. They were concepts, edified, lived as if true. What is heart when not a concept about heart? What is mind when the machine of thinking, spitting out manufactured moments of identity, naming, references, this and thats, dissolves? Unwordable. Ah.
See you Tuesday, June 9, for meditation.
The peat-free potting soil was amended last week for the final seed snails: more marigolds, dwarf bok choy, and Japanese greens. The latter edibles were mowed down by a ground squirrel or two. They at every early green in the beds except some of the lettuces. I don’t know why not those.