Amy Lynn interviews Linda Mahns about her own personal raw food path and business journey with VT Fiddle Heads, the former cafe and current online store supplied with her own hemp and nylon mesh strainer bags for making nut milks, juices, coffee, tea, sprouting, and other uses. We compare the raw food movement in Vermont in the last 10 years and how requesting raw food items at health markets and coops in the past lead to the selection we have today in Vermont. We also discuss her new pursuits in helping others to live their own juicy life and her future hopes for VT Fiddle Heads. http://holisticpilgrimage.podomatic.com/entry/2016-03-12T16_04_03-08_00
Linda's notes: Amy Lynn did a great job of interviewing and editing. It has been a LONG time since I had an interview done and it has turned into a catalyst for us to begin a raw vegan potluck again: http://www.meetup.com/All-Things-Raw-Raw-vegan-Food-Potlucks-Meetup/ and the FB page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/vermontrawfoodpotlucks/ So be on the lookout for new and fun things! Thank you, Amy Lynn, for your interest in VT Fiddle Heads and for your own passions! May we have fun with these potlucks, events and other fun things in our immediate future! xoxoxo
]]>going to pick up fabric
it is a snowy day here today
a great big heart of love for you
still working on the painting and decorating of the place. but got some calligraphy in!
say HI to Meg, our office manager! (Hi Meg!)
Our main sewing maven, Catherine. She was a monk in a former life.
happy turkey (or UNturkey day!)
]]>Enjoy the night, Linda
]]>My daughter looked at the photo album with me and her comment when she saw this photo was that I looked bright and happy. That was sweet to hear. I can remember being in my 20s, looking at the fat kid that I was. I have a lot more sweetness for myself when I see these photos now and that's probably because I have kids now... This was a sweet kid in this photo - one who had a big curiosity for life and found beauty in so much.
P.S. you can find fun exercises like this and more if you go here: http://www.natureandthehumansoul.com/newbook/exp_2.htm - you can read Plotkin's book "Nature and the Human Soul" and do these exercises. They are fun and get you thinking. Good night and happy soul searching!
]]>I woke up yesterday morning and did a little meditation first thing. I got out of bed around 8 and made myself a big huge green smoothie:
(I actually made enough for 4 people)
3 medium bananas
local frozen blueberries
kale
1 orange
rice protein powder
vitamineral green
I added quite a lot of kale so it was very dark green. It was pretty yummy, though and I felt pimped out for the day. I got dressed and met a friend for our mother's day treat to ourselves.
We went to Stowe, VT to a place called Stoweflake. There's a spa and resort there. It's a beautiful spot. My friend Linda and I drove there and got caught up on a slew of things that are good, bad, stressful and otherwise in our lives and when we opened the doors for the spa, there was an almost immediate sense of dropping everything and taking a big luxurious pause. Linda treated me to this day, which was very surprising. I didn't plan on that at all and I started to cry. For years and years now, if I want to celebrate and honor anything for myself and my family, I have to do it myself. I have for years bought my own gifts and planned things for various holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It's just rote now. So Linda and I planned on getting a massage and she told me about this thing at Stoweflake where you can do a spa day for about the same money and have access to the whole spa and have lunch, etc. Her treating me to this was so unexpected and sweet and I just welled up and thanked her with a BIG BIG hug.
We selected our lunch and then went to the back room where we were given plush robes and slippers. Linda showed me around to the place where the cushy lounge chairs are, the pools, saunas and locker room and showers are. We got dressed into bathing suits and then went to the mineral pool. It is 101 degrees of sheer pleasure. We sat in there and floated around until we got good and warm and then went to the waterfall pool. It was awesome to have the waterfall beating down on my head, neck, shoulders and back for I don't know how many minutes. Then it was time to go back to the mineral pool until all tension and stiffness went away.
We sat in the lounge for a minute and drank the cucumber water that was delicious. Why don't I drink this all the time?! Then we went into the steam sauna for a few minutes. That was interesting. I had never been in a hot steamy humid sauna before - only dry ones. It took some getting used to and I couldn't stay in there longer than about 5 minutes. Afterwards, a shower with beautiful smelling products and then back in our plush robes to meander about. We walked down the hall in slippers and robes and ate lunch at their cafe. (We actually sat outside near the closed pool but wanted to get some fresh air.)
Linda remarked how nice it would be if this was more standard for our culture: things like turkish baths and the custom of communally caring for ourselves. It was great to see people of all shapes and sizes just taking care of themselves. It was wonderful to see the standard uniform of women walking around our private sanctuary in robes and slippers languishing in a few hours of peace. Even better to see was when the women came back from their massages with their complimentary bottle of water and the blissed out, relaxed facial expressions. Just wonderful.
After lunch, we laid out on the lounge chairs and waited peacefully for our massages. My body felt weighty in a very good way. I had no plan for these hours other than to nourish myself in this peaceful way. We talked sometimes and other times just closed our eyes and got ourselves into a deeper place of peace. My body was very very happy for this experience and it caused a deep sense of peace in my mind, too. AHHH, I really needed this and I shouldn't wait another year to do it again. With any luck, I won't.
It was a magical 5 hours at the spa. I had a glorious massage and then we rested for another hour and a half on that lounge chair, drinking cucumber water. I brought a piece of chocolate to share with Linda. It was very difficult to get up. Who would want to leave this paradise?!
We drove home on a beautiful VT country rode during beautiful weather. The magic never ends sometimes. We were remarking about how wonderful and good we feel when we get out of our heads and into our bodies. I think that's when we are open to real magic in our lives. It was great to see the difference in our speech and body language after the day of relaxation. We had so little to say in comparison that was processing and more of gratitude and sharing in all the beauty around us. We also did a bit of dreaming for future field trips here and there. :-)
The evening was spent with my children. We went to montpelier for dinner - there was only like 1 restaurant open on mother's day! What a crazy town! It was nice. Afterwards, I took the kids to get some shorts and things for upcoming trips and just because they are growing so tall now that they need the stuff.
Here's a wish for more mindful times spent in our bodies, in our lives and an openness for magical moments.
lots of love,
Linda
]]>This morning I did my usual morning routine which has been including this visualization of holding certain thoughts and images in the forefront of my mind. I am desperate for compassion and empathy and true friendship in my daily life. I have learned how to provide this for myself and I really want to see and experience external examples of these things. I have great friends that are there for me, however, they are many hundreds of miles away. It's been a prayer and a wish of mine to have this closer to home and it will happen. In the meantime, I'm grateful for my old friends and for my own connection to Spirit that keeps me knowing that I'm connected even if people here are too busy or needy or whatever else might be going on in their lives. I seek to open up more space in my life, particularly after this master's program is done so that I can allow for time to be spent just being a friend with someone, with my kids, with myself and in my life. That is a very pleasant thought that keeps me going when things are otherwise stressful and overwhelmingly busy.
My back is still extremely sore today. More sore than yesterday. Perhaps it would have been good to have an epsom salt bath last night. Maybe I can do that tonight although it is my daughter's birthday so probably this will have to wait until tomorrow. I took some green powder specifically made to help with inflammation and I'm walking around doing errands here in Shelburne so that my body doesn't get too stiff just sitting. I am breathing into the pain in my low back and really loving it. I'm so sorry for the pain in my body at times. Sometimes it seems as though I'm damaged goods from this marriage and these pregnancies but thankfully that is just a passing thought. I keep working towards pain-free living once again. I've had many years of it and so I know what it feels like. I have deep gratitude for the times when I have pain as well as when I don't. It's all changing and fleeting. This pain slows me down, keeps me in my body and keeps me functioning in a very gentle and loving way so how can I be anything but grateful? Today's mindfulness is centered around my hips/pelvis/sacrum. I'm looking into doing some structural integration (after many years of thinking this would not be good on my body) and we'll see how a session goes.
I've been sitting for over an hour now so it's time to get up and move. Thanks for reading and blessings to you in your own awakening journey.
]]>As soon as I got onto the massage table, my mind and body immediately relaxed. I sighed and released a lot of tension even before the therapist put her hands on me. I listened to the music that was upbeat and pleasant. There were frog sounds and other nature sounds in the music. The massage therapist put some oil on her hands and began to gently scan down my body, feeling for areas of tension. She could feel the puffy inflammation in my low back and asked if it hurt. She applied gentle pressure to the piraformis muscles in my hips to ask them to release. She massaged my arms and legs and back and my body felt incredibly grateful. I turned over and she massaged my head and scalp. She also specializes in cranio-sacral work and she held my forehead and base of skull in her hands for a few minutes. She didn't say what she was doing but I was asking my body to release and relax. I had thoughts for my body saying it was safe and ok to heal and calm down. After an hour the body meditation was over.
I asked her why it is that I look better after a massage? She said something along the lines of giving the body loving attention and asking it to relax and be present is a great beauty treatment! It was pretty remarkable to me how I looked in the mirror before getting on the table and how I looked afterwards. I felt very pleasant and calm for the remainder of the day.
I had to go to a counseling meeting and meet up with Matt to go over some issues that came up in our last meeting and in our daily lives that needed addressing. I walked down to my car to get ready to go to the meeting and I had a new thought about what it was that I was needing and how I could best try to communicate this. It just came to me and I believe that was so because space was created in my mind and body in the relaxation process of massage that made this possible. When we hold ourselves so tightly, it is difficult to let anything new in.
]]>This past week, however, I didn't do very much in the way of my normal exercise routine. I walked the dogs each day but that was only at most a 3 mile walk each day. I typically ride the stationary bike for 10 miles a day and I have to get in yoga each week. The minimum is 1 full yoga practice each week with stretching every day or every other day. This past week, I didn't get anything more than short walks in and what happens to me is stiffness that accumulates to the point of inflammation and then spasming if I don't get to exercise and stretching routinely.
I had 6 papers to write last week plus another 1200-1600 paper to hand in as a writing example some place else. I managed that PLUS ended up writing another 8 page paper for yet another commitment I have. This means that I was at the computer a lot. Each time I get up, it feels like my body just gets stuck in the seated position. My body is really slow to move and I have to ease myself into movement. I always wonder if this is what it feels like for mildly arthritic folks...
For the past 3 years, I've been standing mostly at the cafe and that has its own pain associated with it but at least I was always moving, hardly sat. That came with it's own host of side effects for my legs and hips but it's always better for me to keep moving.
Since January of this year, I've been having a numbness/pins and needles kind of experience in my foot. It happens when I sit, when I stand, when I walk. Something seems to be pinching a nerve down my leg and into my foot. I have visited the chiropractor and have had massage to help move whatever but it's still present. I want to look into this more deeply. Maybe it is time for some structural integration? An MRI? I don't know.
Today I can feel the numbness/tingling in my foot as I write this. I can also feel a band of low-level pain all around the bones of my pelvis. This typically means that my pelvis/sacrum are not in good alignment. My hips, too, have been talking to me - I've been needing to put a pillow in between my knees at night again. Exercise really does help me to keep a modicum of flexibility to my daily life. Even when I don't do this stuff for a week, my body really starts talking back in a major way.
Today I plan on doing yoga because the stretching is so essential for my piroformis and psoas muscles (These are terribly tight and stiff all the time.) It helps my groin muscles and hamstrings that get so tight they start to experience charlie horses. It helps my hips and pelvis and sacrum that has been so twisted since the kids were born... maybe sooner but the pain really began after Emily was born. SO that's 12 years of some variety and intensity of pain. I have such a high pain tolerance now that it's silly for me to fill out pain forms.
On this day, I have to begin again. NO MATTER how many papers there are, no matter what is happening in my life. My body speaks to me all the time and I listen as best as I can. I do the best I can and when I know better, I do better. My practice today is to not just listen to my body but to actually begin again with my routine after one week off and hope that my body's stiffness, tightness and pain softens quickly.
I probably will be doing my final paper on Meditation for Pain Management since it is something that I have been doing for 12 years. Maybe this is good that this week off from my usual daily exercise program happened because I was wondering what I'd do my final paper on. :-)
]]>I sat with the thoughts and acknowledged that they kept coming up. I realized I wanted to remember these items of importance because I want to advocate for myself and my family. I scanned down into my body and relaxed all the way down to my feet and back up to my head. I can't tell you how different these thoughts were than other thoughts in the (not so distant) past. They were so strong and powerful and I actually yelled loudly to myself in thought, "PLEASE!! STOP! I HEAR YOU! I LOVE YOU! I HEAR YOU!" (I thought this was kind of funny. It reminded me a little bit of what I read years ago in Eat, Pray, Love, when Elizabeth Gilbert was yelling at herself in meditation.) The pervasive thoughts stopped only briefly but then kept streaming in in the same succession, in the same order. So I just said, "Ok, fine! I'll write this down so I can get back to sleep!" It was like I was bargaining with myself.
I wrote down all the things on my mind. I listed it out and read it and edited and read it again. I did this until every issue and need was listed out. I asked myself if this seemed good and the answer was yes. I put down the computer and I laid back down. The thoughts that kept going in my head after that is, "I love you. I love you. I love you," and I drifted back to sleep finally.
We are reading a Course in Miracles this week and the main points are that thoughts, feelings, things are all illusions and the lesson is to practice to not attach to them, to view them with non-judgement and with curiosity. It was an interesting thing that happened to me. My brain wouldn't let go of these items until I wrote them down and then it was almost too easy to fall back asleep. I had the impression that my mind and body were working in cahoots or something! Maybe sometimes, some thoughts are more worth paying attention to than others. I don't know what meditation masters would say but I was just happy to get my requests down and get my body back to bed. I suppose according to the Course in Miracles, I would need lots of training to realize that these thoughts were nothing... I do wonder, though about the creative spirit that chimes in sometimes and says, "Listen." I'm not sure if this was the creative spirit but this was a very repetitive thought telling me to "Listen and do what I say." I was trying to use all these tools and they worked only briefly... Sometimes, maybe, you just gotta listen and do...
]]>I looked at the dogs hair. He's mostly a black dog, with white on his chin and a small bit on his chest but he's kind of a rainbow because there's gray, black, brown, auburn and white in his hair. His hair is so much longer than when we brought them home in December. What a cutie. I watched his belly move as he was breathing. I just observed his body curled in a little u-shape. I felt the weight of his small body on my lap. It was a really sweet observation. I do it all the time but this felt extra special.
An interesting thing to note. Mister Noah (my dog) and I were doing this little meditation and Matt decided to bring Noah's brother in the room (Cooper.) As soon as he put Cooper near us, Noah made a tiny little half-hearted growl. What was that all about? Was he saying, "This is my time with this lady! Leave us alone!"? I can't say but it made me chuckle.
]]>Each time I thought that I was doing a good job of focusing on my body and my breathing - the conversation would just start again. So I said, "Forget it - time to get serious." And I sat up and started meditating. I might as well, I thought. I sat and bowed to the thoughts that kept streaming in. I gave myself a lot of kindness and understanding as to why I was doing this. I was trying to understand what had gone wrong in my conversation and what I could do to ensure that I was going to be understood. I was trying to foresee a future conversation and what I might say the next time. I saw this with great kindness and then it was easy to shift out of it. It was as if the trial of pushing the thoughts away was not enough at this time (sometimes it is.) I needed to give a little light and understanding to why they kept presenting themselves... Like a child having a little fit. It's possible to ignore, to not give it much value but it's something more for the parent and the child when the parent acknowledges whatever pain or confusion the child might be feeling that is causing the behavior and then watch the behavior change much more quickly thereafter.
I drifted back to sleep. I had many lucid dreams for about 3 1/2 more hours and then the dogs woke me up with their barking. I was grateful to have done that in the middle of the night. I have experience of not doing that and the result is hours and hours of a very active brain in the middle of the night...
]]>I shut off all electronics last night and went to bed at 10 pm. It felt good for me to cease and desist all computer work and mindless FB chatting. In bed, my mind immediately went to a beautiful image of some future place and state that I want to be in. I drifted off into sleep.
In the morning just before awakening, I had a dream about an old boyfriend. One that I hadn't thought of in years and years. I don't know why he decided to show up in my dream but my reflection after waking was on the ways in which I gave a bit of myself over to him. I was very immature back then and had not had much relationship experience back then. I was a lot stronger, too, in many ways, and that was also good to reflect on. It turned out to be a very good reflection... I went into a place of meditation after that. Acknowledging the thoughts and reflections and then letting them be. No need to analyze further.
More thoughts and reflections came in and they went about their way, too.
In my rough moments yesterday, I want to acknowledge that I did some tonglen around them, too. There was a moment when the pain I was feeling (emotional pain) was so great that it felt like I couldn't breathe for a few seconds. I breathed into and out of that space for myself and for countless others that could possibly be feeling that right then, too. I suppose it helped me to do this act for myself and others because that pain was big enough to fool me into thinking I was alone in that thought/feeling.
This morning I made a loose plan for how I wanted the day to go to day. I'm doing all things for me right now. OBLIGATION was the word that kept popping up as the action to avoid in my life from now on. :-) It feels good to make that claim. I also figured on what I was going to eat today since eating has been so strange for me since late January. (No worries on this.) The phrase that popped in to replace obligation was CARING AS A WANT FOR SELF/OTHERS - in other words: CHOICE. It's a much better place in my heart (with lots of space around it) when I ask myself, "what do I choose to do today?"
This morning I made a kickass slam dunk green smoothie for myself and my kids:
2 bananas
1 orange
1 local small apple
a head of lettuce
local blueberries
rice protein powder
hemp powder
AFA
cacao powder
vitamineral green
cinnamon
I sucked down 3/4 of it and will have the rest later. Since January I have been at a loss for what to eat. Don't ask me why. I decided today that I will have a smoothie in the morning and a nori wrap this afternoon if I'm hungry. Dinner is always easy to figure out.
So that's all that's on my mind thus far. I'm off to see about getting another paper written and posted for school. Thank you to anyone that is reading my thoughts and mind wanderings... all love, Linda
]]>May I be well and happy Free from harm and change May any obstacle to my spiritual, emotional, or physical well-being be removed May I reach/be enlightenment in this lifetime. This was a prayer given to me by my friend Ani when I took Buddhist vows nearly 12 years ago. That prayer starts with me and then moves to my loved ones, then to acquaintances, then to "enemies", then to anyone/everyone in the world and universe. It can take a LONG time to do the prayer. I hold the person's face in my mind as I recite the prayer for them. It has helped me to forgive and forget a multitude of things in myself and in others. I read about tonglen for class this week and described it in a paper I wrote yesterday:
Tonglen is a transformational meditation practice that helps to change the atmosphere in our relationships (with self and all other sentient beings.) Tonglen has four stages: Stage 1 reminds us of any of the five mind training slogans from absolute bodhichitta (i.e. “regard all dharma as dreams;” “examine the nature of unborn insight;” “self-liberation is no antidote;” “rest in the nature of alaya;” and/or “in the post meditation experience, one should remain as a child of illusion;” from Pema Chodron's “Awakening Compassion” video.) Stage 2 of Tonglen is to breathe in the dark and heavy thoughts/emotions that arise and then breathe out whatever feels cool and light. Stage 3 is to think of whatever unresolved issue is present and alive in oneself and breathe in the dark, heaviness of it and then breathe out something that feels peaceful or helpful in some way. The idea is to open space up in one’s mind and heart in both the darkness and the lightness, which is the nature of the giving/receiving aspects of Tonglen. Stage 4 asks us to universalize this experience by visualizing all being who are sharing this dark experience that we are having in this present moment and breathing out images or thoughts of peace for all; this helps to help us to feel less sense of separation in our darkest moments.It is a lovely variation on the theme of loving kindness and compassion towards self and others. It seems to help heal suffering in relationships and can be done even for folks that you don't know. Chodron gave the example of seeing a father speak harshly to a child in a store - she said that the breathing in could be for the anger/frustration the father feels and breathing out of peace for him. Likewise, we could breathe in the pain and humiliation the child feels and breathe out an image of a flower or something that might be of some use to him/her. I wrote yesterday about the various monkey wrenches in my day. I noticed that what got triggered in me was not only frustration, but self-doubt. I can write a lot about this and tell you the why's and the how's of this story but the real meat of it was that I got to a very familiar place of self-doubt that I don't frankly treat as an old friend. Lately when I experience self-doubt, it is accompanied with low level anxiety. I realize this is because I want to trust my thoughts, words and deeds in this body and in this lifetime. Not doing so, can feel almost crippling. I noticed the thoughts and stories and was really ok to drop them. Still, I had the feelings that were unpleasant - unwanted. I decided to take a few minutes and breathe in the space of self-doubt and accompanied anxiety. I breathed in all its murky twistedness. I fucking hate this feeling and want to resist it with every ounce of my being. But this time, I invited it in. I held it for a few minutes and then breathed out an image of the beach with the ocean waves washing this feeling through and out. then the fun part began. I breathed in and thought about all the millions of people that might be feeling this same sense of self-doubt and anxiety right at this moment. This really helped to open up space inside me - a space of realization that I'm not alone in this. Probability-wise, there must be quite a number of people who feel this exact thing at this exact moment. Who is to say not? I breathed out images of expansive ocean waves washing this away. It was much easier to do this for others than for myself. I repeated the process because I want to feel the easy kindness I had to send out to others and give it to myself, too. I'd love feedback on personal experience of these loving-kindness meditations. do you do them? Do you find them helpful? do you have insights into understand that might help me too? thank you.]]>
still sitting in the mornings. still having moments of loveliness and other moments of thoughts of all kinds. it is what it is.
today I had some moments where old habits were kicking in. I took matt to the airport and noticed the old stories coming in my head about him going. it's very old and tired and SO doesn't serve me. I took a deep breath in and out and allowed for all the feelings come in. "I accept this, too."
there really is something to this. I'm grateful for this little tool in my tool belt. it's not like the feelings dissolved immediately, but they did dissolve. it was more like there was no place for the stories to land. no audience to give the stories so the feelings just were felt and then they went away. what a gift. I have to be honest, these things are so old that I cringed at first when they showed up. I didn't want to even go there for a second and my first thoughts were that this was going to last so long and was going to ruin my evening. I remembered to bow to this and like I said, it went away.
the best part: I had a really great evening. I felt stoked about this time with my kids and with friends and with the universe. I haven't felt that in a long time. Even that feeling went away and that was ok too! :-)
I'm off to sleep. nighty night. <3
]]>Perhaps the meaning of life can wait until after tax season... :-)
]]>I had a good night's sleep and for that, I am very grateful. I did my morning meditation beginning by scanning my body and relaxing whatever I could. It's frankly amazing that even after sleep, my body could hold tension. I watched the breath and did the usual naming of thoughts that came and went, as well as songs that came and went. (sometimes a thought and a song came in at once...) LOL I actually had a couple moments, though, when I just enjoyed the experience of my body sitting on my bed in my room as I listened to the sounds of the dogs and the cars. I was just listening and there were VERY TINY EENSY WEENSY NANO SECONDS where I just entertained nothing but interior and exterior sensations. And THEN of course I had the thought, "wow! I just had some nano seconds of just sensing my body and the room and the sound of the cars!" and this made me chuckle. My mind wandered and did it's thing and then I noticed it and this was what happened for some time. It's kind of a game in a way. It's also just time to hang out with myself. I remember a lot of time in my younger days when I could just hang out by myself and with others and not have to say a word. In my adult life, I value silence so much. I remember my mom saying (or rather yelling) "I JUST WANT TO HEAR QUIET!!!" And me, being a kid, I thought she was crazy. Well mom, if you can read this from heaven, I get it now! But I'm also getting that all of it is ok. The noise, the thoughts, the dreams, the processing, the imaginings, the conversations that I play back in my head. It's fine. Whatever. This too shall pass... I'll deal with whatever I need to deal with and move along. The bigger things might take more out of me and hopefully I can know when and how to shake off the small shit that niggles in my head... I am grateful for this strong mind. I see the importance that these books are illustrating about how important it is to cultivate doing AND being together... The day was as full as can be. This morning I was smart and got the various things I wanted to make sure to do BEFORE even going downstairs and being interrupted by the kids. Boy, that made a big difference. I accomplished quite a lot and actually also had 2 phone calls today and 1 email that required a lot of my attention. Two of these three things were plenty intense or at least they could have been if I was in a different frame of mind. I handled them well and bounced back really well too. So I give myself some kudos for this. I think, in some ways, I'm growing up. :-)
]]>“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-mans’ land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that’s life. Death is wanting to hold onto what you have and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together. So even though we say the yama mara is the fear of death, it’s actually the fear of life. …. When we wake up, we can live fully without seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, without re-creating ourselves when we fall apart. We can let ourselves feel our emotions as hot or cold, vibrating or smooth, instead of using our emotions to keep ourselves ignorant and dumb. We can give up on being perfect and experience each moment to its fullest.” (Chodron, P. 1997, p71-72.)
I have really been thinking about this sentiment about being willing to die over and over again. She's so hardcore! With each out breath, we are essentially accepting a kind of death and then with each in breath we make the agreement to live and die again. So Ms. Chodron, if I am to accept the day's moments without seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, I will tell you that I was one sleepy person today. I fully embraced sleep deprivation this thursday!
Wow, what an experience!
I got up at 6 am after only 5 hours of sleep. I needed to get up at 7 and because I would have only had an hour left, I couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to meditate since if I was a nun, that's what I would do at 4 am anyway. :-) That early in the morning, my mind was whirling and swirling. I felt awake and alert... My mind was very active and there actually seemed no point to meditating. It was as if the floodgates were opened and every thought and feeling came flooding out. I was so awake and ready to tackle the day... until it was time to get out of bed.
It was a slow morning of getting ready and out the door. The kids and I were frustrated with each other here and there. Well, let me rephrase: I was feeling frustrated with them being so slow to get out the door. They appeared to have cared less if we stayed or if we left... The drive in to Shelburne was slow. and. painful. I was behind EVERY slow moving mammal. For me, it's as if there is a wall in front of me obstructing my view and my path - this is how I see slow moving cars in front of me. This bugs me and today was no exception, however, in my sleepy state, I was very slow in responding in frustration or annoyance... it was only because my response time was delayed, believe me, I was agitated... I was agitated because I was wishing I felt more awake and alert in my mind and body. I was wishing for smoother sailing and a faster more pleasant ride. WANT, WANT, WANT (for more than what was at the time.)
I dropped the kiddos off and parked my car. By 10:30, I dozed off. It felt like a blink and then when I woke up, it was 12:30 pm. I would have kept sleeping but I had to pee. I went to the bathroom at the episcopal church and then noticed the doors to the sanctuary were open. I walked in and immediately smelled the incense. It reminded me of my buddhist friend, Ani's house. This is the same incense that she burned in her house when she lived in Pittsburgh. I had never been in this church sanctuary before. I walked around and took in all the sites. It's an old church and it's very beautiful. There's a mosaic on the floor where the minister and choir hangs out to do their thing. There is beautiful art on the walls and calligraphy on the archway that separates the minister/choir and where the pews are. (If you know me, then you know that at this point, I was picturing living in this room by now.) :-)
I sat in one of the pews and listened to the delicious silence in the room. I wished that I lived here so that I could start a meditation group in that setting. It was so nice. I had the thought that probably not many people get to sit in that amazing silence because when it is open, it means music and speaking and a message being spoken/delivered. I had thought it would be incredibly yummy to sit in this FULL stillness and gorgeous silence of this room. Geezum, I really love that sensation.
I decided to seize the moment and try again at a proper meditation sitting. I sat for about a half hour and savored this beautiful space and this beautiful silence. It was interesting to note that when I was walking around, I had a feeling of something in my heart center. It was almost bitter sweet and when I relaxed in meditation, that sensation went away. It came back when I was done with the meditation and walked around a bit again. I went back to the car and had a moment of tears that washed over me. It was literally just a few seconds. I have no idea what came over me. My guess is that so many memories came in. My dad used to play at an episcopal church and I always liked that denomination. I liked it because it was Catholic-light. It has similar symbolism and rituals but less guilt. HA! I recall thinking of the sweet smell of Ani's house (when she was still Andrea) and the peacefulness that I would feel when I'd visit her. I recall having such a sense of connection with mysticism in Christianity and the experience of the sanctuary felt very beautiful and sacred.
I left, went back to the car and attempted to write some papers. It was difficult to focus. It was as if my brain was not processing or working well. I happily chatted with some friends on the phone. That I was managing well! When it was time to go home, I stopped to run a couple errands and by 4:30, 5:00, my brain felt fried. I was just on auto-pilot. It sort of hurt to try to think or reason or do anything much. I picked up an item in a market and my eyes could barely focus to read the small print! That was almost alarming to me and I was feeling a small sense of suffering but I remembered Pema Chodron's instructions to not avoid the pain. So I told myself that I accept this sleepiness 100%. It wasn't easy but I managed to make the long journey home and function as best I could. I'm about to go to sleep now. My wanting mind can't WAIT to get in my comfy bed and hunker down for the night.
There is something to this acceptance of what is stuff. It's good stuff. It's not easy but honestly, it's easier than constantly wishing that I had more sleep or worrying that there's something to worry about with regards to my health or driving or well-being, etc. It's also better than wishing I was already home. I found myself at some point saying, "If I only got even 1 more hour sleep, I'd be able to run more errands and write more and feel way better in my body." Well, for this day, I just was supposed to do the best I could do. Things felt better in my body when I accepted that...
nighty-night, Linda
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