It has been gloomy, I will admit.

One nice, almost-but-not-quite-spring day seems surrounded by dark, dismal, rainy ones.

I will admit,

I’ve had the thought:

Is the weather partnering with the pandemic to test our patience?

Ridiculous, yet true a thought.

Feeling victimized by the overcast, cold days, as self-imposed as that is, I have struggled this week to force myself out the doorway.

I will admit.

My attention too easily is pulled toward the uncertainty,

The suffering.

It has been hard,

I admit,

To hold 

The

Context.

I know there is grace.

I know there is beauty.

I see the frenetic chipmunks wonderfully scurrying around.

I smile at the chunky robins busily carrying yummies in their beaks.

I crack up at all the Mrs. Cardinals with their bright, fantastic red noses.

Yet for me, 
I will admit,

It’s been hard to stay in the beauty.

Connecting to my Source seems fuzzier, harder to rest within, more a sliding in and out of spiritual contact, rather than settling in, a relaxing into the Grace.

Then I watched Dewitt Jones’ Ted-Talk.  

And I remembered.

I remembered again.  

It’s not about staying There.

It’s about the human dance between

Remembering and forgetting,

Suffering and beauty,

Constriction and breath.

That’s the practice!

We are equipped

We are able

To change

Our brain,

Body

And

Behavior.

That is the gift of Yoga off the Mat.

Dewitt reminded me.

He is a National Geographic photographer, writer and film director, who sounds suspiciously like a yogi.  

He helped me remember the power of choice, the reframe that we have talked about in our Kripalu teachings for decades.

Please give yourself the gift of these 18 minutes:

https://www.ted.com/talks/dewitt_jones_celebrate_what_s_right_with_the_world

~~~ 

I choose to give myself
A practice of choice,

A practice of celebration
Of beauty.

This week,
I choose 
To see
The 
Grace.

To keep coming
Back
As 
Best 
I 
Can.

Not to leap over
Or transcend 
The suffering,

But to give
Ourselves the 
Courage 
To find
Our
Way
Through.

Please join me in that practice!

For added inspiration, here is Dewitt Jones’ gallery:
https://dewittjones.com/pages/gallery

~~~

Share Circles for the Week 

Our chance to join together, practicing mindful communication, to remember we are not alone.  Please join if you can by just coming on Zoom, utilizing the below links—no registration is needed.  The link will take you into the Zoom meeting.

Please note: You’ll need the password share2020 to enter the meeting.

Donation is appreciated, 5% will be given to the Berkshire County Food Bank.

(No registration needed)
https://www.paypal.me/CoachAruni

• Tuesday, May 5th, @ 2:00 EST  http://coacharuni.com/tuesdaymay5-share-circle/
• Thursday, May 7th, @ 2:00 EST http://coacharuni.com/thursdaymay7-share-circle/

Dear Friends,

Be safe,
Be well.
Let’s practice
Returning
To
Ourselves.

All blessings,
Aruni

Sometime midweek, I had to stop, just stop, shake myself a bit and consider—what exactly is solace?

If ever there were a time to consider a practice of solace, here it is and here we are, in this altered state of living and of consciousness, in this thing called a pandemic.

To some degree or another, the doors of our homes are closed.

To some degree or another, we walk outside with disquieting caution.

To some degree or another, the future we held for ourselves and our families shape-shifts like a 60’s hallucinogenic geometric design.

To some degree or another, time continues to morph slowly, quickly, into forms unrecognizable, hugely emptied yet zooming by.

Solace?

A practice of solace?

Sounds timely to me, dear friends.

Different systems talk about solace in interesting, similar ways.

Twelve Steps tell us in the midst of chaos, there is serenity.

Living Yoga tells us that, no matter the external clamor, there is silence inside, that it is through the human experience, the doorway to Grace emerges.

Like everything else in this wacky pandemic, these practices that I know—to some degree—that I practice—to some degree—intensify in necessity and deepen in functionality.

You guys, we must find comfort somewhere.

That which used to soothe us might be different now?

Maybe?

The agitations around us might be louder now?

Ya think?

Yet what is it, that remains the same?

What is consistent?

What comforts us?

What comforts can we return to, as a verb form, an intentional and willful action woven into the fabric of our day?

What new comforts can we initiate?

This is me.

Here I am.

I practice solace very imperfectly:

• By starting the day in a bathtub of hot, delicious water
• By walking on the dirt road to the sheep farm
• By appreciating the slope of the land, as the above picture shows, of Round Hill Road
• By saying hello to all the animals, the birds, the sheep, the critters I meet
• By giving myself the gift of tiny yet significant consistent meditation
• By asking Life to hold my hand, to carry me through

Please note my description of “very imperfectly.”

Sometimes I walk on the most hallowed ground on the planet, the ground right here and right now, and I am everywhere.

Everywhere else.

Sometimes I am unable to hear the massive woodpecker sounding like a jackhammer—I’m too busy plotting the possible outcomes of my life with multiple plot twists.

But I practice.

But we practice.

We make room for imperfection.

I am,

We are

Perfectly

Imperfect.

Here’s the bottom line:

I believe I am the only one here who can soothe me.

This

Is

Now 

My

Job.

And dear friends,

What about you?  

How do you comfort yourself?

What does your practice of solace look like?

Please consider.

Here’s David Whyte, the poet, and philosopher, with wise, beautiful words:

Solace is what we must look for when the mind cannot bear the pain, the loss, or the suffering that eventually touches every life and every endeavor.

When longing does not come to fruition in a form we can recognize, when the people we know and love disappear, when hope must take a different form than the one we have shaped for it.

When life does not in any way add up, we must turn to the part of us that has never wanted a life of simple calculation.

To be consoled is to be invited into the terrible ground of beauty upon which our inevitable disappearance stands, to a voice that does not soothe falsely, but touches the epicenter of our pain or articulates the essence of our loss, and then emancipates us into the privilege of both life and death as equal birthrights.

Wow.  

David Whyte.

The privilege of both 

Life

And 

Death

As equal

Birthrights.

Here is my gift to you, dear readers, a gift of solace, a gift of guided meditation, of guided relaxation.  Please do enjoy.

http://coacharuni.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Seekonk-Rd-7.m4a

~~~

Share Circles

Our chance to join together, practicing mindful communication, to remember we are not alone.  Please join if you can by just coming on Zoom, utilizing the below links—no registration is needed.  The link will take you into the Zoom meeting.

Please note: You’ll need the password share2020 to enter the meeting.
Donation is appreciated, 5% will be given to the Berkshire County Food Bank.
(No registration needed) https://www.paypal.me/CoachAruni

• Monday, April 27, @ 2:00 Click Here
• Wednesday, April 29, @ 2:00 Click Here
• Friday, May 1, @ 2:00 Click Here

Dear Friends,
May we be safe,
May we be well.
Give us the
Courage
And the willingness
To be present
With what is.

All blessings,
Aruni

Dear Friends,

This time is so fluid, so fluctuating, my reactions to things so unpredictable and almost alive with variability.  

This week was so very different from the last.

~~~

Last week
I felt
Consistently
Plugged in,
Driven
By dharma,
Useful,
Part of the solution.

This week, 
I feel
Driven 
By drama,
News having 
Power
To shock me,
To shake me
Down
To 
The 
Floor.
Not quite drooling
But wishing an
Occasional
Drool 
Might 
Drip,
Demonstrating
My 
Feelings 
Of 
Utter
Helplessness.

Last week,
Standing strong
In the solution.

This week,
Weepy and exhausted,
Grieving
Letting 
Go
Of
So very, very much.

Or at least,
Letting go of
The illusion
Of what 
I thought
Should
Be happening.

~~~

Partners in Healing.
Those two words of solace:
Amazon Prime.
I order things,
And
I forget
What 
They are.
Little
And medium
Things
like
Coconut wraps
And 
A battery
For the remote control
That keeps
Warning me,
Threatening me,
Of its vulnerability.

Dry soup mix
Why?
Why not?

More Vitamin
C
As if 
My poor
Stomach
Could abide
Another
Healing 
Protocol.

And consistently,
Regularly, 
There is a surprise
Waiting 
On 
my
Doorstep
Oh!
To be handled with such paranoid caution and delight!
A trepidatious present
Demanding vigilance.

Me from me
Me to me,
Tearing 
Through the packaging
With 
Gloves 
On,
Having
Zero idea
What
I 
Sent 
Myself.

It delights me,
It thrills me.

Yet I flush with entitled embarrassment
As I write this.
I am indulging,
Wallowing
In 
Consumerism
While 
People die?

WTF?

Yet,
How fortunate,
To gift myself
Something, 
Something
concrete
In these
Dry,
Oh, 
So 
Dry 
Of
Times.

My partners in healing,
Amazon Prime.

~~~

This week, I weep for us.  

For New York, my always-home-town.  For lovers not able. For bodies sickened.  For lives curtailed.  For hearts filled with anxiety. For lives interrupted. For journeys detoured. For deception and greed and the politicking of disaster.

This week, I weep for me.

For what I thought would be happening, should be happening, might be happening, has to be happening, for that which I saved up for, that which I imagined, for that intended, for that which I deferred, that which I waited for and hoped and imagined would be mine.

This week, I weep for our country.  For greed and injustice, for white privilege and black and brown lives sacrificed, for deceit and duplicity, for systems inept, for truth ignored, for inequity and inequality and the shame of it, the shame of it, oh, forgive us, the shame.  Of. It.

This week, I weep for our earth.

Our glorious and beautiful planet, how we have ignored, trashed, taken for granted, denied, abused, and injured Her.  Our glorious earth abounding with life, how we have poisoned her and in the poisoning, how we have abandoned ourselves.

This week, I weep for our world.  All of us, all colors and sizes and shapes and languages and differences and distinctions.  We are one. We are one. We are one. And to be so severed from each other makes it so profoundly clear, our impossible and non-negotiable dependence upon one another.

This week is different from last.

This week I weep.

And this week, truly,

Hand in hand,

I have been inspired.

And have been strengthened and freed and liberated from bondage.

I have enjoyed myself and my life and savored the moments.

And I weep.

Oh, how I weep.

It is all true.

It is all sacred.

It is all inevitable.

It is all ours.

~~~

Inspirations to Share

Here are two of the things that touched me strongly this week, that gave to me, that filled my heart with a rush of possibility, of inspiration.

First, this gift of strong, inspired hope from Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, writer, scientist, mother, scholar and plant ecologist, from her book, Braiding Sweetgrass:

The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our responsibilities for all we have been given, for all we have taken. It’s our turn now, long overdue… Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath.

~~~

And finally, this kind hopeful inspiration—watch this through—look at the faces of the children:

Living in a pandemic.
Who could imagine?

So many contradictions for me unfold in these big and endless days, 
time snowballing forward, 
each moment 
with a newborn life of its own.

Watching moments of grace, mostly outside, miraculously fill up my heart:

The chipmunk, 
Popping out of the
Mysterious hole
In the lawn,
Half in—half out—
Looking around
All around,
I swear 
Making 
EYE CONTACT
(of some sort)
With me
And 
Like a rocket
Dropping
Back
Down her hole.

SHELTERING IN PLACE.

Blessed by
A chipmunk.
Both of us,
Sheltering
In 
Place.

~~~
The fat robin.
Sitting
Outside my window,
Just
Hanging 
Out.

Both of us
Just passing the moment 
Together.

Blessed by a robin
Both of us
Just Hanging out.

Saturated 
With fleeting joy.

~~~
Learning about me, things I thought I already knew:
What I need
To be me,
Separate
From all of it,
Separate
From
you.

What I need
Seems to be—

Getting out of bed
Putting on clothes (What a concept!  I had to rediscover its significance)
Brushing
Flossing
Praying
Praying
Not necessarily
In that order,
Riverbanks
To live within.

Learning about me
Separate from you.

~~~
Opening to us:
Severed from you,
Oh,
How 
Much I need you.

Severed from you,
Oh, 
How much
I must know you.

What form?
How can this happen?
~~~
Surfing my feelings:

Contradictions.
Abounding
Contradictions.

Endless days
Packed with
Moment
After moment,

Endless days
That zoom
High-speed
By me.

Weeks now
Peeling
Speeding
Too much zooming
By,
Yet the days
Empty and
Hollow,

While being 
Full
And alive
Hang 
In the air
Each new.

And the fear,
Let’s not forget the fear,
The quiet
Gnawing
Moments
I wake into,
Mornings,  
Mostly.
Mornings
Bring
Empty moments
No future
Of any shape
Revealing itself.
None
Emptied of shape,
The day opens.

All feelings sacred
All feelings 
inevitable.
All

Dear Friends, My Friends,

Listen to this:

Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, in writing about prayer, wrote this in 1958:

Problems and calamity will begin to mean our instruction, instead of our destruction.  We will feel freer and saner.

Yep, we have some problems and we have some calamities here in our pandemic.  What an invitation Bill offers us, rather to be destroyed by them, but to be instructed by them, that the doorways of grace open through them.

Bill sounds like a Kripalu Yogi to me—through the portal of this human moment, we connect with that which is greater than ourselves.

Questions for your heart:

• What moments of grace are you noticing?
• What are you learning about yourself?
• What are you feeling?

I must say, this blog has been hellish to write—so much to say, nothing to say!  Apologies for all-over-the-place-ness.

Speaking of all over the place, I know there are a trillion things zooming around our social media.  Here are my two favorites from this week, that buoyed me up:

Stay Strong, David Newman and everybody else chanting

Artists recreating paintings
https://www.sadanduseless.com/recreated-art/

Our Share Circles:
This upcoming week, come and join on Tuesday and Thursday (4/7 & 4/9) at 11:00 EST.  Here are links for registration.

Tuesday, April 7th Share Circle

Tuesday, April 7th Share Circle

Thursday, April 9th Share Circle

Thursday, April 9th Share Circle

Please take a moment to add the meeting to your calendar. Come and join! It’s been so comforting to be together.Come and join! It’s been so comforting to be together.

I’m ending now.

I’m sending love
Now.

I’m envisioning
The
Highest unfolding
Now—

Please help us
To be safe and well,

Please grant us
The courage
And the willingness
To be present

With whatever
We are given.

Aruni