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Who by Fire*

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Who by Fire*

*by Leonard Cohen

Do you ever think about dying?

I think so very much about living, about being here, being mindful, being fully alive.  

I drive myself a bit to distraction.

I work too hard at living, at mindfulness, at presence, at relaxation.

At the same time, thinking about dying has carried with it such a taboo; nobody in my family modeled comfort with aging or illness or end of life.  

I have few role models for the end-phases of life lived with hope, dignity, or consciousness.  Yet I believe fully in those possibilities and commit to living into them, in this, my 70th year on the planet.

Mostly I push away thoughts of dying.  

I am so full-up-happy in my life, so freed up from some ancient struggles, and, yep, counterintuitively, I find actually myself today, on this stunning just-almost-summer day…..

Thinking about dying!

It started with Leonard Cohen.  Driving home this morning in the soft sunshine, after an amusing foray into Berkshire County erranding, I found the CD (yes, I still do that CD thing!) from his magical London Concert.  

I listened to Who by Fire, perhaps one of life’s most gloriously beautiful and evocative songs.

Leonard got me a‘thinking about death, clearly not a bad thing.

Perhaps contemplating death doesn’t have to be a buzz-kill, a way out of the moment?

Perhaps mindful contemplating of death, my death, can be a way into the moment?

Perhaps it can be a doorway to living more mindfully, with more presence?

How do I choose to die?  Surely that parallels in some way, how do I choose to live?

I know for sure—being dead doesn’t quite seem as difficult as getting dead.

It’s the getting dead part for which I am not too eager.
The powerlessness and the full and total lack of control seem somewhat edgy, an understatement, indeed.

Although we know all about impermanence, that we are just passing through, yet, nevertheless—it’s so easy to assume our foreverness, our invulnerability.

I’m not much of a practicing Jew these days, yet I have found great solace in Jewish liturgy in the past.

Leonard’s remarkable song is based on a profound Yom Kippur prayer, Unetaneh Tokef, which both declares and asks:

“On Rosh Hashanah it is written and Yom Kippur it is sealed…
How many shall pass on and how many shall come to be;
who shall live and who shall die;
who shall see ripe old age and who shall not;
who shall perish by fire and who by water;
who by sword and who by beast;
who by hunger and who by thirst…..”

Hearing this prayer chanted in temple on the holiest of holy days, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the day that we are re-written into the Book of Life, for me has been chilling, heart-blastingly-opening, sobering as all-get-go, and simply stunning.   Leonard, observant Jew and Zen monk, lived in fascination of and commitment to the great wisdom traditions.

Here is a link to this, one of my favorite songs, which I believe embodies his devotion to our human relationship with that which is Divine:

May we live into this day
One moment at a time,
With vitality, grace and ease.

May we be here,
Right here,
No matter what we are given.

May we live into this day
In all its preciousness,
As best we can.

And when we can’t,
May we breathe,
Relax
And
Bless ourselves
As we return home again.

~~~

Dear Friends,

I am clearly the president of my own Leonard Cohen fan-club.  How did this song land for you?

I hope you will consider joining my program, Simple Strategies to Struggle Less and Savor More, at Kripalu Center, starting on Summer Solstice, June 21st.

Together we can practice living, with a deepening of ease, with an opening to renewed connectivity; together our individual selves are strengthened, our hearts are opened, our eyes, refocused.  

Let’s come together, to strengthen the “I”, to recommit to the “We”, and to lean toward our own Truth.

https://kripalu.org/presenters-programs/simple-strategies-struggle-less-and-savor-more

And as always, please send on all any questions, comments, insights.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All voices, welcomed!

Always,
Aruni

Post Vacay-Blues

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Post Vacay-Blues

A Truly First-World Problem

Vacation behind me, I reluctantly fumble my way through a fully over-booked work-week.  

I am the “booker”, the one who schedules myself.  

There is nobody to wag a finger at here, just me.

What a surprise, this ancient tendency of mine to take on too much.

I’ve been puzzling with my ancient addiction to loyalty, to commitment, to responsibility.

Perhaps underneath this addiction is a giant and infinite pool of people-pleasing?

If I do everything, for everybody, and I do it perfectly and seamlessly, will you then love me?

Will I then, be done?

Over?

Finished?

What is this “done” thing, Aruni?

And this post-vacay shock?

I’m chuckling, remembering during my NYC life, coming home from summer vacations and returning to East Fifth Street.  That was some serious culture shock.

Returning to the Berkshires, to Seekonk Cross Road, as in the above picture, there is no prob here!

Problems emerge from inside of me, I do believe, rather than from outside.

Perhaps in the clear mirror of spacious, choice-filled vacation time, my Type-A-Push-Personality is clearer, easier to see.

In this moment,

In this moment,

Right here and right now,

I look out my window.

The Christmas Tree farm sits, more softly in late spring grass.  

The baby trees, short little fellas, poke their little heads above the greenery.  

Little green skirts of soft grass cover almost three-quarters of their bodies now.  

Their larger siblings, their adolescent brother-and-sister-trees stand strong, their bottoms soft in grass, their tops emerging bravely into the sky.

To see this.

To notice, to feel,

To be with this!

What a gift it is being right here, right now.

How I wish and hope and pray and imagine—less doing.

And more being.

To sit more.

To breathe more.

To let it all be as it is.

I snicker some more, as I remember this wonderful poem by Tukuram, a 16th, century Indian poem and priest:

I am looking for the poem that says Everything
So I don’t have to write
Anymore.

I love the writing of this, my/our blog.  

I love this.

It is the organizing spiritual focus of my week.

Yet this week, I make it work.

Yet this week, I make it hard.

Yet this week, I deprive myself of the deliciousness of it.

So intent on the production of it (for lack of a better word), the doing of it, the completion of it,

I push past the savoring,

Past the being with it,

Past the deliciousness.

Ah, the human dilemma.

Isn’t being human such an odd and funny thing?

May we all savor more.
May we all struggle less.
May we be right here,
Right now.
No matter what we are given,
May we soften into what is.

~~~

Dear Friends, I am committed to practicing more mindful scheduling—next week, oh, will be so much more spacious.  I am committed to not making my doing-ness wrong, but to lean toward the direction of being.

I am committed to walking, biking, playing with me and Zac the Dog.  I will keep you posted.

And you?  What do you push through?  How do you push? What do you choose for this upcoming week?  Please let me know. I am aruni@rnetworx.com.  All voices are so welcomed in my heart.

All blessings,
Aruni

“May the Nourishment of the Earth….”

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“May the Nourishment of the Earth….”

“Be Yours*”

Vacations for me don’t historically or necessarily guarantee comfort.  The structure of my day-to-day-world can lull me into the illusion of control. Unstructured days, undefined time, freedom of movement—all of these wondrous options can sometimes trigger anxiety, carrying within them the weight of expectation and potential comparison.

I’m happy to report from Vacation Day Number Four, all is unfolding with ease and grace and I am actually here to enjoy it, rather than planning and plotting the next moments of possibility.

Why?

Why are things different now?

I don’t have an answer.  I do know that turning seventy this last year has been a watershed in my world, a critical dividing point in choice and in perspective.

Perhaps I just don’t want to waste any more time.

Perhaps I just don’t want to miss any of the beauty being offered me.

Perhaps I just don’t want to sleep through any more of this glorious world.

For whatever series of reasons, whatever merge of flowering tree, footstep of bird on sand, touch of the sun dancing with the wind’s perfect cooling, glorious sunset followed by stunning sunrise—

For whatever series of reasons, I recognize the blessings in which I am living.

And I am grateful.

We know gratitude physiologically changes the chemistry of the brain.

We know focusing on what is actually happening vs. what we want to happen opens the floodgates of reality, allowing more to beam upon us more.

We know that relaxing into reality heightens the flow state.

We know this.

Sometimes we are able to practice it.

On this lovely vacation, I am practicing gratitude.

Here is my partial list of gratitudes for this, Vacation Day Number Four—

Today I am blessed by:

  • Each and every flowering bud on each and every flowering tree on this island
  • Every single bird peep after bird whistle after bird call
  • The miraculous beauty of the gnarly trees, made stunning by their adversary, the ocean wind
  • Sleeping late—till 6:20!
  • Waking early—4:20
  • Spacious and lazy days
  • Guilt-free napping
  • Abundant daytime netflix-ing
  • Jaws I, II, and even the ridiculous, Jaws III
  • Freedom of choice
  • Freedom of choice
  • Freedom
  • Of
  • Choice

To keep this simple, I offer us the wonderful John O’Donohue, poet, philosopher, and dearest man.  Here is his blessing, for this lovely May moment:

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak,
To mind your life.

And here is a tiny peek into the “fluency of the ocean” that has been given to me this week.  

I am blessed to share it with you.  

~~~

Dear Friends, and how are you now, on this glorious day in May?  How do you navigate vacations? Good memories? Challenging vacations?

And most importantly, what blessings are you being given?  Even and especially the hard ones, the lessons and gifts disguised as challenges and obstacles—what is life giving you for healing and possibility?

Please do let me know—all voices are welcomed, all experiences sacred.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

Blessings!  Aruni

We Should Only Know…

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We Should Only Know…

The Door is Round and Open

These cold and stunning spring days, I sometimes think of myself as a “lover of leaving,” in Jelaluddin Rumi’s words.

I do my best.  

I stay present.  

I show up.  

I meet my responsibilities well.  

I care for the people with whom I work.  

I am trustworthy.  

I love as best I can the people in my world.

I continue to commit to the woman with whom I am learning to share my life.  

And then I leave.

I get scared.

I leave in all kinds of ways.

Recently sweet things have been tantalizing me.

The occasional sweet thing might be a doorway into the moment for me, a delicious opportunity to be present with tastes and sensations and yum-ness.

The consistent sweet thing, however, is most always a doorway out of the moment, a dulling, a lack, a loss of choice, of center.

For me.

Hum.

And in my life, I meditate.

There are moments of quiet.
There are delicious spaces of silence.  

There are places of deep ease and connection, me with me.

There are.

And then I leave.

I get scared.

I muddy the silence with fears of things that haven’t happened—

Things that don’t exist—

Things that are not real.

I leave.

If you told me this, about yourself, about your process, I could easily and authentically coach you about self-acceptance, self-love, about the greatest of all practices, radical compassion for ourselves.

Compassion is the doorway out of forgetting.

Non-judgment carries us back into the practice, the leaning toward remembering, returning, reuniting with that which is truly our choice.

Of course—we leave!

That is the human dilemma.

Especially in this moment, the dilemma feels heavy, this moment that feels drained of hope, this moment that feels emptied of energy.  

Perhaps I’m just tired.  

Perhaps I’m just cold, as I continue to commit to NOT TURNING ON MY HEAT on May 16.

Perhaps I am ready for warmer weather.

Yet I perk up as my thoughts return to this remarkable poem by Rumi, the ecstatic poet:

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Even if you’ve broken your vow a thousand times.
Come.
The door is round and open.

No matter how many times we leave, there is no judgment from anywhere but from ourselves and our own projections.

No matter how many times we “break our vow”, whenever we return, the universe greets us with spacious open arms.

We should only know…..

How profoundly and fully free…

We really are.

We should only know….

How spacious and generous

The universe really is.

The door is round and open.

No matter how many sweets I might need to sample,

As I breathe and relax, I find myself back into another moment

Of practice,

Another moment

Of choice,

Another moment

Of freedom.

And then, from that groundwork of non-judgmental witnessing,

May the right use of will be planted, like seeds in the soil

Of grace and possibility.

We should only

Know

How

Free

We

Really

Are.

~~~

Dear Friends, without judgment, just notice, how do you leave yourself? Breathe and relax. What brings you back? For me, the Shuttle-Home-to-Self can be prayer, a word repeated with inner kindness, a breath, a bunny like the one who just hopped/sprinted/bunny/fashion across my lawn, the sun caressing the huge evergreen outside my window, the touch of the chair against my butt, my back.

Dear Friends, let’s celebrate our freedom—freedom of choice, of practice, of claiming the lives we want, lives of patience and tolerance, lives of practice.

How might your life in this moment be different if the door really was round and open?

Please let me know—all voices welcomed—I am aruni@rnetworx.com

The Power of the Amble

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The Power of the Amble

Bonded in Ambling

Are you an ambler?

Consider this phrase—To amble.

What does that mean to you?

Mr. and Mrs. M. Webster, the Dictionary Folk, say:  to amble is to walk or move at a slow, relaxed pace.

Can you bring more amble-like energy into your day?

Just breath and consider.  

How many synonyms for amble can you muster?

To mosey.

To tootle.

To stroll.

To saunter.

To wander.

To meander.

To ramble.

To dawdle.

To roam.

To traipse.

Do you participate in these activities, any of these types of movement?

Left to my own devices, I do none of them.  Phrases that better describe me might be:

Zooming.

Pushing.

Rushing.

Focusing.

Checking off the list.

I don’t even know what list.

Some list in my head perhaps?

Some list on an index card, sweaty in my palm or wrinkled up in my back pocket?

I am attempting to work less, to hang out with myself and life more.

I realize this is a blessed problem.

And, indeed, I have hours and sometimes even days that are spacious and inviting and generously opened for pleasure and choice.

Sometimes I have me some good, solo fun.

Sometimes, however, I find myself pushing, pushing to the destination, the ever-important grocery store, as if it were a monumental meeting with Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Moses and Buddha, all at once.

RUSH/RUSH/RUSH/GOTTA/GET/THERE.

It’s the grocery store, for goodness sakes.

It’ll probably still be there in a few minutes, perhaps even in a few hours.

I guess my habitual behavior makes sense, though.

I have been working consistently, full-out, for fifty years.

It makes sense I would still be working, while shifting toward not working, while shifting into the Land of the Amble.

I am blessed, I have an Ambling Coach: Zac Joey Doodle, my best friend, animal companion, healer and guide and adorable genius of a being, a monk in fuzzy dog clothing.

He is 91, in people-years, and having a fine senior citizenship.  He and I walk—we walk a lot.

He will no longer participate in my rushing.

He sniffs.

He investigates.

He explores.

He walks, with relaxed and slow focus.

He truly meanders.

He is the Essence of Amble.

He slows me down, eyes off my FitBit and onto the sunrise.

Speaking of the sunrise, do you know about Forest Bathing?

Forest Bathing started in Japan in the 1980’s.  By being in nature, by allowing our five senses to absorb the tranquility and balance inherent and available there, healing on many levels becomes possible. It is about ambling, about doing nothing in nature—and the evidence-based data behind it is startling, encouraging, shocking, and so very exciting.

Here are just a few evidence-based improvements from simply being in nature, with hardly an amble:

  • Boosted immune system functioning, with an increase in the count of the body’s Natural Killer (NK) cells.
  • Reduced blood pressure
  • Reduced stress
  • Improved mood
  • Increased ability to focus, even in children with ADHD
  • Accelerated recovery from surgery or illness
  • Increased energy level
  • Improved sleep

Just as impressive are the results experiences as this becomes a consistent practice:

  • Deeper and clearer intuition
  • Increased flow of energy
  • Increased capacity to communicate with the land and its species
  • Deepening of friendships
  • Overall increase in sense of happiness

No exercising needed!  No pushing, no thrusting ourselves up the hills of our lives.  Being outside, breathing in, smelling, relaxing, seeing the glory—we are one with all of it—and we are healed, as we return our rhythms to that of the earth.

If you are interested in more evidence-based data, here are some links to some startling studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580555/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997467/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2018/07/10/forest-bathing-really-may-be-good-for-health-study-finds/#62c5865508eb

Maybe it doesn’t have to be hard?  

Maybe we can relax and breathe and be outside…and be healed?

How good is that?

~~~

Dear Friends, how might you bring more amble-like energy into your day? What would it look like to push a little less, to relax a little more?  How might you be outside, amble gently into springtime, allowing your body to soak up the deliciousness, the healing, the stress reduction?

Keep me posted—all voices welcomed; all experiences sacred.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

In the days of the Kripalu ashram, we use to say, “There is nothing to do and there is nowhere to go.”

Damn!  

That just might be scientifically accurate information!

Renewal and blessings to all,
Aruni

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