Raise You Like a Champion

Pandemic Day # 9,763.  

But who is counting?

In my world, these pandemic days are incredibly and fascinatingly diverse.  

For me, each is its own individual oddity.

Some days I find myself weepy and soppy, throughout, without any obvious trigger but, well, every single thing.     

The next day I find myself engaged, maybe almost leaning toward the positive.  

Some days are thoroughly heartbreakingly emptied.

Some fill with easy possibility.

Some nights I sleep wrapped in an almost settled relaxation.

Other nights, like Wednesday, my total cumulative sleep was 12 minutes, five seconds.

It was a fevered, busy, aggravated series of hours in which to spend with myself.

Suffice to say, I did NOT enjoy my own company.

Some days I find myself having a quiet kind of fun, amusing self-contained fun, having a vacation at the CVS drive-through window, loving and blessing the masked man behind the thick glass window, keeping me safe and supplying me with my every CVS need.

Some days I cannot find an inch of comfort for myself in which to rest.

Extremes.

Waves.

Shifts.

All true.

All inevitable.

All part of the package

Of me.

In reading Frank Ostaseski’s book, The Five Invitations—Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully, I am fully taken and touched and surprised, paragraph after paragraph.

His Zen perspective defines hope as an “orientation of the heart.”

My heart has felt broken.

Hope has been elusive, vague, a function of my fear, a grasping toward a conclusion I determine.

A way out of the moment.

An exit.

Frank reframes it.  He talks about “mature hope” as “an energizing quality that helps us to remain open to the possibility that while life may not turn out the way we first thought, opportunities we never imagined might also arise.”

Hope as a way into the moment, as it is!

Hope as a doorway back to the flow state.

Hope as a release of my picture of reality.

Hope as humility, as surrender,

As right-sized relaxation.

Like on the yoga mat.

The yoga mat 

Of life.

Frank Ostaseski continues to remind me

To practice.

I want to practice what I know to be true,

That there is nowhere to be but here,

Right here.

That whatever is happening here 

In the fluidity of my moment,

Is coming

And

Is going.

~~~

I have found solace this week, too, with Rumi, the ecstatic poet.  Here he is:

Never lose hope
When life
Sends you away.
If you’re abandoned
If you’re left hopeless
Tomorrow for sure
You’ll be called again.
If the door is shut
Right in your face
Keep waiting with patience.
Don’t leave right away.
Seeing your patience,
Your love will soon
Summon you with Grace,
Raise you like a champion.

~~~
Raise you like a champion.

I love that.

I need that.

I have been feeling so

Un-championed.

Can I allow life as it is to lift me up?

Can I allow the circumstances exactly as they are to be the doorway back to ease?

Can I allow myself to let go of what I think should be happening?

A pandemic?

It’s happening.

Hideous and ignorant Incompetency?

It’s real.

Terrifying economic upheaval?

Yep.

Racial and social inequality?

You betcha.

Profound heartbreaking loss?

Absolutely.

Can I just let it be as it is?

As I do,

It is just

Simply

Easier. 

When I can,

I practice

So imperfectly.

When I can’t,

I choose

To come back.

To 

Gentle

Kindness.

My practice?

To create

The circumstances

In which

I 

Might

Be

Raised up

Like a champion.

~~~

It’s a good moment for gentle kindness.  Here’s our own Berkshire Guy, J.T., with his particular brand of a gentle, kind reminder.  Breathe, relax, and enjoy.