We Are on the Journey…
“It’s Alright” (to quote the Traveling Wilburys)
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Dear Folks,
The journey! If you are reading this, you are On It. What does that even mean? What journey? What are the words that might describe it?
Journey of self-discovery?
Journey of retrieval of self?
Journey of recovering our authentic self?
Journey of healing, wholeness, wellness?
What would you call it?
I don’t have words. But I can share with you my considerations, my practices.
On my journey, oh! so imperfectly:
- I practice being able to see the blessings in my life and not change them into problems.
- I practice opening to the circumstances of my life as doorways to growth and connection.
- I practice noticing my human foibles (what a cool word) and anointing them with acceptance and breath.
- I practice doing the next, best action.
- I practice remembering I am not alone.
Folks, the keywords here are: IMPERFECTLY PRACTICE. I notice, I forget. I remember—I pull away. I lean into new behavior, I’m sucked into old.
As the Buddhists say, fall down 100 times?
Get up 101.
Compassion on the Journey!
~~~
Mary Oliver, our beloved Mary, ends her poem, The Journey with these words:
The only thing you could do‚
Determined to save
The only life you could save.”
What is it for you?
What are your descriptors?
~~~
What I do believe to be absolutely, 10,000% true is—once you are on the journey, there is no getting off.
Yep, we can relapse, we can hurt ourselves through returning to negative behaviors, etc., etc., and etc.
Yet, I do believe (only Aruni talking here), once the door to consciousness is open, it does not totally shut again.
You might be on the journey on a superhighway.
Or perhaps you are on a muddy, bumpy back road.
Maybe you are even in a ditch.
And—friends, you are on the road.
~~~
Here is a meditation I recorded in April 2022.
I wonder who we thought we were then?
Please get comfortable and relax:
Meditation on The Journey
~~~
Every few years this song finds me and has its way, totally and wholly with me. To confess, I have been playing this song repeatedly for a few days now.
And hopping around the house.
It fills me with such energy. Positive, powerful, movement.
They are the super-group, The Traveling Wilburys, pulled together by George Harrison, with Bob Dylan (yes, Bob Dylan), Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison. They worked together as peers, co-writing and co-performing together, to make magical music.
NON-NEGOTIABLE REQUEST:
YOU MUST JUMP AROUND AS YOU LISTEN TO THIS SONG. MOVE, HOP, DANCE. YOU MUST. IF YOU ARE SEATED, NO PROB. DO IT—WHILE SITITNG.
Check out the words, too:
If you are interested in hearing more about these powerful icons working together, here is a link to their engaging website
~~~
Dear Folks,
Oh, we are travelers.
Here and there,
Everywhere.
We go.
We land.
We come back.
We forget.
We travel away.
And we return.
This is a journey of
Compassion returning.
Tesshuva*
To renew.
To repent.
To realign.
To return home.
Stay blessed,
Aruni
*the Hebrew word for returning back, for repenting