“Let Tender Tenacity Walk with Fierce Patience…”*

I wake with a start.

A Nik-the-Dog-Dream
Shatters the quiet.
Legs running,
Paws twitching.
Tiny squeaking. 
Where is she going?

I go 
With her.

She settles.
I do not.

I groan awake.

I do not want
To be awake.

A great irony,
For all these
Years & days & moments,
Being awake
Is
The practice,
It Is
My 
Practice.

Today?
Not quite yet.

Day #1 post-election,
Yesterday,
I fondly call
The Numb/Glum day.

Numbness settles,
Then
A tad of glum
Would float in,
Briefly,
And
Then
Depart, as
Numb
Reestablishing
Herself.

Day #2
Today—resistance.

I don’t want to be awake.
I don’t want to face this.
I don’t want to practice
Being present
With
This
Momentous
Loss
For all of us.

And I will.
I know I will.
I just don’t feel it.

I will choose
Awakeness.

Maybe not today.
Tomorrow?

Inevitably
And eventually
I will.

Why?

BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT I KNOW TO BE TRUE:

LOVE.
SERVE.
SURRENDER.

In the yesteryear of the Kripalu ashram,
This was our catchphrase.

LOVE SERVE SURRENDER
It does kind of say everything I need to hear.
~~~
1st—LOVE
Love feels a tad above my paygrade today.
I’m going with kindness.
(Perhaps love is the pool from which kindness flows?)

To be kind to myself.
To be okay with the numb/glum.
To be okay with the resistance.

TO BE KIND.

And when I accept how I am showing up,
Kind acceptance opens the door to change.
Then I can move.
Then I can shift.

Kindness is God’s will for me.
And being kind, me to me,
Connects me with that cosmic power
(Whatever the f___ you want to call It/or not)
And I am free.

Being free for that nanosecond enables me
To be kind TO YOU.

And then, we are both liberated.
Individual realignment becomes collective healing.

2nd—SERVE
To give back what I have been given.
To be there for another.
To say hello.
To not be an asshole while driving.
To find a way,
Any way,

Tiny ways totally count.

To give back
What
I
Have
Been
Given.

TO GIVE BACK.

TO MAKE IT BETTER
FOR ANOTHER.

3rd—SURRENDER
Reality wins.
She is relentless
And she is in charge.
I’m remembering the 12 Step guy who always said:
GOD’S WILL BE DONE. PERIOD.

Being with life as it is—that’s the journey.

Permission fully granted—
Take your time.
Be with your feelings.
Be with your grief.

This is the time for grieving.
Surrendering into feelings:

Let us feel our feelings as a way to move through them.
Let us feel our feelings as a way to utilize them.
Let us feel our feelings so, as they inevitably shift,
We can take effective and relevant Right Action,
When the time is right.

That’s why.
~~~
This Neil Young song!  New to me, thanks, dear Susan for sending.
I don’t know why it touches me so deeply.

I play it in bed this morning,
After Nik’s dream,
After the surfacing of my resistance,
I turn it on.

I listen.
I weep.

My first tears
Since the election,
They are precious.

Floodgates open.
Ahhhhhh.

Nik licks them off the pillow.