This is my personal practice.

This is the way I open to Grace.

This is the way my mind mostly quiets.

This is the practice that brings me the most peace.

And—interestingly, my dogs taught me.

Early in my canine-care-person-incarnation, walking Lucy and Zacy twice a day occurred as effort, as a to-do thrust upon me, as an-almost waste of time.

I couldn’t settle into it.

Overly involved in their bodily functions, certain things had to happen for me to relax, poop and dog-pee-wise.

There was a goal.

For me.  

Surely not for the canines.

Surely there were other, more important things that had to get done, in my life, in LIFE, that I had to do.

I almost-resented the never-ending nature of it, their always-need, to take them out…..

….. to take them out.

Always, to take them out.

Yet, taking them out, out became one of the greatest gifts of my life.

Lucy Doodle (blond/bombshell/party/dog) and Zac Joe Doodle (monk/disguised/as/salt-and-pepper/pooch) taught me that prayer and walking were one.

Although I had led walking meditation for years at Kripalu, it was a slow-motioned process, appropriate probably only for the Forest Room at Kripalu or the privacy of one’s own deeply carpeted bedroom. Walking in super-slow motion, allowing the weight to so gradually shift from one foot to the other, etc., was clearly deep and lovely yet annoyingly impractical, for me.

I am a zoomer.  I zoom through the day.

Yet again, I managed to frame spiritual practice as something I didn’t do right, something I didn’t do enough of, something externalized I had to mold into, and become.

And falling short—always, falling short of my own spiritual expectations.

But somewhere, somehow, Lucy the Dog and Zac Joe Doodle’s constant smelling, sniffing, exploring, and savoring showed me, in their silent, magical-canine-kind of way, that it was all a prayer. 

All of it was a prayer.

Let the walking be a prayer!

They were surely doing that and having a much better time than I was.

The practice gradually revealed itself to me.

Let my steps in natural rhythm carry a repetitive prayer, mantra, affirmation through my body.

Let my prayers walk onward, into and through my body.

Let my prayers drop from my brain, my thinking self, as an idea, down into the cells of my body.

It was genius.

It was clearly not my idea.

Clearly with every sniff, with every tiny pee (liquid or not), with every single full-bodied sniff, they were alive with Presence, filled with Grace, connected to the Flow.

I started finding prayers available to me.

And to this day, this is my core practice.

I walk a lot now, with Zac, at 93, more ambling, at my side.

I walk alone these days much more, alone I go, sadly and strongly alone, with no young spry doodle at my side.

And prayer is available in most steps, a tether, an anchor, calming me down while opening me up.

And silence emerges and blessings emerge and ideas emerge and insights blossom.

And birds sing and deer dance and leaves celebrate and sunshine beams

Upon me.

Dear friends,

Find your rhythm.

Be found by your body’s rhythm.

Add words—simple, short, first-person affirmations—

Song lyric, line from a poem, from a prayer—let the words be a tether that return you back to your body, while flinging open the doors to the glory of the world around us.

This is the coolest, most subversive practice; you can be walking in Home Depot deep in prayer…….

Heading toward a potentially crappy meeting at work…………

Trudging the path in the shopping center parking lot.

And you can be alive with prayer,

Walking with prayer,

Filled with prayer,

Anchored by prayer,

Released

By

Prayer.

One with prayer.

The Doodles lived it.

Let’s practice.

Let’s walk our prayers.

Dear Friends, keep it simple.  Let the words come and go. Practice the anchoring inside and notice the expansion outside.  We get it all, inside and out, one step at a time.

Keep me posted, of course, and always!  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All blessings,
Aruni

We’re not alone.

It doesn’t always feel that way, that is for certain.

Yet I believe there is support.  

There is connection.  

There is an energetic partner that we have,

Dancing with us,

No matter what is happening.

Over my years of trudging this wacky road of healing, as a teacher I have been conflicted about appropriate, inclusive language to name this Force.  Here are a few I have used and discarded, only to use again, in no particular order:

• Grace
• Energy
• Prana
• God (triggering for some)
• Higher Power (nicknamed, in the casual version, HP)
• Higher Self   (ugh, implies lower self, hate that)
• Zac Joe Doodle the Dog (God disguised as fuzzy, salt-and-pepper canine)
• Reality (my current personal fav)
• Nature (such obvious glory!)
• My 12 Step Home Group
• Flow
• Flow state
• Positive life force
• Grace
• Jesus (the name of any teacher or teachers who speaks to your heart)
• Angels

The bottom line here is—fill in the blank for yourself.  What works for you? That’s the name.

IF there be one, fill it in.  If not, please keep reading.

______________

As a Reform Jewish kid growing up, despite years of painful Sunday School classes, a hideous and unsuccessful dip into Hebrew School (really triggered my stuttering), and confirmation at the age of 13, I heard and felt nothing that offered any sense of partnership, solace, or support.  To the contrary. The orange drink in those little wax boxes that you had to squeeze to open, served at Sunday School recess, gave me raging headaches.

I continued to drink them throughout my limited yet well-intended Jewish education.

Truly it wasn’t until I got sober, many painful “headaches” later, that I was confronted by this idea of conscious contact, in 12 Step lingo.

I was urged through the 11th Step to seek “through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out.”

What?

I thought a lot about that for a few years, wandering around New York City, going to meetings, puzzling, living sober, with a very busy, attempting-to-be-spiritual mind.

I tried hard.

I am a hard, hard trier.

Not a lot of solace was available to me through thinking—which, by the way, is probably not a spiritual practice.

And eventually, the doors of Kripalu yoga on and off the mat beckoned me into a body-centered spiritual exploration, urging me to look inside, to feel, inside, to search, inside.

There lives divinity.

LOVELY! 

YES!

I GET IT!

And yet, what a work in progress I am.  

How fully I believe, how easily I forget.

How totally I surrender, how willfully I grasp back—that which I think is mine.

If it isn’t happening, it isn’t mine.

I don’t remember finding this song, Calling All Angels.  I don’t remember the time when it wasn’t a part of my teaching world.  I have played it consistently in the Inner Quest Intensive for decades.

Here it is.  Please—promise me you’ll listen and watch and feel.  It’s KD Lang and Jane Sidberry:

Ah, dear friends.  It is so intense being human!  It is such a trudge, such a journey.

These lyrics blast open my heart, so powerfully, for me, describing that human dilemma:

Then it’s one foot then the other
As you step out onto the road
How much weight? How much weight?
Then it’s how long? And how far?
And how many times before it’s too late?

Whatever your practice, whatever brings you closer to that which is not your mind, that which is not your will—be it walking or hugging a kitty, swimming or knitting or meditating or cooking Thai food—whatever it is.  For the love of life, do it.

Let’s practice getting closer to that part of ourselves that knows—that remembers—that has such ultimate forgiveness for the forgetting—that part of us that is Us, the greater, the higher, the connected Us.

Being human.

What a dilemma, as these lyrics proclaim:

Calling all angels, calling all angels
Walk me through this one, don’t leave me alone
Calling all angels, calling all angels
We’re tryin’, we’re hopin’
We’re hurtin’, we’re lovin’
We’re cryin’, we’re callin’
‘Cause we’re not sure how this goes

*By Jane Siberry and KD Lang

Dear Friends, 

Check out this sunset outside my window in the picture above.  Holy mackerel! How blessed are we.  

I pray to keep my eyes and heart open, to see the signs, to hear the angels in all their configurations.

I pray to remember I’m not alone—that you are here, too, we are in it together.

You are just me over there, disguised as you.

Please keep in touch.  All voices welcomed—all experiences sacred.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com

All blessings,
Aruni

Period.

End of conversation.

It is what it is.  

This is a simplistic yet accurate statement about our relationship to reality.

As you read that last sentence, does this seem somewhat depressing to you?

To me, in this moment, it sure does.

There is a larger-than-life event unfolding for me, and I am NOT a happy camper.

It is not my choice.

And…..guess what?

It’s happening.

Period.

Ugh.

But wait, where are we in this?

We do participate.  We do have preferences.  We do interact. We do impose our will.

Yet, in the end, reality is relentless.

It wins.

But there is good news and here it is:

We can craft, we can mold, we can continue to create our right-sized relationship to reality.

We can practice some skillful strategies and perspectives that soften, that support, that literally help us to partner with life in each specific moment……

Drum roll:

TO MAKE IT EASIER.

TO LET GO MORE EASE-FULLY.

Easier?  In this moment, easier sounds really good to me.

Here are three simple strategies, my favs, just the headlines, for partnering with life just a tad more skillfully, moment by moment:

• First, everybody’s favorite—

BREATHING & RELAXING.
Just like on the yoga mat, as we tense and hold our breath, life, the pose-of-the-moment, gets harder.  Breathing right into the sensations, relaxing around the tension, softens us. The moment comes and goes more fluidly.  

• A second, less favorite perspective—

REMEMBERING THE BIGGER PICTURE PERSPECTIVE—WE GET WHAT WE NEED.
The yogis tell us that we get what we need to grow, that circumstances bring to us exactly the people, the places, and the things which will open the wounds that we carry, for healing, for release, for purification.  The way out of It, whatever the moment might be, is truly, through It.  If you can feel it—you can heal it.

• Third—

GETTING ON THE WINNING SIDE
Allowing the situation to unfold, even and especially if it’s painful and we initially resist it, outliving the feelings, this is the journey of freedom, of consciousness, of heart, of vulnerability and of strength.   As we allow ourselves to be carried through the feelings, as we ride the waves and release them and outlive them, more is revealed. Literally new brain functions emerge, new neuropathways are formed, new behavior comes into play.  We are on the winning side. We grow, we evolve, we become more of who we really are.

This teaching is a book, condensed, at this moment, into 409 words.

This teaching is a lifetime of practice, condensed, at this moment, into 417 words.

This is the hero’s journey, condensed, at this moment into 429 words.

And if you are reading this, you are a hero.

You are a woman, a man, a being of consciousness and grace.

You are a woman, a man, a being of strength and tender-heartedness.
You are a woman, a man, a being of willingness, readied to befriending your own resistance.

Dear Woman,

Dear Man,

Dear Being of consciousness and grace,

Your practice, Dear Hero, in whatever body you are wrapped, is to do your best with life as it is, moment, by moment.

Breathe and relax and ride the waves, as you can.

And if you can’t.

That, too, is an essential part of your healing.

Whenever you are able, whenever the breath returns, remember those profound words of Rumi:

The door is round and opened.

Dear Friends, what waves are you riding?  Has life given you something that you don’t really want, that you don’t think you selected?  Welcome to the human dilemma. Breathe and relax and imagine, just imagine, that wrapped inside that yucko situation is a gift, waiting to emerge.  I don’t say that to take away the feelings. No. I say that to give us courage and the perspective to take the next breath, to ride the breath through the feelings.

To abide the moment, truly this is the hero’s journey.

Dear Friends, please keep in touch.  I learn so much, I am so blessed, by your emails.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com

To summer,
With blessings—
Aruni

Apologies for the somewhat obnoxious emoji image.

It was difficult—and not funny—looking for an image to support the title, one that represents sweet and funny.

I couldn’t deal with the kitties wearing paisley bonnets.

I settled for the emoji.

The humanized emoji.

Sorry.

People tell me that I’m funny.  

Earlier in my life, I utilized humor to protect myself, an invisible shield between me and the harsher realities of my life, like people, like my speech impediment, like being in love with Audrey Hepburn.  

Monogamously in love.  

For a decade.

Humor made me feel less vulnerable, like the invisible Colgate shield of protection from those old television commercials.

It shielded me, or so I thought.

Being busy amusing people was a checking out of the moment for me.

It kept me safe.

I believe it’s different now.

I’m different now.

Humor has become a checking into the moment for me.

I do think I’m funny.  Not as a protective response, but as an invitation.

I use humor to connect.

To myself.

To a bigger perspective.

To you.

Without it, a glum neurotic emerges within me, and willingly spreads her words of negativity and almost-despair.

I really don’t want to give her the car keys and let her drive me through my day.

Humor protects me from that voice within me and connects me to a looser, a fuller, a bigger perspective.

I crack myself up fairly regularly.

I also believe now, in this, my crone-hood, humor serves the function of allowing me to be real and deep with people.  

As I touch into deeper truth in my teaching and writing and coaching, my humor is the spice, the easing digestive sprinkle that makes the moment more manageable, the truth more digestible.

Speaking of sweet and funny, I again came across this video of Dancing Matt and watched it.

I think I can watch it forever!

I find it so amusing, so sweet, so importantly healing.

Matt Harding was a video game designer who got sick of creating games of destruction and war.  He quit his job, began traveling the world, in his words, “dancing badly with people” from many international locations.

Matt says, “We’re stuck on this planet together and we need to take care of each other.”

I love that sentiment.  

I believe these last few years of cultural and political breakdown have opened the essential door for our connection to ourselves and to one another.

This is the time.

The time is now, for connection with ourselves and each other.

Even if you have seen this video, please watch again, for these few minutes of sweet and funny are so healing, so relaxing, so amusing, so touching.

What do you think?

Pretty good, huh?

Give us the courage to laugh.
Give us the courage
To see ourselves in each other,
No matter the differences.

Help us
To remember
That
You are just me
Over
There
Disguised
As
You.

Dear Friends, what makes you laugh?  What lightens your spirit? What doesn’t?  What did you notice during the video? Please, as always, send on your responses.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All voices welcomed—all experiences, sacred.

Blessings, Aruni