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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

“Daily Presentations”*

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“Daily Presentations”*

I was simply ecstatic.

I was tickled and giggly and physically elated.

I couldn’t get enough of the situation, which lasted a good, long twenty minutes, plenty time for delicious, spacious savoring.       

Three of the fattest, most waddling of mallards made their way down the street outside my house.

Their presence brought traffic to a halt.

Okay, it’s not a massive thoroughfare, I will admit.  Nevertheless, cars do come and go on Seekonk Road.

But not now.

Now they were stopped, three and four deep, to watch these fellas (two boys and a girl, I do think) make their way.

It’s unclear just where they were headed, walking down the main road, then down the dirt crossroad.  

Were they just out for a ramble?

Perhaps they were investigating possibilities?

I adored them—and our paths would cross more intimately in a few minutes.

After my snapping a dozen pictures and watching people’s delight, finally, the excitement quieted down.  With the ducks out of sight, Zac and I took a breath and headed out on our afternoon amble down the dirt crossroads.  

Guess who we met?

Yes, the three mallards, walking, not swimming in the pond directly next to us, but waddling, with serious intentionality—out for a purposeful stroll.

Check it out:

I think of Mary Oliver’s poem, Mindful:

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —

to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Ah, those daily presentations!  Those moments when life, usually through the lens of nature, slips into my heart, flings it effortlessly open to the awe, to the unity, to the beauty of us all, together, here, waddling down our own crossroads, out for a ramble.

May we all be lost inside this soft world.

May we all open to the daily presentations, the offerings of grace, to our hearts.

May we practice seeing and when we can’t, may we breathe and relax,

And come back here,

Right here.

Right now.

As best we can.

~~~

Dear Friends, what daily presentations open your heart?  What are you noticing, as spring beckons us forward? Please send them on.  Receiving your emails is a joy and a blessing, so please do keep them coming.  

All voices welcomed—all experiences sacred.

With gratitude,
Aruni

*Title and poem from Mary Oliver’s, Mindful

It Served Me Then and…..

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It Served Me Then and…..

Not So Much Now

My childhood play was solitary;

Riding my bike across from my house in Nay Aug Park, pretending I was a Royal Canadian Mountie on my trusted horse, off to rescue the beautiful damsel in distress—

In our attic alone eating singles slices of Swiss cheese while drinking a small Dixie cup of milk, visiting Heidi and Grandfather in Switzerland—

Writing stories at night alone in my bed, creating handsome “heroes” who always saved the day for a lovely woman, heroes with whom I strongly identified—

The geography of fantasy and imagination were mine alone to inhabit.  

They served me then.  Shy, tentative, in love with Audrey Hepburn, wrapped in the never-ending shame of my stutter, being alone in a made-up world served me.  

I needed no interruption in my bubble of imagination.  

I needed to be alone.

Perhaps it saved my life?

I also learned to process alone.  When there was something to do, to figure out, to create, I worked it out—figured it out—got it straight inside my head, by myself—and then took it outside of me, to others.

I became a super-savant at solitary processing.        

I’ll figure it out.

I’ll work it out.

Then I’ll let you know.

It served me then.

It doesn’t serve me so well today.

The cost of being a Lone Wolf today?  

I deprive myself of the interactions, of the input of others as I deprive them of relationship with me, of insight into me, of intimacy with me.

It keeps me alone, no matter who is sitting next to me.

These days, these longer, brighter, early glory days of spring, I realize how being Forever Alone (capital letters intended), did not teach me how to be alone.

To the contrary.

It taught me how to continue to run.

Not just from you.

But especially and fully—from me.

Please know—this is good news.

This is good, good news.

I feel:

Hopeful,

Connected,

In love anew with the possibility of myself.

By not making my little frightened girl wrong,

By honoring her journey,

By loving her as fully, as best I can, one moment at a time,

By holding her close as I lean away, toward my grounding,

Toward my adulthood,

Toward my rootedness,

I feel alive

As perhaps never before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • To the children in us.
  • To the adults that we are.
  • To the compassion that binds us!
~~~

Dear Friends, spring is revealing herself more and more.  What are you noticing outside yourself? What are you noticing inside?  Does this blog speak to you? How? Please let me know. All voices welcomed, all experiences sacred.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All blessings!
Aruni

How Does This Happen?

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How Does This Happen?

We walk around for months and months wrapped in layers of clothing and scarves and hats and gloves and socks that could defy an Arctic night.  

We scrape our cars of ice and snow with tiny appliances and drive down slippery hills and watch muddy ruts freeze into accordion-like furrows of treachery.  

We bitch and complain while some of us laugh and throw snow at each other.  

Some of us might actually play outside and fling ourselves down slippery sloped mountains on tiny wooden accessories.

Others of us hunker down in front of a fire or Netflix and never move again.

For months.

We manage, each in our own way.

And then something happens.

Something remarkable.

Something magical.

The earth in her brilliant perfection, continually moving and shifting, even if we very smart mortals aren’t aware of it, and in just the right moment, right on cue, leans yet again toward the sun.  

Again and again and again.

Somehow, through a synchronicity and awe-filled process beyond our human understanding, somehow, it happens.

The earth begins to soften.

The grass releases, relaxes, shivers and stretches toward the warm light.

The flowers poke their glorious heads upward.

The birds return in full cacophony.

It all changes.  
Changes come slowly, subtly, quickly, magically.

This New England spring has been a reluctant one, having her way with us; she has taken her time, keeping her temperatures cool despite the light bursting from the heavens and the magical celebration of returning birds.

It has, despite the temps, been an awe-filled time for me.

Here is one reason—the birds.  

I love birds.  

Let me share some of my neighborhood birds, home again in full-hearted jubilation—get ready for some serious bird-sounds:

 

Such life!

Such energy!

Such presence!

What does any of this have to do with us, we might ponder?

Everything.

Absolutely everything.

We are the earth.

We are the birds, the grasses, the flowers.

We go to sleep—we shut down.

We awaken again.

And again.

Around us spring mirrors our possibilities, our unending hope for renewal and resurrection.

To all of us, I say, let’s wake up softly to the gentle light.

Let’s wake up softly to the greening grass.

Let’s wake up softly to the birds, the squirrels, the many little and big creatures stretching awake.

Let’s remember again—and—again, we are the earth.

She is us.

Let’s draw from this shift of season the energetic jumpstart we need to realign, reconnect, recommit—

To energy.

To vitality.

To ourselves.

To one another.

Happy Passover, as we celebrate liberation from bondage.

Happy Easter, as we celebrate the hope of resurrection.

A happy and joyous spring moment to us, all.

~~~

Dear Friends,

How might you partner with spring to awaken?  What activities can you literally do and/or what can you relax into, to help shift your energy?  Consider and let me know. I am aruni@rnetworx.com.  

May this holiday moment be filled with light and love for you.  May you relax into the awakening springtime.

All blessings,
Aruni

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