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Burning through the Fog, the Sun is a Heart!

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Burning through the Fog, the Sun is a Heart!

 

Check it out!
Doesn’t the sun
In this photo
Look
Like a heart?

It’s a prayer.

Prayer.

Wow. 
What to say?
What do I know
To be true?

In my life, 
For me:

Prayer does not change my reality.
Damn it, that’s true.
But it does soften
My grip on it.

When I’m zooming through my day, 
It is almost-but-not-quite-inevitable 
That I start constricting around 
What is happening.

Hunkering down.
Holding on.
Holding my breath,
Literally
And
Figuratively.

Prayer,
I believe,
Softens my grip,
Brings breath back,
Offers just a tad
Of relaxation,
To my body/mind.

Prayer allows
The flow of life,
That energetic river of happenings
To resume,
Allowing life
To move through 
More ease-fully.

It came to pass.
It didn’t come to stay.

When I’m not able to pray?
Which is most of the time, of course…
What happens?

I’m lonelier.
My mind gets a’galloping.
My body tightens.
My thinking gets faster
(Not a gift, that one),
Everything
Gets 
Harder.

Oh.  Wait.
What is a prayer?

Anything
Offered.

Any word,
Sound,
Phrase,
Gesture,
Movement,
Offered
Back.

Given away.
Released
Into the airwaves.

And so importantly,
Ah!  This piece—
To let go of the 
Outcome
Of
The 
Prayer.

That’s the work.
Because, truly,
What happens?

The outcome?

It’s not even my business.
It just feels that way.

Repetitive prayer for me
Is the jam.

I find myself these days
In the summer Berkshire traffic,
Singing little prayer/songs,
Little repetitive phrases.

It’s comforting and
It beats the heck out of mumbling under my breath
At the drivers around me
With out-of-state license plates.
~~~
Dear Friends,
What do your prayers look like?
What gifts do you get from prayer?
~~~
Here is Ellen Bass, poet, healer, wise woman, reading her poem, Pray for Peace.
A link to its text follows the audio:

Listen Here

Read Here

~~~

Friends,

Through the fog,
The sun will return.

Through the lapses,
Prayer intervenes.

Through our humanity,
Come the doorways
To Divinity.

Let’s pray for
Willingness
And
Courage
To keep practicing.

May all beings benefit from our time together.

All blessings,
Aruni

 

Yes, Eventually. Yes, Inevitably.

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Yes, Eventually.  

Yes, Inevitably.

I remember where I was sitting in the room.
New in 12 Step programs, I was biting my lower lip into a state of discomfort.
Wondering who all these people were.
Why I was here was not the question.
I had nowhere else to be.
This was the only place to be.
So it seemed.

That woman that always looked so comfortable,
The one in her blue madras hoodie,

She was sharing:

And in the morning,
She said.
I thank my Higher Power for whatever might happen in that day.
Her voice trailed off into a spiritual lingering, one I knew I could never obtain.
I secretly hated her for that and became incrementally more miserable.

(Interesting now that I wasn’t drinking or drugging, these things called feelings reared themselves into my awareness.

Her words awakened me from some fuzzy emotional slumber.

Who does she think she is…
I fumed,
Silently, of course.

That’s ridiculous.
Gratitude for what hasn’t happened yet?
That’s—stupid.
What if shitty things happen?

I fumed and fussed myself through the meeting.
Angry at her.
Angry at them.
Angry, perhaps, at myself?
Then, dear friends,
The miracle.

New behavior emerged.
Not my idea
But…

I found myself walking toward her after the meeting.
She was surrounded by a bunch of spiritual groupies.
But I stayed.
I waited.

Another miracle.
First time I talked to anybody before or after a meeting.

She turned to me,
Her eyes were green and frighteningly clear.
She was—cute, confusingly cute.  

Miracle three.

I stayed.
I met her eyes.
I guess.
And I stammered,
Sweaty under my pea jacket,
Worn to hide my body from the potential visual intrusion from a 12 Step meeting.

Hi, I said once.
Then I said it again,
Hi.
Shit, I’m a moron, I thought.
Ummmm.
Somehow I found words.
I said:
What did you say?
Did you say,
You THANK God for what hasn’t happened yet?
Did you say THAT?

Yes, she said,
And continued talking.

And I couldn’t hold on to her words
None of the logic,
The thinking of it,

But it was the YES
That lived with me.

I left that meeting.

Miracle number 9,763,
I kept going.

And somehow, I remembered
Not her sparkling green eyes
(Yet here I am, decades later, talking about it, oops),

But I remembered the YES.

YES, to be grateful for the day that is coming.
YES, we don’t know what might happen.
YES, shitty things happen.
YES, to offer thanks before it unfolds.
YES, gratitude opens the door to humility.
YES, humility opens the door to Grace.
YES, gratitude for all.
YES, eventually.
YES, inevitably.

See, I thought my job as an “adult” (using the term loosely here)
Was to make sure no bad things happen,
To control reality so shit didn’t happen.

Good luck with that.
It didn’t work.
It only made me run faster from everyone,
Drink more,
Drug more,
Trying to keep ahead of life?
The cost of that?

No life.

The YES went with me.

I don’t know the time frame.
When it happened…
But eventually, I started to practice this.
I wrote a prayer.
I said it for years.
In the mornings,
For years.

Here it is:

Thank you for everything you are going to give me in this new day.  I know what you are going to give me is going to be exactly what I need to get closer to You and to get closer to those parts of me that are You.

And that’s what I did.
Eventually, as prayer practices do,
It shifted.
It flowed in.
It flowed out.

Yet
The YES remains.
~~~
We know gratitude changes the chemistry of the brain.
We know it is, like a gear shift, a changing-up of what’s happening.
We know focusing on gratitude, what is, rather than on what isn’t, changes
EVERYTHING.

It is a remarkable intervention.
We can use it.
Always
And
Forever.

But/and…
Not to transcend our feelings.
Not as a doorway out of the moment.
As a doorway in.

Shitty things are happening. 
Things seem to be unraveling.

Where does gratitude fit
Inside of July 2024?

To find the things of beauty,
The bird signing as the dawn unfolds,
The dog rolling on her back,
Belly-up in delight,
The words that are there
Singing their truth, 
The people that are right here,
With kindness.

To find the things.

Savoring life’s lessons?
As we can.
As we are able.

Finding the beauty?
Claiming the Grace?

Yes!
Right now.
~~~
Here is a Universal Love Song, Gratitude, from Empty Hands Music, featuring Nimo and Daniel Nahmod.  It’s good, it’s engaging.  However, I’m stuck on one line:

“I’m grateful for it all.”

Well, maybe not today.  
In right timing.
As we find our way through:

YES, eventually.
YES, inevitably.

~~~
Dear Friends,

May you be healthy.
May you be present.
May you ride the waves of your life.
May you live in peace
No matter what
You are given.

May we be healthy.
May we be present.
May we ride the waves of our lives.
May we live in peace,
No matter what
We are given.

May all beings benefit from our time together.

Aruni

 

A Few Words about Prayer. Just a Few.

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A Few Words about Prayer.  Just a Few.

 

 

Without exaggeration, the exact number of blogs I have written just might be 9 trillion.

I have written one blog a week, 52 blogs a year for….at least ten years? Fifteen? Conservatively it might that be 520+ blogs?

And stay tuned!  We are conjuring up a Blog-a-Log, an indexing of the past year’s blogs, to ease your access.  More about that down the road a bit.

But for today—I ponder—why have I written so little about prayer?  Because it is so personal?  Because prayer lives in a tender and personal niche of my heart?  Because it’s hard to universalize?  Something so specific to me in my moment, how can that be generalized and offered to you?  Why would any of that stop me?

Okay, whatever.  Here goes.

What I personally/me/Aruni understand about prayer:

  • Prayer does not change reality.
  • Prayer softens our grip on it.
  • Prayer is fluid.  It is alive.  Its form changes all the time.
  • Prayer is a lifeline to something bigger than the events of the moment, something larger than our personal droplet in time.
  • We cannot possibly pray wrong.  There is no wrong in this realm of spiritual connection.
  • As prayer is offered, something is received and returned.  This is the truth of it.
  • Prayer reminds us—we are not alone.

My prayer life has gone through wild and wacky phases.  When I was newer on the road of willfully developing contact with that that isn’t me, I had more formalized, more rigid routines of prayer.  Eventually that willful practice softened into a less formal path.

My dogs taught me so much about praying.  Lucy Doodle and Zac Joe Doodle, oh, they would take their time on our walks.  Smelling every blade of grass.  Examining each tiny leaf.  I had such limited patience for their perusing through the woods. 

One day, after much frustration, I stopped.  I got a grip.  On myself.  And asked the question:
“Why am I rushing?  What so important at home?”

I realized, aghast, that I wanted to go home and meditate.

Well.  That stopped me.  How about now, right now?  How about here, right here?

And I started to walk with Lucy.  With Zac.  With prayer.  With repeated phrases.  With affirmations.  With chants.  With mantra.

Not slow-motioned meditative walking, good for the program room.  But regular-paced, my-paced, your- paced, our-paced, walking with repetitive words.  Good for walking anywhere.  Everywhere.

Let them come.
Let them go.
Let them change.
Let them flow.
Lucy and Zac changed my prayer life 
And
Opened me up to the fluidity of my own movement.

I love repetition.
It quiets my mind.
It quiets my anxiety.

Try it!

Try walking mantra.
Walk with a regular gate—at work, at the store, at home.
Grocery stores, Home Depot, all.
Bring a repetitive phrase to your movement, to the moment.
Savor it.
It can accompany us everywhere.
It’s a prayer revolution,
Off the cushion,
Off the yoga mat,
Behind the lines.

Anne Lamott in her book, Help, Thanks, Wow—the Three Essential Prayers says:

So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. 

And here is Mary Oliver’s poem, Praying:

 

It doesn’t have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

 

a few words together and don’t try

to make them elaborate, this isn’t

a contest but the doorway

 

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

~~~

Well-said, Anne Lamott.  Thanks for one of the best book title on the planet.

And
Here’s a song.
This song, right here.  Right now.

I believe prayer is asking for help, asking for something to stand with us.
To be there.
To join us.
To connect.
To help.
To share.

Here is Playing for Change with Stand by Me, truly a prayer in music:

~~~

Dear Friends,

With gratitude,
With possibility,
With hope.

May all beings be blessed
By the words we share,
By the prayers we offer.

Dear Folks,
Be kind to yourselves.

All blessings,
Aruni

P.S.
It’s that moment in time when forsythia explodes.
What a prayer, what an affirmation of life, they are.

 

What Would Our Mothers Say?

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What Would Our Mothers Say?

Stop right there.  
I invite you to put any unresolved mother-issues 
To the side.  
Just for a few breaths.
You can pick it up again in a few moments.

Imagine your mom in essence, deep inside.  
Imagine the very, very best of her,
Wishing the very, very best
For you.

What would your mother want for you?

What would her prayers be for you?

Ponder.

~~~
Here is my matriarchal lineage:

My mother                                       Tillie
My grandmother                           Sonia
My great-grandmother               Rifka
My great–great grandmother   Nachama

I say their names to invoke their presence.
What would their prayers be for me?

I imagine their prayers would be:

That I be safe and loved.
That I be comfortable and protected.
That I live true to myself.

I imagine.

What about you?  
Can you imagine what your mother’s prayers for you might be?  
Your grandmother’s prayers?  
Great-grandmother’s?  
Great-great—all the way—mothers?

Ponder.

~~~
(Thank you to Susan B., for sending this on.)

Yael Deckelbaum is an Israel/Canadian singer-songwriter-activist.  Although the video below is seven years old, its prayers, its longing, its community-based intentions are timely, so timely today.  

Here are Yael’s words, slightly edited, explaining the Prayer of the Mothers:

“The song “Prayer of the Mothers”, was born as a result of an alliance made between myself and a group of courageous women, leading the movement of “Women Wage Peace”. 

The movement arose in the summer of 2014 during the escalation of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, and the military operation “Tzuk Eitan”. 

On October 4, 2016, Jewish and Arab women began with the joint “March of Hope” project. Thousands of women marched from the north of Israel to Jerusalem in a call for peace. A call that reached its peak on October 19th, in a march of at least 4,000 women, half of them Palestinian, and half Israeli, in Qasr el Yahud (on the northern Dead Sea), in a joint prayer for peace. 

The very same evening 15,000 women protested in front of the prime minister’s house in Jerusalem.

The marches were joined by the Nobel Prize for Peace winner Leymah Gbowee, whose leadership led to the ending of the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003, by the joint force of women.

In this song, I combined a recording of Leymah, sampled from a YouTube video in which she sent her blessings to the movement.”

 

Watch Here

~~~
Let’s not give up before the miracle.
Let’s continue to imagine, 
To believe,
To hope
For peace.

From our mothers
And our
Mother’s mothers—

Peace 
To ourselves
To our children,

Forward 
And
Back,
Our lineage
Of light.

Here and there
And
Everywhere,

May we 
All
Be
Safe.

May the
Prayers
Of our 
Mothers
Live.

All blessings, 
Aruni

~~~~

2024 Hovers

So much is unfolding.  Endings.  New beginnings.  Time speeds up.  Moments slow down.  What a time it is.  Clearly it is a perfect time to start this new year with support.  I invite you to consider these two options and, please, pass them on to your friends:

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Online
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12:00-1:30

Designed with evidence-based medical information, Ayurvedic wisdom, and the contemplative practice of mindfulness and radical self-acceptance, this online program helps guide you from dieting—which we know is not sustainable—toward your long-term wellness journey. 

~~~
The Inner Quest Intensive
Friday-Monday, January 12-15
Kripalu Center

Questions to consider:
How do I block myself from being fully alive?
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This program?  It’s the best.  It’s the best of all.  Educational and experiential.  Come and renew.  Come and rest.  Come and engage.  Come and connect. With yourself.  With others.  With relevant and sustainable legacy teachings.

 

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This is about a Bird

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This is about a Bird


(Reposted from April, 2022 )

This blog post is also available on my Facebook page to make sharing it with friends and family easy for you to do.

A bird
Named 
Buzz
Taught me
How to play.

Oh!

She actually
Taught me
How to pray,
Too.

She taught
Me
Many
Things.

Here is 
Her story:

This is my Teacher, Buzz

My best friend
For a decade+
In my life.

She came to me in a dream.
I scooted her away.

After all, 
I was 
Living in an ashram.
I was too busy

Being spiritual
To listen
To my dreams.

Then she returned
In a mediation,
Most insistent,
Claiming her place
In my life.

This time,
I listened.

And there she was,
At the pet store.
Waiting.

A
Tiny,
Baby
Fuzz-Thing.
She was Buzz. 

She took her place
In my world,
My ashram world,
With ease
And 
Amazing
Confidence.

More
Then I had,
In those moments
Of time.

She sat on my shoulder
As we walked down
The long Kripalu halls,
Attending meetings,

Thrilling our
Animal-starved
Guests.

Together
We lived
Our ashram
Life.

(This was indeed
The older Kripalu.)

She attended
More department
Meetings
Then any bird
Or person
Should.

She loved
Chanting om
In the meetings.

Om sent her
Into what we called,
Big birdie syndrome,

Wings extended,
Simulating flight,
Ready to
Take 
Off,
In 
Sheer
Birdie-
Joy.
Or so it seemed.

~~~

One day around Thanksgiving
(100 years ago),

I was cutting her flight feathers,
An easy-enough thing.

She spread her wing
And blood smeared the wall.

I had hit a blood feather.

Rushing her
And myself
To the vet,
Heart in throat,
Bird
In
Carrier,

Intensity
Beyond
Intensity.

After cauterizing
The feather
The vet said,

Keep her warm.
We’ll know
In the
Morning
How
She
Does.

Covering her cage
With 17 blankies
That night,

Turning on
Every
Heater
I could
Allocate,
Weeping
And
Praying,

I said,
Goodnight.

Turning off
The light
In our room.

I spent
Much
Of that night
On
The
Floor
Of the bathroom.

Weeping,
Praying,
Mumbling.

I had learned
About prayer
In 12 Step Program:

Pray only
For the
Knowledge
Of God’s
Will for
You,
And
The
Power
To carry
It out.

I was a good girl,
Especially then.

I was committed
To doing it
Right.

Especially then.
If I do it right,
And then
Will you
Love me?

Praying for
Preference
Was 
Spiritually 
Inferior,

I did believe.

It was
Flawed,
So, I thought.
I had struggled
To ask only for God’s will,

To be a 
Good 
Sober
Girl.

BUT TONIGHT…

I HAD A PREFERENCE.
I HAD A DEFINITE PREFERENCE.

HOW HORRIDLY
WEAK
OF
ME
TO
HAVE
A
PREFERENCE.

And how absurd
In hindsight
That sounds.
Buzz, my teacher,

She taught me that night.
Buzzie the Bird 
Gave me the prayer 
That
Said:

Please, if it be Your Will,
Please let Buzzie live.

And give me
The courage and the willingness
To be present
With what is.

~~~
Buzz the Bird
Taught me the value,

The righteousness
Of my own humanity,
Of my own preference.
She taught me
How to ask
For what I wanted
And
Needed
And
wanted.
And then,
So importantly, 

To let go of
The outcome.

She taught me
How to begin
To accept
My humanness.

~~~

OH!
The end of story:

Next morning,
Opening her many
Cage coverings,

I was met
By a bird, 

My bird,
A teacher,
My teacher,

Buzz,
Who
Looked
At me
And
With clarity
And Commitment,
She said,

“Pretty bird.”
(The full content
Of her
Vocabulary.)

She was beyond fine.
She lived many years
As a happy Kripalu ashram resident.

As a commuting Kripalu employee.

As a suburban animal companion,
Living at home,
Watching the world
Out her window.

Buzzie
Taught me.

She
Taught me
Among 1000
Other
Things,
How to pray
As a human,

How to honor

My preferences,

How to practice

Being present

How to

Let go of

The outcome. 

~~~

Buzzie brought such joy.  She was so present, so alive, so Right There.  

She helped me unstuck myself from the cement of spiritual concepts, into the realm of aliveness and connectivity.

Joy isn’t easy for me.

My animal companions have been serious joy-beings.

Joy as an act of resistance, as the poet, Toi Derricotte says.  

Here is the Resistance Revival Chorus singing a glorious song, composed by Shirley Caesar, self-recorded during lockdown.

 

~~~
Strength.

Love.

Pride.

Peace.

The world 

didn’t give it

to me.

The world

Can’t

Take

It

Away,

The song tells us.

Oh, so true.

Oh,

Dear friends,

So true.

All blessings,
Aruni

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