“Clean Your Room”

Nobody Ever Had to Say That To Me

 

Would you call yourself neat?

If you came to my house, you would quickly notice the apparent tidiness of the space.

I do lean toward anal.

Things are organized, not always returned to the same spot, but landed definitively, nevertheless, somewhere predetermined.

If you look a little closer, however, you will surely see a grainy layer of dust on the chair rungs, pulls of hair—mine!—tucked subtly into a corner, and dog hair disguised as true prairie tumbleweed gleefully hugging the baseboards.  

Neat?  Yes.

Neat could be my middle name.

Clean?  Nope, not really.

I’m allergic to messiness.  

Open cabinets drive me bonkers.

Piles of papers irk me; I would rather ‘stuff’ be jammed aimlessly into a random drawer, than being hunkered down in plain sight.

Is there a subgroup emerging here?

Simply said, I don’t deal well with messiness.

Am I repeating myself?

Today I hurt a friend, a dear friend.  My careless and impulsive words hurt her. My internal response instantly, of course, being the good Jewish girl that I am, was to profusely apologize and to swear that it will never, ever, happen again.

And you know what?

Of course it will happen again.

It will happen again and again.

Because…..you know why?

Because life is messy!

Shit happens, as the bumper sticker so informs us.

No matter how much we organize, tidy, move things from spot to spot, and then back again—life is messy.

Relationships are messy.

Feelings are messy.

Today, this is landing as a deeply uncomfortable life truth for me. I think somewhere inside of me that it’s my job on the planet to keep my shit together. And probably yours, too.

And alphabetize it.

Always.

Call it a control issue.

Call it a giant/busy/smokescreen to keep me moving faster than time itself.

Hum.

Perhaps my anti-messiness campaign might be an attempt to avoid:

• Conflict?
• Fear?
• Not knowing the “outcome”?
• Wanting you to love me the most?
• (Fill in the blank for yourself:)
• _________________________?  

Truly, this let/me/get/busy/and/pretend/to/tackle/all/messiness/of/life/syndrome keeps me from my life.

I am here in this moment, this pretty-okay-enough post-election (phew!) moment, and in this moment, I choose to recommit.

I choose to recommit to the practice of abiding the messiness of life.

I choose to recommit to the practice of abiding the inevitability of conflict.

I choose to recommit to the practice of abiding my own imperfections, my own insensitivity.

I’m thinking, this being human on some level truly does suck.  Yet the pleasures these human bodies offer us, the glory of the streaking sunset, the afternoon light filtering golden through the newly bared branches—these are the gifts that truly are received and accepted in our human form.

Permission to be human!  

Can we give ourselves a more profound blessing?

Let’s bless our behavior and the feelings that have generated them.

As we bless and accept ourselves, let’s lean in the opposite direction, opening to the new, to the possible, to the transformed.

As we dare to accept our behavior, the door opens to new ways of being.

As we say in Twelve Step program, don’t give up before the miracle.

Just for today, I’m trusting that.

Dear Folks, how would you rate your capacity to be in life’s messiness?  Do you relate to anything in this piece? How are you doing, in this post-election moment?  Please keep me posted. As always, I delight in your reaching out. I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All blessings,
Aruni

Starring Kirk Douglas, Maya Angelou & Sonia Freidlin

My Grandma

As a child, I had a serious Spartacus obsession.  What were the necessary ingredients of this movie that seduced my twelve-year-old-self?  The oppression by the despicable Romans, the sheer bravery of the humble slaves, the svelte and handsome young hero, Kirk Douglas, who must now be 119 years old, the whisper of homo-eroticism of Tony Curtis?  I was captivated.  I loved even then the fight against injustice, the power of us underdogs (how was I so sure of my membership in that club at such an early age?), the bonding for righteousness and equality.  And of course, my favorite scene, maybe of all movie scenes…….

Do you remember this?

~~~

In tiny slivers of moments, I appreciate being old.  Much of the time I live within vast, silent disbelief at the density of lifetimes it appears I have been given, during this one.  Yet, more and more, interruptions in that density occur.

Like slivers of light, awe-filled gratitude cuts through.

Being older is slowly beginning to mean:                 

I’m trying much less hard to get you to like me.  (It takes too much energy!)

I really am worrying less.  (It doesn’t help anyway—why bother?)

I’m not comparing myself to you and everybody else quite as much.  (A new, mature principle of living is emerging: Who gives a shit?)

Mostly I am experiencing freedom from these old attitudes, except, of course, when I’m not.  Then I watch myself get sucked into all those older, well, younger patterns. These days, my return time, my recalibration time, is shorter; the stints in Busy-Mind-Time are easier, less murderously mean.  

Aging!  It seems to offer massive opportunities to practice kindness to myself.

No shit, Sherlock.

Last night I was fiddling with Pandora music.  I despise apps and all Things App. (Is Pandora an app?)  Anyway, somehow, my preference for folk music is cellularly remembered by the tiny people who live inside the minuscule Pandora icon on my phone.  And there, as only in the magical realm of the World of Cyber, without my overt request, Judy Collins out of the blue began loudly singing, Turn, Turn, Turn.

It was startling and magical, to have Judy’s presence so surprisingly fill up my space.

And, at the same time, I was so moved by the song!

Okay, you have heard this song 500 times, as have I, sung by everybody from the Byrds (note cool spelling) to Johnny Cash, to Dolly Parton, and to even Marlene Dietrich, with orchestra accompaniment by Burt Bachrach,“Für alles kommt die Zeit (Glaub’, Glaub)”.

But last night, through my aging ears, I heard it anew.  Please listen. Promise me you will spend these few minutes and listen.  Listen with your ears of today. Listen to Judy Collins in 1966, at the age of 27.  Today she is 79 years old.

Things turned.

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late!

The season shifts.

The temperature drops.

The earth hardens.

The trees seem unimpressed by their effortless release of leaves.

Piles of dry leaves crunch beneath our feet.

We head toward the voting booths.

We pray for the best for ourselves,

For our children,

For our country,

For all children,

For all countries.

We pray for our earth.

We pray, oh, we pray for our glorious earth.

The Marlene Dietrich German adaption (“Für alles kommt die Zeit /Glaub’, Glaub)”) translates from the German as “Everything has Its Time—Believe, Believe”.

I am inspired by that; I am reminded by that, that belief is needed, belief in that which is truly running the show.

Belief in the turning.

Folks, let’s together believe that the highest will unfold for us all.

Perhaps not in our time, but in its right timing.

Let’s believe that grace will guide the way; that the seasons will unfold, that the sun will rise, that life will continue to bless us in its perfect rhythm.

Let us turn to this new season—to this new month.

Let us turn toward this new moment—to this new day.

Let us believe.

Dear Friends, what are you noticing—what turning is impacting you right now? What does your believing look like? Please do keep in touch. I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All blessings,
Aruni

Yo-Yo-Living?

Rise and fall and rise and fall……

Fall and rise again.

These conflicting words might describe my response to our national and international moment.  Oh, you guys! I have withstood the urge to write about the news of day too specifically these past weeks.  I do attempt weekly to make subtle references to, rather than dropping us down into the existing morass of negativity, inequity and injustice.  

Today I was driving around Berkshire County (my current pastime), pondering the influences on my perspective.  

How have I become who I am?  

Why do I see the world as I do?

I had an interesting conversation with myself.

There are two major perspectives from which I operate, I do believe.

First, I must admit, I am a recovering hippy.  I am a child of the ‘60’s. Even though I was a nice Jewish girl in college, smoking pot and tripping out on Shakespeare, I always will be profoundly and indelibly stamped by the social protests of my era.  Peter, Paul and Mary were the soundtrack to my thinking. I am a product of the Summer of Love, even though I participated in it from afar.

From very afar.

I believe that highest will indeed unfold.

My life choices can track this perspective.

I joined the Peace Corps.

I worked in an inner-city high school for almost two decades.

I joined an ashram.

I chose mindfulness as my career.                    

I am still easily lured by the seduction of magical thinking.

Speaking of magical thinking, well, inspirational and heart-centered thinking, I stumbled upon Rumi’s remarkable verse a few months ago.  Do you know this one?

 

And I believe this!  I believe that life attends to us, that we are served the circumstances, the people/places/and/things that we need to evolve.  Even and especially the things that suck, even and especially the heartbreaks, the trauma, the emptiness—if attended to, from these gashes in our lives, more grace will emerge.

I believe this stuff, you guys, I do!

I believe that the human spirit ultimately will follow Martin Luther King’s long arc of justice, that goodness will prevail.

And—now, let us land realistically in Autumn, 2018, a very non-Autumn of Love.

It does feel as if the bad guys have momentarily won.  

Enter Influence Number Two—the voice of my Cynical Inner Addict.

I’m an addict.  I know, at the same time as the internal peace/flowers/freedom/happiness voice is singing Puff the Magic Dragon, I know that I am screwed.

That we are all so very screwed.

The news supports this grim proclamation.  

Day after day, in arena after arena, the evidence is in:

We are oh, so very screwed.

I think of the brilliant, remarkable song by Leonard Cohen.  Called “a cynical masterpiece”, here’s Leonard’s extraordinary, Everybody Knows.  This version, from his live Dublin concert, is startling and brilliant.

 

This song was written in 1988.  Leonard Cohen died November 7, 2016, coincidently, the day of the presidential election; he chose to leave, smart man.

Yet the question lingers; how do we balance between the influences, the pulls? How do we flow between the hopes and the fears, the positive and the cynical, the reality and the possibility?

Amrit Desai, our former Kripalu guru, used to talk about life as a yo-yo; up and down we go, believing this, no, believing that.  His pitch for spiritual practice was to create a place of neutrality, a tethered place of balance, between the extremes. The Buddhists might call that the middle road; I might call it fleeting, mere moments of sanity.

To create a place of homecoming, a place in which we return, this is the work of spiritual activism.  To be centered in the middle of, to find the sweet spot between the extremes, and to land there, as best we can, as consistently as we can.

I find that place with Zac, my own personal Rimpoche disguised as a dog.  I find his depth and stillness and playfulness the doorway back to center, to quiet, to sanity.

I find that place when I walk; nature, in all her transition, in all her consistent inconsistency, a stunning and riveting physical return to center for me.

I find that place in prayer, in movement, in a Twelve Step meeting.

I find that place.

I need that place.

We are that place—we simply need to remember, to return home to who we really are, to that place of stillness that exists within the great unraveling, that place of silence at the still center of chaos.

Just a few minutes a day, greet yourself, visit yourself, rest in the arms of your self.

Renew.  

Remember.

Return.

Rest.

And then, go back out there.

Dear Friends,
What perspectives influence you?  How do you renew, remember, return to yourself?  Please keep me posted. Your emails light up my day.  I
am aruni@rnetworx.com

All blessings,
Aruni

Practicing Practice

We’re on the Road

If you are practicing mindfulness, you can be sure of one thing.  (Are you ready? This is slightly depressing.) You will notice all the ways that you are not mindful!  This means that your practice is actually working.

I insist that you go back and read that paragraph again.  Breathe into it. Only one simple conclusion can be drawn from all of this, which has been an ongoing theme these past weeks; life is ridiculous!  

Wouldn’t you think, once committed to a practice, we would see and celebrate the “successes”, the lovely and harmonious results of our hard-earned commitment?  Nope—we see all sides of successes. We see the authenticity of practice, which is the gift of remembering along with the gift of forgetting. Forgetting is the greatest and most profound success of all—to notice the lapses without judgment.  This literally is the doorway to change. It just doesn’t always feel that way.

I believe we are wired (I surely am), that once committed, we believe our lives should be filled with a whole lot of “om shanti’s”, bliss and grace and freedom from struggle.  I believe we are wired to believe that, once committed, we lock in the “remembering” (I got it!  I’m doing it!  I’m mindful—or, fill in the blank—I’m not eating sugar—I’m getting to yoga class—whatever it is for you.)

Nope.  I don’t think so.

We remember.  We forget. And is in the forgetting, that the most profound door to practice opens—to simply begin again, in the words of Jack Kornfeld.

To simply begin again.

I’ve had some leakage this week.  Literal leakage. Housing leakage.  Water dripping. Ceiling soggy. Floor slippery.  Sheetrock buckling. My intention has been to trust the process, to know this is not a life-threatening disease, this leakage experience/opportunity.  This will get fixed, this is getting fixed, I will not sleep on a park bench, etc. And most of the time, I can relax into that trust. Except when I can’t.  And then, I get frightened and jumpy and anxious and it feels like I am leaking. It literally feels as if I will die from my personal leaking.

Trusting life is my core practice.  I do not want to live in the fear and anxiety of my earlier years, in which there were plenty of moments when my own beliefs and behavior blocked me from grace and support.  And yet, as I look with neutrality at my sober life, clearly, in every single moment, there is a flow of positive life energy, no matter what is happening. Aruni is not in charge. Evidence-based data from my life tells me that I am safe, that this situation will resolve, that all is indeed well in the Land of Leakage.

Things will work out—they always have.

I am choosing, with you all as my witnesses, to Trust the Leaking.  I am committing to feel my anxiety about it, to breathe into my fear of it, and to have a fantastic life NO MATTER WHAT.  

A fantastic day.  

A fantastic moment.  

Practice changes the brain, the body, and behavior.  I choose to take action, to make appropriate leakage decisions, and yet, to have a fantastic moment, nevertheless.  It is not worth the cost of my serenity or my enjoyment; it is not worth the cost of diminishing the joy I have been given.  

Here is my prayer for us, today:

To embrace our humanity.
To bestow upon ourselves full permission to be human.
To lean in the direction we choose to live, rooted in radical acceptance of ourselves.
To enjoy this almost Indian summer day, no matter what we are given.
To practice being right here, right now, with life as it is.
To practice being right here, right now, with ourselves as we are!

And to seal our prayer, here are the blessings of George Harrison.  I’ve been playing My Sweet Lord over and over—how I love this song!—and it really softens my heart.  Check it out.

Best,
Aruni

aruni@rnetworx.com