“Whatever we pay attention to, we care about. It brings out our caring. You discover the belonging that was there but hidden. It is there with every living thing of this universe if we slowed down and we reached out. Not only does it wake up our hearts, but it ripples out.”
Life as Improv 
right diligence
a wonderful practice
of selective seed watering!
may seeds of love
blossom beautifully 🙂
Many spores are luxuriating
in the mixture of sun
and rain and soil
around here-
blossoming seems
inevitable 🙂
So it’s always there, and the task becomes teaching myself to partake in it, opening myself to it. Thanks for being one of those who has increased my awareness.
Right back to you, M.A.!
I’m learning
to be gentle
with my own
remedial ways.
May we
find that we
are letting it in
a bit more
each day!
How wonderful it would be if I could be as honest and vulnerable with those I love to the degree she recommends. I know she speaks the truth, but it fills me with terror in the moment when I must speak! Yet this is #1 on my to do list these days as I have seen the repercussions of not speaking up. Old, old stuff. I appreciate her gentle nudge.
So many of her illustrations touched – especially the one about Uncle Victor. As you mention your “to do list” I realize how helpful for me this teaching is with how lovingly we approach our own walled off parts of self.
Oh, my wabi sabi seeker,
This heart shed scales today.
Many tears later,
Thank you. Meredith
I am picturing the beautiful petals of an artichoke, floating through the air, as your heart’s tender center is revealed. (and because I am twisted, I also think of JC Oates novel, “Because it is Bitter, Because it is My Heart, and imagine yours is a delicacy with butter. Have I gotten too weird? I hope we can laugh through salty tears, my sister:)
(sisters usually get kind of weird and twisted after such intense moments… hiccup.) 😉
(of course!)
Hello M!
It is interesting to drop by and read all of your November postings in sequence, in a single sitting, and to see the movement and the thread passing through. In reading about your experiences with the remedial class I was struck by the difficulty of feeling obligated to give your teaching heart away to those who weren’t interested in it. I think such gridlocks of intention lead quickly to brushes with meaninglessness. And if– as it sounded– you had the image of yourself as breaking through, and the rocks didn’t display the least interest in budging or cracking open, then of course it would lead as well to a compounding sense of being defeated. It read from one post to the next a bit like a chain reaction.
It is amazing how such situations cause us to question ourselves, and when our confidence is wounded, to then lose even our usual resilience with loved ones and the simple challenges of daily life– so much so that we question even our ability to love… which is the nature of our existence though we so often think it must be something more than that… It can’t just be who we are… Who we are is so boring and confusing… Ha!
I was able to listen to about half of this video before I had to move on, and I resonated with the description of love as the sensation of belonging. It reminded me of what is described as “The Embrace” in a Course of Love. It’s like an intimacy and comfort with the entirety of experience itself. I feel in the classroom oratories you must feel obligated to give to the card-punching rocks, that there is great opportunity to discover what your loving can be without the immediate or obvious exchange to which you may have been accustomed. At any rate, I felt the way the vice closed in, from the loud voices in the hall to the mute ones in the classroom, and hope that as the falsehoods are ground down into dust, what remains opens back up into presence as gentle as the sky.
Peace, support, love and encouragement,
Michael
What a treat to see your play by play and encouraging words! Just about 2 weeks until the finish line for this particular challenging class for me, and then should come a breather anticipated like none before. I hope that your time of intensity has an end date approaching, if not already past. I saw that you had a few posts, and they are on the top of list to gift myself for any break moment that I can manage coming up. I wonder if I will be able to see the patterns playing out in your life flow this past month as well. I am finding love for myself and for those blessed students in the midst of the spaciousness I can cultivate. Kelly Kuhn mentioned that she had learned in her graduate program about creating a space for failure; something clicked in me with that phrase. Boot camp month – basic training almost complete – Drifting up into the Gentle Sky that always hung around, waiting for me to look up 🙂 See you soon at your place. M