A share from my heart….My energy can be spastic. Living in the moment while fluttering after what shines in life is kryptonite to being present in this life-minute. I have begun practicing meditation. It is a deliberate way to taste stillness and flex the mind muscle of inhaling the now moment instead of the chaotic thought train of all that needs to be done during my day. Meditation is hard. I have much to say on this topic but today I will share only this with you. There is a lovely word in yogi-land…”Namaste.” In its simplest form it means that we are more the same than we are different, that the light that shines in me is the same light that shines in you, that we can honor that we are all sharing this particular life journey together. This quote by Ram Dass supports this namaste understanding, ” We are all just walking each other home.” Together we all travel toward the same end. This bumpy path can and should be a shared celebration.
Perhaps in some pre-life plan you choose me to be on this road with you, perhaps not. Regardless here we are together, crisscrossed, tangled, connected. All of us sharing this earth now. Sharing this season of life; this season of Winter Solstice, Hanukah, Chahar Shanbeh Suri, Chalica, Pancha Ganapati, Christmas and Kwanza. We are all celebrating. More than respecting each others celebrations, I yearn to appreciate the actual authentic person celebrating them. For me that appreciation begins in recognizing that center of knowing that we are joyfully bound. Truly, humanity is connected. One light. An easy meditative practice that I do to slow my roll and root to oneness is something I learned from a great female Buddhist monk, Pema Chodron. It goes like this…Take your hot morning beverage, bring it CAREFULLY to your forehead (your third eye, the eye of intuition, ajna). Feel the heat, the comfort, the fresh opportunity of a new day, AND now trace the journey of your beverage from start to your cup in the current moment. Be thoughtful of the sunny days that grew the coffee beans, the gentle rain that quenched the leaves, the breeze that blew over the plants day after day, the moon who came out to keep watch. Bring your attention to the workers that nurtured the plants… and their families, the drivers who drove the trucks to move the coffee-beans, the business accounts, the human resource department, the store owners and workers who bought and sold the beans, those who worked on the packaging and the cashier who checked you out at the store.
Find gratitude and appreciation for each life that made the beverage possible for you. Feel their presence in your life. The web of human connectedness to your beverage is infinite. Could we even count how many humans brought you that beverage? Maybe, but that is not the point. We do not live in isolation. The more we love, connect, celebrate the seasons of life and each other the more we will be present to the moment and the more we will be healed now and forever.The real reason we are here is to love each other like crazy, drink hot beverages, play a ton, and at the end of it all turn to whomever is next to you at that moment and say, “I love you with all of me and that was one fun adventure. Namaste. I bow to the divine in you.”I bow to the divine in each and everyone one of you. Amen.