Bathed in Light in Everyday Ramblings

So Kes went to a grief counselor this last week at a local hospice and she got some great information, including a handout excerpt from a book that specifically addresses what might be conflicting emotions with the loss of a sibling.

She also received a recommendation for a book on grieving mindfully. We had a Facetime video chat yesterday to compare notes about what we had learned. I was a little embarrassed, (I had just woken up from a nap) about the way Diego who was grooming me had arranged my hair.

Diego seriously thinks I am a cat, which I find touching when he is not driving me bonkers.

I also found a simple restorative yoga practice that includes gesture and meditation with intention for grief, a heart opening practice that I shared with her.

My counselor/teacher mentioned that he thought maybe I might benefit from turning some compassion towards myself.

So today I am taking it easy, walking and hanging with the cats and writing and reading. The chores and the taxes will get done. What I don’t have enough of on the schedule is down time so I am grabbing what I have.

I have some questions to answer in the next few weeks about how I’d like my spiritual life to unfold. The roots of Buddhism and Yoga are the same and it is somewhere in that place I want to rest my attention. What I don’t want to do is sit formal Zen Buddhism. I need to be in and of the world and I absolutely want to continue teaching yoga.

S. and I were talking when we were walking on Thursday about how so many of these mega rich people that live up in the hills behind me have Buddhist iconography in their gardens and around their houses. I took the above picture then.

What you can’t see here is the portable toilet right next to the Bodhisattva.

I took that picture too. :)

Our lives are so complicated. I know that I do not want to live one of renunciation, a dedicated nun or teacher, I want to be fully present in this world with tulips and glorious gorgeous food and sensual delights and sunlight.

Over the years of practicing yoga I have a pretty good sense of body awareness. At any point in time I could probably describe to you with fluency and ease what is going on, what is tight, what needs attention.

Where I am not so good is naming feelings. This is my practice this week.

One feeling I have no trouble naming is joy. I love spring, I love Easter, I love this time of year. Even if it is kind of sort of hard to breathe with all the pollen in the air, every time I step outside there is something different visible and available to all the senses.

We are a solid week ahead of last year on the flower clock, the clematis vines are budding and the lilac is coming on, and I know where the yellow iris are…even though there are no flowers yet…

There is rain coming in this evening and it is supposed to be cloudy all next week so I am grateful I was able to get out in it so much this weekend, blustery, as it has been.

In the meantime I shall bathe myself in the light we have, just like the cat Diego thinks I am.

I can’t exactly purr but I am pretty good at humming.

Last updated March 29, 2015