The Sanctuary of Openness in Everyday Ramblings

I took this today. We are having the strangest weather. I bet everybody on this planet can say that right now to some extent. Really, what we had this morning was not fog, it was cloud, cloud at ground level. And it didn’t burn off. It pulled back to the edges of the valley very quickly. I was walking home from church and there was heavy mist on the track and then, well there was blue sky above. Kind of like a magician said, ”Ta Da!”

I read the first in the Jim Butcher Harry Dresden books last week, and am reading the new one “Skin Game” now. A heck of a lot happened in those intervening thirteen books apparently. :) What is funny is that we had a Comic Con start at the Convention Center yesterday and walking by there along with the dad I saw getting in a full on Green Hornet costume I saw a whole lot of Harry Dresden knockoffs. Apparently the theme was magicians this year…

Remember the neighbor guy I told you about that carries his adorable dog with the short legs up to the park tucked under his arm? I talked to him today. The dog’s name is Vivie and she is a year and a half old wire-haired terrier. She is a hound to the bone and was very interested in a cupcake wrapper someone left on a picnic table near where we were talking. No way could she reach it but she knew it was there.

I found out that the orthodox temple across the street that that now hosts a small Pentecostal Christian congregation was originally built as a Christian church. That makes sense because it really doesn’t look like a temple and he says the focal point is in the wrong place for a temple in that it faces south.

The exciting thing though I learned is that the stables from the original farm that supplied drayage horses to the whole bustling area were right where I am now and that the building next door that looks modern but if you look at the foundation clearly isn’t, was the blacksmith’s shop.

No wonder my inner pony likes it so much here!

The sermon this morning was wonderful and I was glad I had a church community to go to after this most difficult week. It was all about questioning and reflecting and focusing on love. Resting in the sanctuary of openness. I am going to use that in my classes this week, working with gentle accessible backbends.

A lot of yoga teachers talk about opening your heart, or chest, but you know technically, on a physical level, you can’t actually do that unless perhaps you are some weird mutant creature from Harry Dresden’s world.

What you can do is lift and broaden and make space inside using gentle dynamic stretching for all your organs to work more like they were intended to and to build energy and warmth.

But as Dr. Bob so clearly showed last week there are all sorts of levels that are functional but mysterious and I hope to work on those too.

There is no doubt that when I was talking to my neighbor and his dog I was channeling my oldest sister who was absolutely fascinated by the history of this land I live on.

Kes is home and resting. Miss T. and Miss E. are trying to get some sort of a handle on this huge change and loss in their lives but also an opportunity.

Kes and I are going up to Seattle together next Thursday and will stay until Sunday helping with the unbelievable amount of stuff that needs to be addressed. Sunday is my older sister’s birthday. The first she won’t see in the corporeal form we knew her in.

Us four women closest to her heart are planning to go out for a big brunch together and get silly and then Kes and I will come home. During the Super Bowl.

Wish for the roads to be clear and the traffic light.

It will be a long time before our hearts are either of those things.

Though there will be moments…

Last updated January 26, 2015