(not necessarily in that order)
Yep, every few years my birthday falls exactly on the Summer Solstice, which is kind of fun.
I hope you’re doing something enjoyable on this, the longest day of the year. I’m headed to a rehearsal myself.
But that’s okay, because Ramesha made me French toast for breakfast and my gift was a brand new tablet, which will be very convenient when traveling.
Plus these beautiful flowers were awaiting me when I got to the office.
It’s been a lovely birthday.
Writing the blog earlier in the day — so I don’t have to turn on the computer late in the evening — is actually helping me with my bedtime.
I didn’t quite make it before 11:00 last night, but I was close!
So, here I am….doing Whatever. It. Takes. once again.
I’m determined to be in bed no later than 11:00 tonight.
That means I must not turn on the computer for any reason once I get home from rehearsal.
Which means writing today’s blog before rehearsal.
Ergo… 😂
Yep, this was a slogging through it kind of day, from start to finish.
I resonated with the word, but had to look it up to make sure I was using it right. But, yeah, “to slog” is to walk or plod heavily; to toil. And “a slog” is a long, tiring walk or march; long, laborious work.
Which is how today felt.
It started with me oversleeping, followed by needed but unexpected calls and visits.
Then laundry, laundry, and more laundry.
Emails, organizing, details, and more emails.
Feeling tired throughout but trying not to let the crankiness take over. Sigh.
The good news is I got a lot done. The less-than-good-news is that I didn’t exactly stay centered in my inner peace and joy.
Oh well, all we can do is give it our best from moment to moment.
I love you, Dad!
Thank you for always believing in me.
💖✨💖✨💖✨💖✨💖✨💖✨💖✨💖✨💖
We usually have Rajarshi Day — our all-community workday — in early May, around the May 5th birthday of Rajarshi Janakananda (Yogananda’s most advanced disciple). But because Springtime at Ananda has become so big, and takes so much time and energy from the whole community, Rajarshi Day got shifted to June.
Although we had a beautiful, mild summer day for it, it was still quite a day for me.
My morning was spent outside of the Temple of Light, where I removed wire cages from around young trees (so that another team member could weed whack around the base of each tree); raked up the weeds; spread mulch; then replaced the wire cage.
My raking buddy, Brian, and I worked on approximately ten trees, all of them in the sun. I definitely expended more physical energy than I have in years — maybe decades. Fun, but exhausting.
Then, after meditation and lunch on the Market lawn with our entire spiritual family, I headed home to rest and shower before Ramesha and I got on a Zoom call with Ananda Australia. We were the guest speakers for their Sunday morning satsang.
As usual, all the tiredness went away as soon as we were connecting with the group and talking about Ananda Music.
Now, however, I’m ready to drop. 🥱
The above photo has absolutely no relation to the weekend that’s in front of me —
Tomorrow morning is Rajarsi Day, when I’ll be helping with Temple of Light landscaping-related duties; tomorrow afternoon we have a satsang with Ananda Australia; Sunday morning is service; Sunday late afternoon the music team has an early dinner in town to celebrate accomplishments, travels, returns, healings, birthdays, and new beginnings.
Then we head into a new week, with our Patreon video to create; choir and ensemble rehearsals to lead; our own music and solos to learn/rehearse; and the many details of SRW to prepare.
Upon deeper reflection, the above photo will serve to focus my vision…of manifesting several days or even a week on a lake or at the coast, sitting and relaxing next to a body of water.
I know, I know…! I don’t really live in the wild.
After all, we have electricity, running water, internet, and a whole community of friends surrounding us.
But the fact remains that ours is a rural community, which means there are critters EVERYWHERE. And, having grown up in the very civilized environs of the San Francisco Bay Area, this remains an ongoing challenge for me.
I’m actually pretty accustomed to seeing deer, wild turkeys, coyotes, hares, foxes, and even bears in the vicinity. What I can’t seem to get used to is when the critters are inside my home.
For example, we get frogs and lizards inside our house. All. The. Time. And they are really hard to catch.
I mean, really! A lizard in the bedroom?!? That’s just wrong!
But what inspired this rant is when I went to put a new stick of incense in the holder in the bathroom and discovered…this!
I mean — eww! My best guess is that it was a spider eating another spider. All well and good, but Not. In. My. House.
(And, no, I didn’t flush it or kill it, I managed to take it outside.)
This evening I stumbled upon an article about a young Gen Z woman who genuinely wanted to know, “what did you [old people] do before you could look something up?”
It was quite amusing but it also got me thinking…
…about how I recognize so many songs for which I never knew the name of the artist. I would hear something on the radio and enjoy it, but it didn’t trouble me that I couldn’t identify the artist. Now Shazam is helping me fill in the gaps of my knowledge.
…about how I would wait until the last three days to do the term paper for my music history class, then go to the library and walk out with a stack of ten or fifteen books. Because you had to deal with actual books — nothing online, nothing digital. And that meant actually reading (or — if you had only three days to read, analyze, organize, and write the paper — skimming) every book. Oh, and then I had to type the paper, marking the bottom page margin with a pencil so that I didn’t go too far.
…about how I freelanced throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and as far as Monterey, Modesto, and Santa Rosa with no cell phone and no GPS. I had directions, a map, and my intuition.
…about how a movie would come out and you either went to see it or — you missed it. And that was that.
So, yeah, I can see how this would boggle the mind of someone born in 1997. 😂
I have my friend, Jennifer, to thank for this perfect comment
in response to the resistance I was feeling yesterday —
“Joy is within you, resistance is futile!”
So, I might as well just give in to the joy, right?
I love it!