(not necessarily in that order)
I was out for my morning walk, glanced up at this tree, and came to an abrupt stop.
After all, it’s the height of summer, with temperatures once again approaching triple digits. And yet, there it was — a reminder that summer really doesn’t last forever.
And neither does anything else on this physical plane.
I completely underestimated how much time was needed to prepare for tomorrow morning’s presentation.
Actually, it would be more accurate to say that by the time I could really put my mind to it, I was already way behind.
Regardless of how I phrase it, the fact is that it’s almost 1:00am and I’m just now finishing up.
Hard to believe that — almost exactly two months from today — we’ll be in Lugano once again.
On the one hand, I can’t wait. On the other hand, I can’t believe how the last six months or so have flown by!
And for sure, time is only going to speed up between now and our departure date.
I definitely kicked off the new year in a new way!
First, by choosing a Word of the Year and, secondly, by participating in an art workshop where we decorated a board with our chosen word. It was a simple but powerful process that made me realize why “art therapy” is a real thing.
So, my word is RECLAIM. And my “helper word” is DESERVE.
I had been mulling over word possibilities for a few days before the day of the workshop, without feeling drawn to any word in particular. Then the word RECLAIM popped into my mind while I was driving to the art studio and, after I shared it with the group, I could feel that it really resonated within me.
So, before I started working on my board, I just sat for a while to tune into what RECLAIM actually meant to me. What was I reclaiming? And how? This is what came to me:
What = My power / How = Own it
What = My body / How = Move it
What = My time / How = Honor it
What = My joy / How = Embrace it
What = My willpower / How = Befriend it
What = My self / How = Accept it
Then it was time to tune into the lettering and how the word would fit on the board. This is what I did at first, by hand…
It didn’t feel right, so I asked Sarah (the Ananda Village artist who was offering the workshop) if there were stencils or something that could help me get the letters right, as I wanted them to fill out the space more. And she immediately pointed out to me the connection between “filling out the space” and my word! I was wanting to RECLAIM my space. Interesting, no?
These are the letters that I then decided to use.
Next, she suggested tuning into the chakras in order to feel the color that best matched the energy of my word. Because my word feels very powerful and strong, I chose yellow, for the third chakra (power, self-control).
And because my “helper word” had to do with the fact that I DESERVE to reclaim all the elements of my self, I found myself gravitating toward royal purple for the letters.
Then an important memory suddenly resurfaced, of a time when I felt reassured by the Universe that I was, indeed, deserving (I wrote about it in this blog post). And I marveled at the power of this process once again.
The end result is that I absolutely LOVE my word and feel it’s already helping me start this year strong.
There are so many things I’ve been meaning to write about — topics, experiences, events, memories — but I can never seem to get to them.
It’s sort of like I’m walking along and see something interesting along the way. But I’m already carrying quite a few things, so I place it by the side of the path with the intention to come right back and pick it up again. But it turns out that the path is really a moving walkway like in the airport, and I can never get turned around to go back to that interesting thing.
(Hmmm, sort of has the makings of an anxiety dream!)
At any rate, it’s not the perfect analogy. The feeling I’m trying to convey is the sense of time marching on…and on…and on… And somehow I can never go back and complete all the little projects that I intended or promised or started to do.
It’s rather sobering when I think about it.
Yesterday I shared a photo of the first time I sang for Swami Kriyananda, but I realize I skipped over some of the most compelling experiences of my early years at Ananda.
Namely: how I first “met” Swami (in “consciousness”); how I got to “know” him better (still before meeting him in person); and how I raised money to go on the Oratorio choir tour to Italy (aka The Saga of “Illuminating Grace”).
More tomorrow; stay tuned!
Processing today is going to take some time.
From start to finish it was full, joyful, inspiring, challenging, successful, and deeply satisfying.
I look forward to having time to reflect on the many blessings of this day.
Today we spent time with Dudo and Karin, a wonderful couple who have been a big part of Ramesha’s life for decades. They were some of the first people I felt close to when I moved to Lugano, despite the fact that we couldn’t speak one another’s language.
Ramesha and I got together in 2003, the same year that Samuele, their first child was born (Lia arrived in 2005). Now here we are, visiting them in 2019, and I couldn’t stop staring at Samuele, who’s done a whole lot of growing up in the past two years!
So Dudo and I were reflecting on the importance of true friends, and of the kind of friendship where you see each other after two years of living on opposite sides of the world (with hardly any contact in the meantime) and it feels as though it was only a couple of days since you were last together.
And what we realized is that this is why it comes as such a shock to see how children have grown, because it’s the measurable changes we see in them that makes the passage of time real for us.
We celebrated my Dad’s 85th birthday today at a park in Sunnyvale. All five of his children were there, plus a couple of spouses, several grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
It was a lovely afternoon…and it brought up things to think about.
For example, the whole crazy thing about time. For something that’s an illusion, it sure looks and feels very real. And because I’m fully caught up in the dream reality that time is a part of, I have to make my peace with the “reality” that sooner or later every single person I love (and even the ones I don’t) are going to go away. Including my Dad.
With time comes change. My brother has a neurological disease that–with time–is taking away more and more of his functionality, independence, and future.
I grew up in the Bay Area, but as I drive around there are so many changes–wrought by time–that even when I recall a memory there’s very little sense of connection with the environment that triggered it.
I think this is why we “can’t go home again.” Maybe we can locate the physical place or rejoin the people (the “house” or its equivalent), but the sense of “home”, of “belonging” has vanished. Sigh.