sunday grace: the path

this was my path.

even before i could name it.

when i was much too small and american to know of buddha

or pema chödrön .

my sense of wonder saved me.

all the unknowable things gave me reason to stay.

sunday grace

these last few weeks i'm feeling seriously out of my groove:  slow, annoyed, achy, reclusive, uncertain.  when i experience funks like this, i tend to (conveniently) blame karma.  i'm just paying a karmic debt and it will cycle through, back to normal, right?

pema chödrön urges us to look at karma differently, from a less passive position, one that requires us to pay attention, listen, learn, open and grow:

"the idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings you need to open your heart.  to the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further."

that damn soft spot.  it's going to be the death life of me.

sunday grace

{tiny b at pharsalia}

these words keep finding their way into my facebook, twitter and instagram feeds.  normally when this happens with any given quote, i get weary of seeing it over and over again.  but these words, when they appear before my eyes, are always new, always relevant and always make me think, oh yeah...

"whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment."

-pema chödrön

sunday grace

"you're the only one who knows when you're using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you're opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is - working with it rather than struggling against it. 

you're the only one who knows."

-pema chödrön

graceful exits

hello friends. 

last week i mentioned that i'm not so good at asking and set about to make a month of practice, of prayer.  my instinct told me, "be careful what you ask for" and "others need more than you" (i.e. "you don't deserve what you want").   but i believed i could overcome years of conditioning and learn to trust that i was in a place of safety, a place where risk and dreams and prayer cohabitated nicely.

clearly, i am a beginner, a prayer novice.  eight days has yielded more than enough material for me to sort through.  so i'm taking a break from the august break.  i love visiting your blogs and seeing your augusts unfold and will continue to do so.  thank you for coming here and leaving nice comments that always make me smile.  my break will be temporary.

my camera is a happy extrovert, a celebrator of life and beauty and love.  she is not at all interested in the grunt work it requires to help those things manifest.  there is a need right now for me to cocoon and protect and (let's be honest) wallow in the grunt work, so my camera has to take a break from me.

impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage. and so does fear. in fact, anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present without reference point, experiences groundlessness. that’s when our understanding goes deeper, when we find that the present moment is a pretty vulnerable place and that this can be completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.

-pema chodron