HOLDING THIS MOMENT, GENTLY

• Today’s questions: How gently can you hold this moment, yourself, and all that comes with holding, not reacting?
• Today's suggested practice: Day 4 of this month's practice, to prepare to receive it all.
• My practice: 5AM: 60 minutes: Yoga, then a series of mantra meditations, ending with Gayatri meditation…
• My vulnerability practice: What am I not feeling ready to hold? What feels too much to hold? And, feeling this, holding myself, then all that comes.
• NOTE: As I’m getting used to this new platform I’m noticing things. Like this: most of you have received recent posts. You can find them here at apprenticeshiptolove.com

Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY’S MEDITATION

Gently. Subtly.

As I practice and as I live, these are my watchwords. How gently can I hold this moment, myself, all that comes? How subtle is my touch, my holding, my penetration, that it follows the opening, rather than forcing the opening?

I am tender at this moment. Oh so tender. My heart aching with longing, feeling my yearning to be known, not as demand, not as insistence, not even as persistent and constant presence, but simply as the subtle joy of being alive, of loving this breath and all it brings.

Be still. Be still, I remind myself. Always. Even walking: be still. Especially when talking: be still.

Be still and let her be, this woman who is the most subtle creature I’ve known. Be still and let her be in her silence and her solitude. In her whimsy, her wants. Know this: she knows me, and she knows my heart. She knows me in ways I will never know. Trust this. And be still.

This much I know, as I think about marriage and breakage and trust and wreckage: to expect the feminine to abide by masculine ways —contracts, commitments, etc— is foolish, in the worst way.

I know this too: from the feminine, expect abiding and powerful and mysterious connection. But do not construe this as commitment or contractual understanding. It is much too fluid and strangely persistent for that.

And so, to paraphrase a teacher, to become so still and so beautifully magnetic that She cannot but be drawn to settle in my lap of stillness and awareness.

I hold this moment, gently. I allow it to have its way with me, without resisting the pulling apart, the breaking open, the rending of the cloth I’ve used to cover myself, to make my sails. All of it is “up for grabs,” but I am not grabbing. Only releasing.

I’ve been thinking more about death. Dying. Wondering, am I ready? Have I done the work to adequately prepare for this threshold?

As I write this I feel it, some part of me is ready to be released. Ready to open to something else, some new way of being, experiencing myself. Nothing is clear. It’s all —“up for grabs.” And I’m not grabbing, only holding this moment as gently as I can and letting Her subtle magic undo me and all that I think myself to be. Or, at least a part of that self-delusion (there is a many-decades-long construction against the world, against Her, that, with practice, will take time to undo…)

Aftercare. Nothing is ever “done.” And as I work with men and couples —and myself!— I know: nothing is ever “done.” All things leave their traces. Subtle ties, subtle scars. How to tend these, to ease into this moment of allowing moments to pass, to breathe, not as limits on this present moment but as the necessary stones on which this moment, and this moment, and all moments are built?

There is no freedom from the past. I know, this is not a popular way of thinking. But I don’t have to listen very long or hard, or see very far, to know that this moment and all of its joys and pains is built on the moments before. To bring my innocence to this moment is impossible. So I borrow innocence. I listen to the birds, my dogs, my grandchild (and soon, her sister too) for that almost-fresh apprehension of this moment that teaches me to be less guarded and less strategic.

There is no freedom from the past. There is only the knowing of it, and then wondering: How do I make art from this clay, this dirt, this wreckage that I want to lift myself away from?

That is all I do: turn what I know, with the help of the innocents and the subtle witch who are my oracles, turn this what is mostly used up, wreckage, mud, the past— into the beauty of this moment, now.

These past weeks I’ve been absorbed in ritual and ceremony, with wreckage and undoing and doing and making whole again. I’ve watched and guided men make tremendous effort. I’ve felt it in my nervous system, a wrecking ball to my protections. Only now, days and weeks after, and I just beginning to feel calmer, settling into a new way of experiencing myself, this moment.

There is so much more to say and to write about this process of teaching as a way of breaking open and receiving. But I am, now, spent. My garden calls. My forest calls. She, the mystery of beauty and love and the unknown across the threshold, She calls, to hold me in her silence, her solitide, and to be nourished, without understanding.

And, for this moment at least, I surrender.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀What is living inside of me? What can I do to make life more beautiful? (Rosenberg, quoted in KYS, Speak Your Truth sadhana, Day 12)

🌀We’re blessed to share this Earth with the great innocence found in silence and knowing —it’s brought here by both the children and the masters...it enables all time to be enough.
…This was the prayer that came to the Buddha: “The places you are to be, you shall be; the ways you are to go, you shall go; the people you are to meet, you shall meet; the words you are to say, you shall say; the things you are to accomplish, you shall accomplish.” This is a prayer of innocence… (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

🌀You are beautiful. (My beloved, my Oracle & Siren)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 4 of this month's practice:

Please read through first, then ...

- Today, set two alarms, one for the early part of your day, one for mid-late afternoon when you may be feeling low energy.

- When the alarm sounds, wherever and however you are, take less than three minutes to do this short practice:

• Stand or sit, with a beautiful and straight spine, feeling your feet or your sit bones heavy and connected to the earth;
• Close your eyes;
• Inhale deeply into your belly, letting it become soft and round;
• Exhale by gently and slowly, much more slowly than your inhale, pressing your navel to your spine;
• Repeat three times, letting the front of your body become softer and more open to receive as your shoulders relax and your spine remains firm.

- When you’re done, stand for another minute and breathe gently, slowly filling and emptying your belly. Here, as you breathe into your fullness, ask yourself, How gently can I hold this moment, myself, and all that comes with holding, not reacting, just holding?

- Notice if your body-mind feels somehow changed. And whether you notice a change or not, be content with yourself, exactly as you are in this moment.

- Continue with your day until the next alarm sounds, and repeat.

Ps. I’d love to hear from you and how these chapters are resonating! Please book a no-charge 15-minute Zoom chat here: sacredbodies.ca/chat.