PRACTICE, TO RECEIVE HER
Apprenticeship to Love: Meditations on this Path to Authentic Relationship, October 2, 2023
• Today’s questions: Who am I when I slow down? Who am I when I do not slow down? How do I experience myself, and others, fast or slow?
• Today's suggested practice: Day 3 of this month's practice, to notice & receive while in motion (see my "Short Practice,” below)
• My practice today: 4am: 60 minutes: Yoga for the Equinox, with mantra and pranayama (breathwork).
• My vulnerability practice: I'm listening, but struggling to trust this silence to bring me what I need...
★ Wednesday, October 4 at 11am Pacific time I'll be hosting a live podcast conversation with UK men's work leader Jai Singh on "fatherhood." Free to all Apprenticeship to Love subscribers. Register at sacredbodies.ca/events
VIDEO
TODAY'S MEDITATION
It's quiet. The words spoken last week —so many words! From so many places! So much love...— I'm listening for them. Remembering. And, it's quiet now.
...
I don't want to sit in this silence. I don't want to listen to the wind or the trees or to the memory of what was said a week ago.
And, sitting in this silence, sitting in the discomfort of my not-wanting, I am reminded of my work: to receive.
...
There is an ocean of love holding me. In my resistance to silence I am not feeling it holding me. I'm just feeling my demand.
Is this even a shadow of the darkness that troubles her when I demand of her?
...
There is so much more than I can imagine or even begin to understand, right here. I know that I need only breathe. Need only practice. Need only receive.
I find this the hardest work.
And so, I practice. Up early. Daily. Even for a few minutes. Better if it's an hour or two. Then this body feels itself held and this mind feels itself allowed to rest. "No worries." Indeed.
...
My will is strong. I am stubborn. I have been raised to strive. To believe that the only work is my striving, and that only striving is rewarded with the wealth of this life.
So I resist receiving. And struggle.
And, again, I turn to practice. In the ambrosial hours when I'm least likely to be distracted and when this mind is too-easily caught in its worries, I pull on my clothes. I bend. I stretch. I breathe. I chant. I sit. I prepare.
I prepare that I may become still. Still enough to allow myself to receive all that I need. All that is here. So much more than I want.
TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS
🌀 …”where there's a will, there's a way" is not a quaint philosophy, but this is the reality of quantum physics . . . at the core of your existence.
Our prayer is that you embrace the uncertainty of your physical certainty . . . use this reality to produce your own reality from the dreams in your own imagination, and "become the change you want to see in the world." (Guru Singh and Guruperkarma Kaur)
🌀 The Conscious Warrior practices the cultivation of wonder and awe. (John Wineland, Precept 7)
🌀 Our “work” is to receive. The rest is preparation. (Leroy Gordon)
🌀 “I’m excited.” (My beloved, my Oracle & Siren)
TODAY'S SUGGESTED SHORT PRACTICE
Day 3 of this month's practice, to move and to notice, and to receive:
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 three, five, 11, or 30 minutes to do this short practice:
- When you’re done, sit or stand for another minute or two, breathing gently, slowly filling and emptying your belly. Here, as you breathe into your fullness, ask yourself, Who am I when I slow down? Who am I when I do not slow down? How do I experience myself, and others, fast or slow?
- 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.
- If you want to talk about your experience, or your resistance, or about anything that, as one reader has put it, "lands while reading these chapters," please set up a short (15-minute) chat for Zoom: http://sacredbodies.ca/chat.
- It may not be enough, but it'll be a start. And that's always a good thing.