I’ve been traveling with family this week, and this morning we woke up to rain. As I paused to listen to the gentle, steady drizzling, and to breathe in and feel the day begin, the listening became its own kind of morning prayer. Do you ever hear or feel a prayer as you begin a day? What words do you say, to yourself, to the day? Or do you enter into quiet, into silence, without words? It makes a difference how we begin, whether or not we make a space, a way, some time to rest our minds from constant grappling and explaining. Whether or not we open the edges of the stories we tell about the way things are within us and around us, to let more in.
One of my teachers says that spiritual growth, or becoming wise, is a process of discovering at your core a story that can hold all the other stories. A foundation that makes room for everything that comes your way, for everything that is. In that place, that story, vulnerability and courage are the same thing. Courage is not simply the energy or power to defend our expectations or habits or “knowledge.” Courage is the ability to keep the doors of our minds and hearts open, to change direction, to leave things behind and keep moving, even – or especially – if we are mourning as we go. “What would it be like to wake into our bodies, our relationships and our work as if seeing them for the first time?”, the teacher asks. Yesterday there was sorrow and joy; today there is sorrow and joy – but today we are not the same as we were yesterday. Nothing is the same.
This is a daily practice – to find ways and time to open ourselves and our stories to the way things truly are. To be willing to be lived by pain and sorrow and fear in all the ways we are willing to be lived by happiness and love and joy. To move as life moves, in us and around us. For the days of this week I wish for you, and for me, the gift of of opening to the day, beginning with breath, and with thanks. Sending love to you all — Jill
