falling

it is an age-old struggle, universal yet personal ... & we meet it with greatest regularity on monday morning . . . how to shift gears . . . reconnect with the momentum that was last friday ... so instantly evaporated in the whirlwind that was the weekend ...

dear reader, we've talked a lot about space - having, making, sneaking, forcing space into being . . . & in that space, discovering moments where all else falls away as we 'disappear' into our passion ... explore potential, find our voice . . . & in so doing, are sustained each by our own effort & soul . . .

. . . and, so what happens . . . when we fall?

we all do . . .

falling out is inevitable & essential . . . no-one remains in perpetual suspension; it is not possible, nor is it desirable ... suspension requires tremendous exertion - & often means pushing ourselves to the edge ... other times, we must step out . . . in order to tend to the more public duties of life. regardless of how or why we have released suspension, we ultimately want to return . . . but moving back into this delicate, intimate space can seem impossible ... the gears won't shift ...

today's bikram guide addressed this very struggle: "when you feel like you can't do it . . . just do one little thing, just start ... you will find from there the energy of the practice will pull you along . . .'

ok . . . but sometimes we cannot figure out where or how to start . . .

fact: it is easier to concentrate on the concrete, the immediately gratifying . . . everything in our consumer-oriented world plays to this fact . . . according to swami vivekananda, "the mind naturally goes outwards"

so for those of us who dare turn our minds inward, these moments of transition from the external to that sacred, though often elusive, space of the internal can be quite uncomfortable . . .

for it is in transition that we meet a most personal struggle -- do we default to distraction . . . or can we just ... stop ... wait ... do nothing ... meet monday morning with no to-do list, appointment, lunch or meeting . . . sit with ourselves without props deflecting our discomfort . . . perhaps, just this once, let ourselves fall ...

bonnie, of the school of body-mind centering(R), urges us to do just this . . . let go of intention . . . "yield into nothingness & observe what arises" . . . she knows in the pause there is profound support . . . if we dare to look . . .

hermine meinhard talks about 'going into the unknown" . . . she, too, knows that beyond the visible & routine lies this esoteric realm of sensation & experience . . . tapping into which requires great calm & yields great riches . . .

like working on one small section of a jigsaw puzzle with no sense of where these few pieces fit into the whole . . . we arrive by letting go . . . leaving the desk to fold a load of laundry, setting down the notebook to help millie with the spring washing of the windows . . . stopping on the way out of the park to throw the tennis ball against the stone archway . . . & in those moments a thought occurs, a connection appears . . . we return to our desk to see that in spite of our despair, our work is taking shape . . . we have clicked back into the zone of suspension ... & didn't know it . . .

it's just before class & a skate board leans against the wall - sandpapered surface frayed black & marked with !por vida! cradled between neon turquoise mystic crows, a stenciled skull in dulled lime, a quote in dirtied bubblegum pink ...

'we do without doing

and
everything gets done'

the board belongs to this 100th monkey

xo
cocoa