Updated: Feb 25
I have noticed lately that no one is reading my blog posts – and then I discovered that that is likely because somehow the automatic notifications are not being sent. My tech guru has gone in and hopes to have fixed the problem. So this is just a test to see if you get a notification that a new post is up.
If this now works and you are HERE – please take a look at recent posts you may not have seen! Or not! I appreciate your companionship on this website!! Fondly, Penny
Updated: Feb 24
I have been watching a TV series on Netflix called “You can’t ask that”. Each show consists of a panel of 4 or 5 people who belong to a certain, usually marginalized group – such as; people in wheelchairs, people who are exceptionally short, ex-convicts, trans folk, war veterans etc. The people on the panel answer questions that are sent in via email – and they agree to answer anything that people ask. It is usually very informative and engaging.
I think it was on this show where I heard a man who had had a near death experience say that the single thing he learned from that and wanted to pass on was this;
“Ruthlessly eliminate the hurry from everything in your life!”
My sense of it was that this was said in such earnestness that I couldn’t not pay attention. I am a hurrier… no matter what I’m up to. I often regret my mothering years where most of what I remember was telling the kids to “hurry up”. Hurry up for what? to where? Why am I often in such a hurry? I feel that way in conversations often – wanting the person to “get to the point”. It’s a nefarious habit of mine. I don’t know where it comes from. My parents were not particularly hurriers as I remember. I am, however, almost always anxious to get to the “next thing” – even if I don’t know what that might be. I am, of course, married to a person who likes to amble and ramble! It’s ever the case!
What can we learn from facing into our “bad” habits? First of all, I guess is to recognize that they’re not necessarily “bad”. They’re just habits. And sometimes we need to learn to love our habits even when we wish we didn’t have them. What is our habit trying to protect us from? What if we go against the tide of it? What if we try to “tame” it? Or, on the other hand, what if we just try to lean into it, “go with it” to see what it is trying to teach us?
If I “go with” my tendency to hurry, I can see that it is in some ways an indication of my wonder, my curiosity, my wanting “more”. Perhaps it is a symptom of my energy level which I cherish. Perhaps it is a deeply ingrained need for efficiency – which is sometimes useful.
On the other hand, if I go against this tendency, try to tame it? I find myself, first of all, grinding my teeth and then being “bored”. Hmmm. When I intentionally resist my urge to “hurry up”, I do find that there is also an ease in my body, I notice my environment more, more thoughts are available to me.
All of our habits are in the service of something. And sometimes, we no longer value what they once protected us from. It’s always good to take a SLOW and honest look at them. I am trying to do that. To “eliminate the hurry” from my life…
So what habit do you have that might benefit from your gentle exploration of it?
Here is a poem about slowness from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. (Do check out the website with all of her wonderful poems by clicking HERE)
THREE SLOW-MOVING WONDROUS THINGS
~Rosemerry Wahtola Tommer
The heart of the blue whale
is in no hurry, only four to eight
beats per minute. And the glaciers
move their brilliant blue mass
less than three hundred meters a year.
And forgiveness, it can move even
slower than that. It may be months,
even years before it blooms.
But how wondrous, when at last
we recognize that, perhaps through
no effort of our own, it has released
its unhurried perfume into our thoughts—
oh sweetness we thought might never arrive,
oh surprise when it touches us everywhere.
Updated: Feb 19
This week I attended a writing and meditation retreat led by Ann Cushman at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. It was a lovely day. I want to pass along something she has written about. It’s a pathway to getting a regular practice of anything underway.
1) Set an intention. Make a plan for what you can realistically do given your own wishes. If you want to write, are you going to write for 10 minutes every day? Fill one longhand page? Write one haiku? If you’re going to paint, are you going to make one sketch a day? One a week? One painting each month? If you’re going to meditate, will you do it each day for 10 minutes? or 20? Or three times a week?
2) Establish a “cue”. Plan to always do your practice at the same time and in the same place. Will you write or meditate first thing in the morning, just before bed? Will you write when no-one else is around? Will you go to a café mid-morning to write? Will you attend a group and paint with them? Will you listen to one guided meditation each week?
3) Round up your supplies and have them in one place. Pens, your journal, paints, canvases, books to consult etc. Have them all readily available so you don’t have to go hunting for a pen each time you sit down to write. Hve your meditation cushion, chair, recording all ready for yourself.
4) DO THE PRACTICE. You have to actually begin! If beginning is hard, ask yourself what is one easy step I could take? What is the next EASY thing? Could I just sit down and breathe for 10 breaths right now? Could I open my journal and make a doodle?
5) Reward yourself! I love this! A cup of fancy coffee? A piece of chocolate? A walk around the block? One game on your computer (or not!)?
6) Track your progress. Keep a checklist in your journal. Or give yourself a gold star. Attempt not to break the chain!! The challenge is to do it regularly – not onlky when you “feel like it”!!!
Here’s a poem I wrote at the retreat – after a poem of the same name by US poet Laureate Ada Limon.
INSTRUCTIONS ON NOT GIVING UP
~after Ada Limon
From a distance, a large bird (heron?)
flies swiftly into the tangle of live oak trees.
Can it see a path I don’t see?
Maybe it flies to the trees
somehow with the knowledge there will be
a place to land?
Similarly the weeds grow up through the gravel,
through cracks in sidewalks,
through ground barely thawed
because they MUST have light.
Rain falls without knowing where
it will land or why. It falls only
because the earth pulls it, and because
it is heavy and soft at the same time.
The chocolate powder yields its form
when met with hot water,
to lend its sweetness which can only
be tasted when it dissolves…
it’s mission accomplished.
~Penny Hackett-Evans