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BEGIN HERE, NOW

Rev. Hans Peter Meyer

• 5 min read
BEGIN HERE, NOW

Apprenticeship to Love: Chapter 289, September 29

  • Today's questions: Always this: How am I not hearing, not seeing, not feeling, not receiving what is already here for me?
  • My practice today: 5am: Yogic postures, mantra, Lower Triangle meditation

TODAY'S MEDITATION

With the passing of the equinox, autumn. And this year, even richer than so many others. This really is the beginning of my years, the "new year" of my adventures and deepenings. Here, in the falling leaves and the dying back of the garden and the rich smells of the forest and the breaking of my heart I have learned to pay attention. Here and now, I've learned to wonder: what am I missing, unless I slow myself?

...

This circumstance is one I've wanted for a long time. My stillness and stability in this circumstance, another thing I've wanted for a for a long time.

In this circumstance I am reminded of what I need to do, that I may appreciate just what I have. So I am, again, practising the Lower Triangle meditation. To ground. To align. To be who I am, and not be thrown off by my wanting or by her testing. There is significant testing.

Nothing is as I imagined it might be. Richer. More complicated. No understanding of it, just the experiencing of it.

Breathe, I remind myself. Breathe. In through the heart, and out through that part of me that penetrates the world.

I am recalled to that moment in a Manhattan studio, the last exercise in John Wineland's Fierce Intimacy weekend intensive. Feeling an utter failure, and being told to breathe. To know my capacity to become calm and powerful and aware even when things —she, the woman I was in practice with, the great She who seems to overwhelm with Her too much at any turn in my life, and especially in these autumnal turns that have undone and begun me so often in this life— even when things are so far beyond me. To know.

How lucky I was, I see now, in Kierkegaard's hindsight. It all makes sense now. To practice and be tested by this woman who would not let me off the hook, but keep there. On the hook. Responsible for myself, and for her vulnerability. As if I were worthy of that much testing, that much vulnerability, that much discomfort.

What did my colleague say to me the other day, during one of our occasional conversations about these things? "Calm and stable, that's what we (the feminine polarity in the relationship) want." Not stone-like not-feeling, but feeling that is grounded. An open heart, rooted in awareness and capacity to hold it all, this too much, this overwhelm that She brings. A heart so open it holds it all.

...

I am, I wrote a few days ago, here again. Or, at a place with so many similarities it feels familiar. A place where I've been, but wasn't as much of the the husband that I am called to be. But it's not the same place. It's a deeper turn of the spiral. A higher calling. Or, the same calling, but I hear it more profoundly today. I am better at trusting myself, my intuition.

...

She has been here now for almost a month. A strange and subtle experience. Sometimes not so subtle, she tells me. So many things called, recalled. So many things that bring tears to her eyes. And I sit with her, across from her, breathing. Seeing her. Wondering at her. On the hook, and —strangely— content to be on this hook. Happy even.

I saw her twice the other day. In the morning, aflame with herself, in a way I've not seen in many years. And then in the evening, folded in on herself. Crumpled. Ashes of the fire. Then, from the silence that I was struggling to hold and fill with my breath, her anger.

I didn't say anything. Felt this fire, a different fire, and allowed it to burn between us. Breathing into it. Holding her eyes. Breathing our breath. Imagining myself capable.

Knowing myself capable.

...

What Wineland and Deida call tussle isn't always playful. Often it is this: a man's open and rooted heart stretching to gently hold all that a woman brings to him, the fullness of her gifts as anger, fear, rage, desire, rejection, —and so much more, because she is so much more than I can imagine.

This is holy work, this tussling of polarities. A prayer, not to balance and the end of conflict, but to an acceptance of the never-ending of it. This is becoming. Birthing.

I must practice to feel it, to hold it, to become myself in the presence of this sacred wombspace.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS

🌀Intuition — the exact knowing of a moment — begins functioning when you accept that you don’t know what you know — for it is then that you allow the information that is everywhere, to be where you are.
…practice touching your breaths and heartbeats . . . be with your presence, and without thought . . . Lean on your intuitive nature, master each moment, and be in silent peace within all the noise. (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

🌀…Discipline. This is a kind of order, bordering on rigour, that you take upon yourself, not necessarily willingly, but you do so nonetheless in the name of the love you claim to bear for that one that you would propose to learn from. (Stephen Jenkinson, on prayer)

🌀…wildness is the dance partner of discipline, but certainly in the west, we’ve been very guilty of forgetting the discipline. (Dr. Martin Shaw, on prayer)

🌀There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness. (Han Suyin)

🌀I am not quiet. (My beloved)

TODAY’S QUESTIONS

Always this: How am I not hearing, not seeing, not feeling, not receiving what is already here for me?

TODAY'S SUGGESTED SHORT PRACTICE

My suggestions for your practice today, to breathe and feel the confusion of life —the tension, pressure, friction, and stress that makes everything possible— and then allowing this confusion to become more beautiful than you can possibly imagine.
Please read through first, then ...

  • Set two alarms, for times of the day when you have a five-10 minutes to become conscious of who and how you are in this day.
  • When the alarm sounds, wherever and however you are, take a few moments and ask yourself:
    • Always this: How am I not hearing, not seeing, not feeling, not receiving what is already here for me?
    • Then, follow the short practice here:
      • Stand, or sit, or lay yourself down, and bring your attention to your body.
      • Feel the ground beneath you. Allow the earth to hold you with gravity. Feel how dense and heavy you are. Feel also how lightly you sit or stand or lay on the earth. Feel yourself between the pull of earth's gravity and the subtle but persistent pull of the sun, the stars.
      • Slow your breathing so that it is long and deep into your belly. Slow the inhale to a count of four or six. Slow your exhale to a count of six or eight or ten. Repeat three to five cycles of breathing, going a little slower with each cycle. Continuing to notice yourself held by the earth, raised by the sun and stars and sky above. Feel the subtle tension and pressure and friction and stress that allows you to be and rest and move in this body.
  • When you’re done, take another minute or two, breathing gently, slowly filling and emptying your belly.
  • 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.

COMING UP