ENJOY! (BECAUSE THIS TOO SHALL PASS)

• Today’s questions: What needs your joy right now? What pain or discomfort can be eased with your smile, your heart open to beauty, celebration?
• Today's suggested practice: Day 7 of this month's practice, to prepare to receive it all.
• My practice: 4:30AM: 60 minutes: Yoga, then a series of mantra meditations, ending with Gayatri meditation…
• My vulnerability practice: For this moment I am here, profoundly happy, and knowing that this moment lasts as long as this breath, and I have no idea what comes next….
• NOTE: The next #menswork conversation is another co-ed conversation with one of my teachers, Diane Gansauer, on the topic of rituals and ceremonies in our lives. As a subscriber to these chapters there is no charge. Use the “subscriber” ticket option at https://is.gd/Ohh2DV

Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY’S MEDITATION

Looking back, it’s been my nature to be solitary, all of my life. It’s not always something I’ve been comfortable with. But since “the fall,” that moment several years ago when I had my most recent collision with the reality of who I am and who I am not, and who I do not want to be, ever again —since “the fall” I’ve found myself more and more, and more willingly, purposefully, revelling in solitude. And silence.

There is so much to hear, here, in this silence.

There is so much to feel here, in this solitude. It is as if all the people I’d drawn to me and been drawn to, lovely all of them in their ways, were just me distracting myself from what I yearn for, and that yearning is to feel into things much more carefully —with more care, and more fully— than I could imagine when I’m crowded with others. No matter how lovely.

Yesterday was a study in contrasts: much of a day with someone who is silent and solitary, an evening spent with friends who are not silent, who are very social.

In that evening I sat on the edge of the conversation. Watching. Listening. Not drawn to comment or join in.

The one moment when the conversation turned to me, when I was asked, directly, And, what have you been up to? Tell us about your teaching & etc —in that moment I felt like that deer in the headlights: Where to turn for safety? I did not want to say anything. Feeling I had no words. Mumbled something inarticulate about being ”very happy” (wanting to mimic my father and his “I’m happy with my lifestyle” line, something that always draws a chuckle from my kids, but would fall on deaf ears here). Not getting a response that would add fuel to the little campfire of conversation at the table the attention quickly turned away from me and I was allowed to withdraw to my corner at the edge of the table.

This was an event of my creation. These were good people. But I’m needing more silence and more … to say more “depth” sounds grandiose. But I feel tongue-tied and brain-dead with so much conversation these days. I crave the intimacy of two or three people. Eight or ten, like last night —I want to hide.

I do love to talk. I’m not pretending that I’m a mute. Given the opportunity, I can fill your ears, on many topics. But what I love more than talk is to be in those moments where I’m drawn to silence and wonder more than silence and endurance. These parties are about endurance, for me. Even when they are full of people I love.

I spent the better part of the day (an unintentional pun that I’ll let stand) taxiing my beloved between appointments. Our time together slow, ordinary, yet delicious. Being together with no agenda other than service and receiving service. Grace and gratitude. Moments strung together, the combination of which becomes that uninspired and ordinary experience glowing with a deeper radiance. What I think I might call the love beyond romance. Or at least, a different kind of romance.

This seems to be what I am reaching for, by not reaching. This deeper glow that emerges from my silence and self-effacement allows (I’d written “produces” in an early draft; but it is an “allowing,” not a ”production,” that flows from my stepping back). Unfathomable depths, unfathomed but instead seen, observed, enjoyed. The marvelling at mystery. And that, being enough. It only seems to happen in silence, solitude, or an intimacy without demands.

There is a familiar magic in the “falling in love” of life, in the overwhelming fixation of sexual and emotional drama that marks what we commonly understand as romantic love.

This is not, it seems, what draws me, now. I am wanting something that lasts, with less drama.

Driving my beloved through her day, having bits of conversation with deep roots, roots we’ll likely never untangle, or feel the need to untangle, or even feel the call to consider untangling, I felt something draw me. It felt like happiness.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀What is living inside of me? What can I do to make life more beautiful? (Rosenberg, quoted in KYS, Speak Your Truth sadhana, Day 12)

🌀You’re not like that now. (My beloved, my Oracle & Siren)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 7 of this month's practice:

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 less than three minutes to do this short practice:
• Stand or sit, with a beautiful and straight spine, feeling your feet or your sit bones heavy and connected to the earth;
• Close your eyes;
• Inhale deeply into your belly, letting it become soft and round;
• Exhale by gently and slowly, much more slowly than your inhale, pressing your navel to your spine;

Repeat three times, letting the front of your body become softer and more open to receive as your shoulders relax and your spine remains firm.

When you’re done, stand for another minute and breathe gently, slowly filling and emptying your belly. Here, as you breathe into your fullness, ask yourself, What or who needs my joy right now? What pain or discomfort can be eased with my smile, my heart open to beauty, celebration, connection?

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.

ps. I’ve changed the online platform for this writing project. Please take a look at apprenticeshiptolove.ca and let me know if anything isn’t looking or feeling right. Your help is appreciated.