Hari Om

The practice might begin with “everything is leaving. I, too, am leaving. I am arriving. I am leaving. I am the expansion and the contraction.”

Now, that is some nice, flowery language, and probably would serve just fine if I were to leave it at that. I, however, want to make this more present for me.

My elbow hurts.

It throbs and barks at me with the tiniest of movements, and I am unsure of which movement will trigger the pain from moment to moment. I am feeling pain, and with that is the invitation to suffering. Oh, poor me, why me, stupid me, I am not what I was, I am becoming weak, fragile, and slow. There you go, my famous Suffering Sauce recipe. Or, I can recognize that this too is changing, and this body is getting older, and with that comes limits that I sometimes push, and sometimes defy, and sometimes am forcibly pulled back into place with a great thump!

This morning, I feel the thump like a Zen stick to my back. “Remember your breath!”

Okay, thank you; breathing in, breathing out.

We are far simpler than we would like to think. We have been trained to think that complicated is superior. Fully in-depth programs with mathematical diets, astrological exercise routines, and organic crystal insertions are on the 72-fold path to a better you. Really, though: we breathe, we think, we feel, we decide, we believe, we fail, we move on. This practice is one of returning. The ebb and flow, expansion and contraction of life bring us to and from and back to where we begin, again and again and again.

Appalachian Elegy 13. bell hooks wingspan wide death covers all prey and predator turkey buzzards overhead at the bottom of the hill no eternity beckons just ongoing decay a deep smothering emptiness profound prolonged lamentation birds cry high

Profound prolonged lamentation. WOW! Thanks bell hooks. This is it. This is the sound, maybe, of all creation. A wailing of loss. Since the moment of the separation of all matter into an ever-expanding galaxy of rapidly departing bodies, we are wailing an aum of loss.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

We are wailing our lives into creation. Join the ancient chorus.

All In Love,

Michael

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