#9: Allow yourself to receive

Sometimes I take morning walks. Down the sidewalk, past a garbage truck and flowers, stepping slowly, remembering myself as a presence in the morning, a kind of meditation. I feel stronger these days, but I also wake up with a sense of non-feeling, where my body feels like a shell, being held to confront others rather than to be with them. Let yourself feel I say, as I move through the open space of a sunny intersection. And a twinge of sadness flows in with the bright colors of the day, gentle and sweet. I continue to step, turn left where I enter the park, to go around the great field, and I remember the place of receiving. The blood body, a teacher at a movement workshop called it.. A trusting place, where your body softens and one allows the world to come through. Walking in this tender place I pass a lone tree, in the grass next to the community center, with sparse deep forest green and crinkled leaves. And a symbol comes that has spoken to me for years: the tree in the clearing. This image has always held a sense of magic for me that I didn’t understand. But today the world whispers, look they are all trees in clearings. Here the trees push up through sod, some small and propped and tagged with orange plastic around their feeble fingers, between their round leaves. These line the path. Beyond them a great being with a wide speckled trunk and a top that explodes rests next to the tennis court. Clumped, cramped, but each one rising up into its space of air, matter asserting itself into where-it-was-not. They are all trees in clearings, surrounded by the nada. I pass each one and the symbol begins to whisper to my conscious understanding: each is life, the body of the earth, dark and teeming, mysteriously arising from itself into this great intricate shape, soil and air joining to differentiate into rough grey bark, shapen leaves, veins, and branches, I cannot speak of the livingness of the tree. Intricacy from simplicity, the story of every form. I walk through the wet grass of a clump of pines and continue to the sidewalk, receiving them. Nature lives in the city. Let yourself fall into that place of receiving, your own softness. See how she chooses to speak to you, what secrets she will reveal.

#8: Let others inspire you, meditate, believe in yourself

We undeniably have mental habits of seeing ourselves in the world. When I awake in the morning I awake into an attitude, a tone of self. I notice the light on my white walls, coax myself into my body, this is a habit too. I may awake feeling fresh, or cloudy, like the sky. These are states, they turn like the light, but there is something underneath turning too. Pervasive modes of being from which one confronts the world. I may always turn my leaves from the sun.

Or: the sense of oneself as a static thing, the thread of the tapestry rather than the weaver. Depression, I have come to understand, is this loss of agency, the asking of oneself over and over again, what kind of thread am I? And thus remaining, perpetually, a collection of loose, god-given, strings.

I see myself and others like this a lot. I often feel inadequate when someone around me excels at something. When someone cooks more delicious food, or makes keener observations. This is to know oneself and others as objects. I, with my faculties, weave a life of worry, of competition. I see nothing and hear nothing. This way of being hurts. I am always failing, always not good enough.

Last night I drank and smoked and we danced wildly to music. And something allowed me just too see. To calm my mind enough to feel a friend’s perspective when he spoke. He was being analytic, he was listening to the world. Normally I would judge myself, the track would run, why am I so introspective, why have I not listened. But something allowed me to say, it is beautiful that he sees that way. And in doing so I remembered that I too have a mind, to use to perceive instead of fret. We know our faculties through their use, the same red thread in you and me can look like a scientist in one and a writer in another. The world is the weaving.

This morning I arise restless. I sit to meditate, without conviction, I don’t remember deciding. But in sitting, my knowing from last night returns to me in full body. I see him being and he inspires me. I see her cooking and she inspires me.

And I understand. When we see others as weavers it reminds us of our capacity to weave. It is my mind that appreciates his, my sensuality that ignites when I feel hers in use. To appreciate another is to allow them to inspire you, to allow them to light your core, to have you know you and them and beyond because you feel what is in you is also in them. It is only known through use. Through feeling the weaver through the weave.

I am sitting at a picnic table in my backyard. It is dusk, the air is chilly, water trickles in the soundscape. My spine erect, I can feel my core. A sense of agency changes my body. Suddenly I am integral, a strong trunk, capable of meeting the world as it turns. To begin to see and hear the world without trying to grasp it is like receiving oxygen after holding one’s breath for a long time. It is a challenge to feel people as they are. This will hurt too sometimes.

A short morning meditation usually brings me answers like this, as does letting oneself go once in awhile, to drinking or whatever else I don’t normally do.

I must add a caveat: sometimes I know the best thing to do is to let the worries flow. We cannot always listen. Insights once woven become threads, to be strung and restrung into new weaves. They cannot prescribe for the mind. But the body remembers. The feeling of standing strong in one’s core is the knowledge of having loom in hand, thread in hand, a being in and creating of the world. It is physically believing in yourself.

#7: Think of the people you care about

I'm pretty far from home out in California, haven't known anyone here for more than a year. So its very easy for me to feel very alone. This morning, sitting in that state of aloneness, all of a sudden the feeling hit me of how much I love some people. How for my family, and certain friends, I would drop anything. I'm often very self-absorbed and the experience of really taking time to imagine the people I love, to bless them, and feel how much I want them to be happy, was blissful. So....take time to just pray for the people you love. For some reason, it almost hurts to send that much care.

#6: Watch the birds

I eat breakfast on my porch this morning and watch the birds. I don't know what kind, small and black with sweet tweets. Have you ever noticed how birds let themselves fall? They drop ten feet and then spread out their wings to glide. Drop and glide. Drop and glide. Throwing, in that drop, caution to the wind. They don't drop to catch something, they just play. And they play in pairs. Two birds chase each other, from power lines, over roof tops, swooping and rising, to settle in big trees, or back on the power lines, or on the grass. Then they wait, tweet, listen, just sit like me, slow and observant, watching the morning. We all see the street darken as something passes over the sun. I like how the birds play. They tell me just to be, just to see, that we're all living here together. That even in the rigid city there is space to fly and to romp, to play, to move freely, and to just sit and watch the birds.

#5: Walk Barefoot in Wet Grass

Close to my house is a large park to which I walked this morning. Immediately the field called, a large expanse of grass, the outfield of the baseball diamond or a soccer field or a place for playing frisbee with your dog. I left my sandals by the fence and ran barefoot out into the middle of the wet grass. The grass is soft and the dew cool. When I step the grass sweeps over the top of my feet, brushing them with moisture. My feet love the softness of the ground, the squishy wetness coating them. My eyes love the stalks of green with beads of clear, like little cattails, or beings with heads as orbs, seeing through all. Squish, the grass, the water loves my feet. Big clumps won't let go. The wet won't let go. I step circles just feeling, or not feeling at all. Let the earth love your skin, your tendons, let your flesh love the earth. Feel the soft, the squishy, the wet. There ain't nothing like dirt between your toes.

#4: Move freely

I attended an Authentic Movement group tonight. Its a space where people come together to move freely, with closed eyes, and after wards speak briefly on their inner experience. Having the space and permission to move however I wanted, and make whatever noises I wanted, was incredible. I spent much of the time in stillness, cultivating a sense of intimacy with myself, and then I found my body wanting to burst up in joy. I danced and spun around the room, swayed, leaped, and came back to stillness. I felt love pouring down into me from above. When we let our bodies be our guides, our emotions flow in profound ways. I participated in Authentic Movement one other time and had a similar experience: I moved through despair, sadness, deep inner peace, excitement, and tenderness. All the other members of the group spoke of deep inner movement as well. The places we can go when we don't hold ourselves to a rigid stance are awesome! Alone in my room I've found allowing my body to guide me is often the best way to release an emotion or move through a sad place. So if you have the space, let your body go! It has some deep secrets its waiting to show you..

#3: Talk to People!

Today I went to eat lunch at the farmer's market and sat down next to a man on the sidewalk. He was drinking but clean and respectful. We started talking and I told him I liked writing. He said he had tried to write his life stories but he found so much pain in them he couldn't go there, it was like opening a window he needed to keep shut. I've been writing my stories and sometimes feel that desire to stop because I'm approaching a place that hurts a little. Him saying so gave me strength.
He had a lot of other wisdom too:
The most important thing in a relationship is for the two people to be able to communicate with each other.
Trust your intuition to know if you are wronging someone.
Homeless people know a lot because they've lived it, not just read about it.
You must love yourself before you can love another.

I told him he was dressed nice and was wise.
He said I was pretty and mature.
We both admitted we had trouble accepting complements but were working on it. We were both working on self-love. He asked for my number but I declined. We said a friendly good bye.

Talk to people. It doesn't mean you need to give them anything beyond that conversation. Be ready to say no and walk away if the talk goes anywhere you don't want it to. I always used to be afraid of talking to people because I thought they wanted something from me. Now I know what I'm prepared to give. If you know your boundaries unexpected people can have important messages for you and you can share a little joy together! Random people have true things to offer each other if we're open in the right way.

#2: Don't Move

I often get anxious when I need to make a decision, especially the decision, what should I do right now? Today I don’t have an obligation (work) to anyone else til 1:30, so the morning is open. In trying to decide what to do with the space I begin to feel nervous. I hug myself and decide to do nothing. I sit on a lawn chair in my back yard in light rain.
Not moving we confront our own being, as it is. Sitting outside I cannot pretend I am anything in that moment but alive, there is no one I perform an identity to, no thing I’m accomplishing such as learning to dance or write, I have no category to hold on to. The infinity of your being, of the earth, presents itself to you. Sitting, you can become lost in the layers of memory, go over hopes and dreams of the future, simply feel yourself as a presence, alive. The rain keeps pitter pattering, you can watch it fall or listen to it dropping slowly. You may have nothing but you have everything. I realize I can stay one place forever and still be confronted with infinite change. We are infinitely deep, we won’t stop falling.
When I arise its because I want to write. Let your doings emanate from this place of stillness. Do not do to accomplish, do because your doing is the change the present demands, your doing is how the stillness morphs. I write, yes everything looks different, but still I sit with myself, in many ways I have not moved at all.

#1: Go to Church

I woke up this morning and felt sheer terror at being alive. The thought came to me, I need god in my life. Everything seemed too material. The thought passed but the anxiety worsened. I went and sat outside on the sidewalk about a block from my house and cried, thinking of the confusion of my life and despairing. That's when a voice said, you need a will to live. And I thought of creating this blog, a way to speak myself out of depression by committing to finding joy, simple reasons for being alive.
So I stood up, walked down the sidewalk, and smiled at a man with his dogs and two churchgoers across the street. Then I heard the singing coming from the church, just a small building on a neighborhood street. I crossed the street to stand outside and remarked how beautiful the music was to the hobbling old woman and man approaching. They said, come inside. In these clothes I asked? I had on flannel pants and a sweatshirt, they were dressed in their Sunday's best. As long as your dressed, come in. So I went.
No gospel stereotype could match the soul of this place. The choir sang for about an hour. The preacher sounded his sermon in a booming voice, pouring his whole being into the small room. It was called, what you laughin at, and the core was, people will laugh at you as you follow your truth (Jesus in this case), but you will know true laughter in your heart. He spoke the last ten minutes in song. I felt true laughter in my heart, the whole service was overflowing with spirit and joy. Who cares what reason says about religion, when people come together in prayer magic can happen. I haven't felt that kind of spirit in a place in a long time. They sang a special welcome song to all the visitors, everyone was extremely warm, and at the end the old woman who had brought me in took me up for a special prayer. Although I didn't go up to be officially saved, today Jesus really did save me. That church filled me with a joy that has carried me through the day. It was a true blessing.
Let's forget about packages. Be open to finding joy in a place you normally reject. This morning I needed god and he found me. What happens in that gospel church is a true reason for living. Accept kind offers from strangers. Go to church. Let the world give you the love it has to give.