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First day of the Winter Month.    By early afternoon it was gone.  More to come tomorrow.  

i spent the day being still.  Having thoughts and staying with them a while.  And i  read.  I tried to get a feel for Where I Am right now.   What was clear is that since Tay came my regular meditation practice has gotten lost.   I  am Experiencing that in all ways.   Time to go back and i thought, with all the recent flow  i want to begin again with some  time of Tonglen.   And because he is so concise,  I  looked in Sogyal Rinpoche's  Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.    "Put very simply, the Tonglen practice of giving and receiving is to take on the suffering and pain of others and give them your happiness, well-being and peace of mind.    And in the preliminary step,   Self Tonglen,   you divide yourself into two aspects.  The aspect of you that is whole.  The second the aspect of self that is fragmented,  disturbed in any way.   The first breathes in the fragmented and exhales compassion and well being.  So for now,  this is enough.   And since mornings belong to Tay,  i will need to reorient to early evening.  This in itself will take a lot of practice.

And then i look again in Buhner's Plant Intelligence at the  exercise of the Inner Council.  " The point of the council exercise is to begin to work as one unified whole,  as a group of integrated consciousness modules who interact companionably together."  This done by Visualization to identify the many Parts of your self…which includes the child.  Even the infant.  Not all might be "human".  they might be trees or birds or plants."   at first to establish dialoge with them and then relationship.   And so,  as i was also re reading Women Who Run With the Wolves,  Clarissa Pinkola~Estes…..about the Scar Clan,  this worked and also works with that thing i said the other day about maybe looking to establish a personal mythology.     None of this is "new".  But what DOES feel new is the place i find myself now…of the old woman.    Beginning the Time of the old woman.  There is a great sense of Freedom to this.   And maybe most of all,  there is for the first time no pre identified "goal".   It's all for nothing but

Just Going.  to Wherever it is we go.   

This feels Expansive and Full of the Unknown.

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and while daydreaming all this,  i drew this,  a Grass  Person….and she was not Long enough so i had to cut and add a section of her…tape it in.   I don't know if i like her eyes.  I want her to be more like that Fiber Figure….amorphous.   She's in a drawer somewhere.  I'll get her out tomorrow.

 

 

 

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28 responses to “first day”

  1. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    oh grace. . .I love your grass person. . .she is exquisite. . .and also love very much what you say about your meditation practice. . .integrating different ways of working with the many parts of yourself. I hadn’t known or thought before to practice tonglen between the whole and less whole parts of self. . . .I guess I do it more on the run. . .calling on my wholeness to carry the rest along, but I will spend some time with the conscious practice of it I think. not ‘all for nothing’. . .what you do in your chair benefits us all.

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  2. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Our day here, like yours, white with snow, maybe an inch and a half that only melted in spots. Still have snow on our patio. The air was crisp and I did manage to step out this afternoon for a moment to try to breathe this air through my stuffy nose and for a brief time, it was so fresh.
    She is fresh, your Grass Woman. She seems to sway among the feather grasses and other grasses yet when I look at her, I see she stands on roots, roots that have not sunk down yet. To me, this is good because she is grounded but not into bedrock, not immovable, but has the elasticity of time, age, and wisdom. There are many who feel that as we age, we become rigid, fixed, somewhat set in our ways and as a Virgo, I work very hard to try to rise above that. I know that many of us, we who are old women, stand on earth, look up to the sky for spirit, look down to see the daily extra-ordinaries that define and make up our world. We stand and face but we also flex when necessary, Organic, Flowing, simply going each day, attending to and traveling the inner map of our life. What detours and points of interest will we find in 2015?

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  3. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Your grass woman seems firmly rooted, and she will bend in the wind but not be moved from her place, and she will throw seeds generously because she is not for nothing. She holds the soil together, connects the elements of air and earth. She flows.
    As soon as I am well again (flu/cold thing for a month–I missed out on Zen sitting and party on the Eve and on Chanting today for the first time in many years) I will sweep and air my rooms like Jude, draw again, and like you, get back to meditating daily and do Tonglen for myself until that time.

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  4. Sandi Avatar
    Sandi

    Happy New Year Grace! Love how you are open and flexible, guided to these things that bring you peace and time to reflect. My direction is towards health, living a simple wholesome life, and being present. I have started a journal, something I have wanted to do for years. Our camping adventures(4 months in a tent) really has changed my life!!! There is so so much to be grateful for. Thank YOU for allowing us a window into your life. I visit you every evening, and am proud and honored to call you my friend! xo Sandi

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  5. jude Avatar

    i love the bottom of the drawing. it is like a root vegetable

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  6. Minka Avatar
    Minka

    Back from a long time ago….not sure what had transpired….but I can say…..when I mrditate mornings are so much easier. My spirit is much less settled by evening. Years ago, I got up extra just to meditate….but not now.

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  7. debbie.weaver Avatar

    Love your grass person, she has helped me with a dilemma about a piece I am thinking about, and your words.
    Have you read The Grass Dancer by Susan Power. I haven’t read it for ages but I remember it impacted on me a lot.

    Like

  8. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Old woman…you have just begun…you and your wonderful circle of friends have opened a door for me that has me wanting….wanting to read…to create…to be still…to pull myself inside out and explore. WHO AM I??????? Grass woman..standing tall, firmly rooted, able to move with the wind, Beautiful!!! A self portrait.

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  9. Dana Avatar

    Your Grass Woman is very compelling, as the comments attest. As I read them and look at your beautiful drawing I am reminded that grass rarely grows as a single plant, but always tries to spread via underground rootlets. We all seem like Grass Women to me, sprouting here and there around the world, but held together under the surface by our interlacing roots. The howling wind may bow us down, but nothing can really erase the great inevitability of Grass.

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  10. Mo Crow Avatar

    I loved that book too Debbie!

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  11. Mo Crow Avatar

    love your Grass Dancer’s free loose line!
    re meditation… isn’t stitching a form of meditation? & drawing? & carrying water? & raking paths? & washing the dishes? playing with Tay? combing the goat’s beards? incorporating breath into every moment of our lives so there is no place that isn’t sacred?

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  12. Liz Avatar

    I’m with Mo … and would say the evidence is the blog posts that spring from your meditations
    And I just realized I have already failed to do what I hoped (blog every day), but I now realize what I CAN do is come to your blog each day … because it is a daily practice that I truly value

    Like

  13. ² Avatar
    ²

    you say it well Mo
    for me so it is
    work a form//way of meditation
    i greet you

    Like

  14. grace Avatar

    what we do in our chairs DOES benefit the Whole…this i believe.
    I love the concept of Self A and Self B
    right now, it’s exactly what is needed

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  15. grace Avatar

    yes. this is exactly it. We know setting Roots, but to keep them
    soft and open to what appears in any single moment. This. This is
    the work.

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  16. grace Avatar

    sweep and airing. Do Tonglen. This is GOOD. for the Well Being of
    the Whole

    Like

  17. cynthia Avatar
    cynthia

    such power in the grass woman..in you in the people who come here..I was laughing inside as i read Mo because i was thinking on how often the story/the reality of you and tay loop through my mind until they have become a meditation for me..
    i so liked the way grass woman had to get longer..oh the power of tape..but your grass clan woman from yesterday is etched into my thoughts..i have gone back again and again many thanks gentle day grace

    Like

  18. cynthia Avatar
    cynthia

    sorry..she is from softly..tomorrow i was away from here.and have confused the order..but not the strength and power of your creation xox much

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  19. grace Avatar

    Sandi…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 4 months in a tent. OH, WOW. WOW.
    you DID it. More EEEEE and Wow. I want to hear MORE!
    a Oh So Happy New Year to you…may it bring what you Need.
    LOVE and LOVE,

    Like

  20. grace Avatar

    yes. feet of tubers Rooted feet. yes.

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  21. grace Avatar

    there’s no use to getting up early, Tay is right there, no matter
    the time. and she is READY. She can’t help it.
    I can work it out. I need to

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  22. grace Avatar

    no…have not read or know of…i will look. I am glad when
    we are able to release something in someone elses work, and they
    in our work….i am very Glad for this

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  23. grace Avatar

    you are at such a beauty FULL threshhold….i remember…finding
    Cloth through Jude the complete Thrill of Possibility

    Like

  24. grace Avatar

    your words here are Stunning…and yes, We are like the Native,
    the Wild Grasses…all around the Planet…yes. Oh, this
    is an excellent Image
    THANK YOU

    Like

  25. grace Avatar

    YES. to all, yes, it is a FORM of meditation.
    But i also need to continue with the Practice i have chosen TOO.
    IN ADDITION of the meditation of Just Going

    Like

  26. grace Avatar

    it is very much a discipline to blog every day. as i’ve said,
    i wonder at the wisdom of trying it, a lot. But what it does most is to cause me to look for and FIND the goodness in every single day.
    Otherwise i tend to drift. and life is just a string of single days. at this point, this string is finite. so, i like the discipline of
    looking.
    and coming here, well….you know

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  27. grace Avatar

    we All Loop through. i like that image very much. and yes.
    there is great strength in that for each of Us and then as a Whole

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  28. grace Avatar

    the order loops too

    Like

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