Open Up

Remembering Peace

With all quiet around me, I sat cross-legged on my meditation cushion on top of a rag-woven rug.  I lit the clove-scented candle and gently placed it upon my makeshift shrine, constructed of cardboard fruit boxes covered in a decorative Indian scarf.  The light of the candle and the soft northern summer light of 11:30 pm filled the room with a gentle glow.  A calm breeze rolled in and out through the open basement window.  At this moment, my life and my self felt simple again.

I remember the times last summer, in our cabin in Talkeetna, Alaska, turning off all but one kerosene gas lamp in the corner of the 450 square foot box.  I lit a candle, then too, just because I enjoy the ritual.  Those meditation sittings were preceding by a gentle winding down of dinner cooked in the woodstove (wrapping a squash up in tin foil and tossing it in there,) washing dishes with minimal water hauled up in a blue Coleman jug, and then dumping the dirty dish water out in the woods.  Mark and I played card games and drank tea at the circular table by the plate glass window. Watching the alpen glow on the Alaska Range, we believed that Mt. Foraker was purely ours, and that it was just on the other side of the bluff.

Mark usually went to sleep just before I sat on the floor, by the foot of the bed.  I had grown so accustomed to his presence, and I didn’t mind him being there for my meditation.  In a one-room cabin, with a brand new boyfriend, I dissolved my privacy as I used to bathe from a pot at the woodstove in the middle of the room.  A few times, we both wanted to read the same book from the library at once, so we took turns reading it aloud to each other.  Challenged both joyfully and with some frustration, we learned to live off the grid together and most importantly we worked well together.  His quiet snore had become as natural and peaceful to hear as my own soft breath.

That summer, I learned to absorb peace.  My attention moved beyond the chatter of my persistent mind.  The toughest part of living a simple life is knowing what to do when the commotion no longer exists.  Far from family and friends, without computer, electricity, or water, with very little responsibility, and no desire to drink at the bar, my little world just kind of stopped, but my mind kept looping around in circles.  I eventually surrendered the quest for a full agenda, and I slowed my day down to my part-time bakery job, a bike ride home, a couple hours of deep reading on the couch, and an evening walk.  Fridays, both Mark’s and my day off, were dedicated to long pancake and tea breakfasts while listening to Science Friday from NPR on our little yellow plastic crank radio.  I grew accustomed to slow and quiet, and it helped me to realize that within myself for the first time.

I moved to the big city of Anchorage about nine months ago.  I sadly retrogressed into my chaotic mind given the stressful circumstances.  I was a first year teacher, reaching above and beyond, while teaching skiing on the weekends and training arduously for my level three ski instructor certification.  I learned how to drive in city traffic, run in and out through congested super markets, and fill my life to the brim and sometimes overflowing with commotion and activity.

At first, I would reach for a lighter before flipping the electrical switch.  I even filled up a pot with cold water to boil on the stove before washing dishes, forgetting momentarily that it ran hot through the pipes.  I lost those habits in the surge of my new life.  Now, I am in the process of remembering the peace that I embody, that I have never gained nor lost, but only sometimes recognize.

A change is brewing

Some days bring me closer to knowing myself.  Some days I lose myself in the haze.  Eventually though, I am always making progress.  I do not expect to know the entirety of my soul by tomorrow, but I will hopefully unlock at least one little secret.

Like Thoreau’s quote about taking a thousand acorns to make one oak tree, I try out different locations, sports, styles of yoga, diets, drinks of choice, coffee or tea, style of dress, and even what position I take to fall asleep. Sometimes I am satisfied with the flip-flopping around, maybe coming around full circle eventually, and sometimes never returning.  I have had multiple re-lapses of vegetarianism, however, I doubt that I will ever start wearing platform sandals with my mini skirts again.  Who knows what else is yet to come.

As I shift, shape, and mold into different and deeper areas of myself, it is important to remember that I am never at the end result.  I must always stay open to the change and growth that is constantly happening, whether I am aware of it or not.  I am the lotus that does not bloom over-night, but I open up just one petal at a time.

I have been in Alaska for a little over a year now.  Literally, here for over a year without going beyond a 2 hour radius of the Anchorage area.  I have left the Bureau of Anchorage once since this past September!  This is the longest that I have ever stayed in one vicinity without some kind of crazy road trip or adventure.  This is also the longest that I have worked one job, as I have always been used to seasonal work.  I am so grateful for the drastic changes in daylight hours, or I would snap from the consistency of this life.

On Saturday, I will finish my school year, and take off down the Pacific ocean to tropical Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.  A change is brewing.  I do not know what state of mind will be with me when I return.  Will I stay or will I go?  Will I internalize change, or make an external one?  Perhaps I will do both.

“Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.”  -Annie Dillard (The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

New Mixed Media- “Forces of Nature”

One inspired winter night in the mountains, while daydreaming about the ocean, this vision came about.

“My master always asked me to meditate whenever I saw an expanse of water.  Here, its placidity reminds us of the vast calmness of God.  As all things can be reflected in water, so the whole universe is mirrored in the lake of the cosmic mind.”

-Paramhansa Yogananda (Autobiography of  Yogi)

Hello world!