Disconnecting

I just took 5 minutes of solitude on the screened porch. It may be enough for my fingers to come up with a few blog words. It's amazing how difficult it is to find quiet time in the midst of other people. Of course, that is the ultimate mind state I seek - I think of words like contentment, non-judgment, concentration, peace. . . states that have become easy at the Pond on the screened porch or inside by the window where I habitually find these mind-states. I have seen others who can disconnect easily, but I seem to have forgotten, if I ever knew, how to do so when other people are around. Especially other people who are simply living life "in the world" and not in contemplation. I'm reminded of my home in Huntsville, Alabama, when my two sons were 2 and 1. I worked it out so they were napping at the same time (occasionally) and escaped from the house to the back of our property where a tiny stream flowed with a tiny green plant (watercress - the name just came to me) growing in the edges. For a few minutes, a very few, I could find peace in my aloneness and then, my responsibilities as a mom came rushing in and I ran back to the house to be a mom again. Once again, it becomes clear that life is to be lived in stages. If I had known then, what I know now, I would have enjoyed that stage more even while looking forward to this one - which, of course, I had no concept of! I thought that after retirement, women either played bridge every day or they read the bible. (When do you capitalize Bible? Always?) I guess in this case, it's capitalized since I was really only aware of the Christian Bible. This stuff demands more thought. Perhaps I'll get back to it tomorrow.

First HH Post

Strange. I'm finding it difficult to write - I now recognize that my previous writings have all been in an environment that is quiet, to say the least. In an environment that includes two additional adults and two boys on vacation - silence is nearly impossible to find. By the time the boys are in bed, I am too! This is an exercise in quieting the mind that is truly a challenge! How does one quiet the mind when you can't avoid wanting to know what everyone is saying? Why can I not ignore the sounds of speech? I'm sitting here now struggling to go deeper and it's just not working. The Today Show is on, boys are running in and out of the porch door, struggling to entertain themselves for a few minutes while parents have their morning coffee. "Give it back!" "It's MINE!" and so on. It is truly amazing how the two boys can be so cooperative and in the next minute, struggling with each other. Growing up is difficult. I forget all the struggles of learning to live peacefully with others, even family members. Don't misunderstand me - this family is delightful! Healthy, happy, and well adjusted. But, the boys are in constant motion. And, it's difficult to achieve a state of peace when surrounded by motion and interplay between each other.

Flowers in a Bouquet

Different individuals live together like flowers in a bouquet. This is from yesterday's reading in "The Golden Present" by Satchidananda on "What is Heaven?" I can't seem to get this off my mind. (Thanks, Sara, for introducing me to the book.) Wouldn't a family be something to behold if we lived together like flowers in a bouquet? If a town of people did that? A country? The world?

Anticipating the Beach at Hilton Head

Beaux, Bob's Bullmastiff, on the ceiling of Salty Dog Store at HH - when he was 4 - and it's still there!

It's 81 right now - at 8:30 am - and destined to go to 98. We are really baking! How fortunate we are to have the a/c. Enough of that. It's really getting to be expected by now. Yesterday was a wonderful one of just doing whatever popped in my head at the moment. I did get up enough nerve to make buttonholes with my sewing machine - for the first time in many years! And, with a little practice, I finished Sam's shirt. Also finished reading "Women Food and God" - recommended by Lois and it fits perfectly with my current changing eating style. Basically,the book recommends releasing your Self from all the practices adopted from society as you matured and all the learned craziness to live as you are designed to live! Sounds simple, but it is not easy - still I'm enjoying the process right now. It feels good to be giving my body the gift of nutritious food. Enjoyed walking the labyrinth in my swim suit to get a little jump on the beach sunshine I'll be enjoying next week. Began gathering stuff to take to the beach. Sometimes I think the getting ready for a trip is as much fun as the trip itself. Anticipation is a good thing! I can taste the scallops at Captain Woody's now! And feel the salt in my mouth and eyes in the water. For sure the water will be warm! Maybe the salt will cure my dry eyes?

"ll think about that tomorrow."

The heat continues - 96, 97, 95, etc. We did get a good rain late yesterday so everything looks greener this morning. The humming birds are back. Been here a week or so now. I'll share a photo I took last year. Last night during our Pod Sisters monthly conference call a thought came to me that I'll share - a gift of a day - my suggestion to a friend who is overloaded. We all get that way - often of our own choosing. And the time comes when the best choice we can make is to give a day to ourself. I find myself doing that almost weekly. Sometimes more than one day. This gift of a day is spent mostly in silence meditating, reading, knitting, watching the turtles stick their heads up and the fish leap up and make a big splash on the Pond surface. Sometimes I cook something special. Sometimes I eat stuff from the freezer. I nap. Maybe even in the morning. I avoid accomplishing anything - that is doing. I put off paying bills or answering emails. I don't fill the bird feeders or water the plants or clean the commode. I try very hard to just be. I avoid "following the rules." I am a victim of a Protestant upbringing - "do your chores first and then you can play." On my gift-to-me days I play first. I admit, sometimes I do a chore first thing in the morning - just a little one - to kill that urge. And, occasionally I even find myself doing another chore later in the day - it truly is difficult to gift a day to myself. BUT, the payoff is tremendous, even with the backsliding. Right now I'm expressing gratitude that the hummingbird feeder is full. I cooked up more sugar-water yesterday but I won't need to refill the feeder till tomorrow. Later I might refill the other birdfeeders, but I'll try hard to avoid it. Maybe I'll fill one and not the rest. Recently I watched Gone with the Wind again and I'm reminded of Scarlet's often-used sentence: "I'll think about that tomorrow." I'm gonna remember that all day today!

Sam and me - a Pleasant Interruption

Bubblegum Egg - Hammered to Pieces

It has been nearly a week since I last wrote. A VERY busy one. The most important event - Picked up Susan and Luke's son Sam and brought him to the Pond Wednesday. Thursday and Friday he went to Vacation Bible School - I was very proud of him at the closing ceremony - his reading was impeccable and he participated fully in the singing and dancing as if he'd been there all week long practicing instead of two days! We had lunch out at Mig's one day and saw Marmaduke at the Greenwood movie theater and he spent lots of crafts time with model building, paints, beads, etc. What a joy to be a part of his life - even a few days. Saturday we drove back to Atlanta for Sydney's dance recital - she's a fantastic dancer! - went home to find Luke, Susan and Jack back from Camp Cherokee. So, off I went to get back to my home just at dark. After church, I began cutting out a shirt for Sam - he went to the cloth store and picked out the cloth - I am to have it finished when we meet at Hilton Head on Saturday. So, that explains why no posting these last few days. What a nice interruption! Life would be very boring without happenings outside the routine we set for ourselves. Still, it's nice to be back for a week now. (going Saturday to Hilton Head for two weeks ) It is my intention to keep up the daily postings, but we'll see. Thanks to all my blog followers, I am truly enjoying the bit of philosophising I get to do here. I'm not even sure who you are - a few have told me - and maybe it's "more better" not knowing. There's a certain freedom in that encouraging me to write whatever pops in my mind without constraint.

A Perfect Vacation at Home

I just realized that I have been home for over three weeks now! That must be some kind of record. I did make a day trip to Clemson for Fran's funeral, but no nights away. So tonight I'll sleep at Luke's home. Strange it is to me that I nearly always sleep a more uninterrupted sleep away from my home. I sleep well anywhere, so I'm not complaining, just an observation. I think it has to do with letting go of responsibilities. Even though I have reduced my responsibilities to almost nothing - living by myself - there is still a sense of being responsible that disappears when I'm away. It has been a busy three weeks! A set of five pottery sessions learning Sgraffiti. A back-to-basics food regime resulting in a loss of a couple of inches of fat from around my middle and I feel good. And so on. The freedom is a true gift. And, the times away are also a gift. How blessed I am to be healthy enough to travel and to have places where I am welcome! One of the most important happenings has been a return to daily yoga practice of my own, in addition to sessions with students almost daily. I have taken on the challenge of daily work on postures that have been out of my reach. It is so rewarding to see the progress even in such a short time period. I am constantly surprised at the adaptability of the human body. It has been easy for me to continue doing exactly the same routine for months at a time - even years. That is, to be lazy about it all. It has been fun to switch gears. This three-week-period has been a wonderful summer vacation!

Time Out

Today is gonna be another 98 degree one. Seems like a good day to stay in and read. I just ordered 5 more books and two Teaching Course CD's DVD's - one on Nutrition and one on Anatomy and Physiology. I haven't yet read all the last books I ordered, but I am uncomfortable without audio and print stuff coming in the door pretty regularly. Also must dead-head the daisies and put some water on them and the buttercups. No real rain predicted, just skimpy thundershowers which at times means just a few circles forming on the Pond surface -not enough to show up on my cement walk - not really a sidewalk since it isn't beside a street - surface so hot the drops disappear immediately before you can even see them. I'll bet I could actually fry an egg on it. It was 81 last night at 11:00 pm. But, then I don't have any eggs.

Yesterday I saw another large turtle come out of the Pond and walk away across the yard. Why do you suppose they do that? Where is she/he going? Is she looking for cooler water? Tomorrow I'm driving down to Suwanee and will bring Sam back with me for three nights - a first. Truly looking forward to three days of play, play, play! Sam is the grandson with the "frontpack" I showed in the photo a few posts back.

All By Myself

I'm in a holding pattern today. There are no scheduled events (other than daily yoga sessions) for the last or next few days so I am indulging myself with all kinds of fun activities - sewing, knitting, sunbathing, etc. In my early morning studying I ran across Yoga Sutra 30 about obstacles - and found this thought worth recording: "[obstacles are there] to make us understand and express our own capacities. We all have the strength, but we don't seem to know it. We seem to need to be challenged and tested in order to understand our own capacities. In fact, that is the natural law. If a river just flows easily, the water in the river does not express its power. But once you put an obstacle in the way by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous electrical power." This is not a particularly new thought, but it struck me this morning as one worthy of some contemplation. to make us understand and express our own capacities is what caught my attention. Some of my friends seem to have insurmountable obstacles to peace despite tremendous effort. Does one have to grow old to gain peace? Surely not, although it was so in my case. Forgive me now, I'm getting into my writing mode to understand this. Living alone does give one freedom to choose without making choices that suit a companion. I have chosen to study spirituality, philosophy, religion, from a wide variety of sources in an attempt to find an answer to "Who am I?" None of those subjects were of interest to me earlier. Now I do want to express my own capacities in a new way - from an inner voice rather than from the outer world. I want to be in the world but not of the world. (I LOVE that thought - in Bible and several other sources -but I don't recall where). And, somehow it seems to me I've always felt that way. Do we all have that yearning to be able to disassociate ourselves from worldly issues and desires?
By way of asking forgiveness, let me blame my brother Jim. He's the one who asked me to write a book - and even entitled it - All By Myself. I'll try not to write the whole book on the blog!

Relationships - with God!

Relationships. At yoga class last evening when the subject of Pastor Gragg's recent sermon from Romans having to do with spirituality and religion and our relationship with God came up, I was very surprised when Susan spoke up and said that just last Sunday her pastor's sermon had to do with the same thing - and that he said Chrisianity is not [about?] a religion but a relationship - a relationship with God! WOW! This is truly interesting to me. How is it that at the same time, two local pastors of two different protestant denominations are espousing similar ideas - which to me at this point seem radical - not when I think it - but when they say it - that's what seems radical. I confess, I'm biased and probably stretching their words to hear what I want to hear, but still! After five years, actually more like six years now, of trying to get my head and especially my heart around Christianity with a capital C, I am now at the point where I see it clearly as a relationship with a Christian God. All three versions. Maybe versions is not the right word, but it's the best I can do now. By now, I'm sure some of you have been completely turned off by this writing - so stop reading. For those who like it, you'll get more of this as time goes by. Ray has invited me to lead his Sunday School Class later this summer on the religion/spirituality topic - for which I am very grateful since it spurs me on to more study with a specific search topic.

Relationships - An Interesting One

All is very still this morning. Just a bit of mist on the far side of the Pond moving off to the northwest away from the dam. The yard is covered with iron weeds and dandelions. So, Steve showed me how to start the push mower before he and Donna left yesterday - offered to cut, but I insisted I want to do it! So, this morning as soon as the dew evaporates, which won't take long in this heat, I'll mow paths to and from the cottage and the Yogatorium and where students park so we don't get our ankles whipped. Not much grass growth, so no need for a complete mowing yet. It's also fire ant treatment time. Tried one yesterday with club soda (Anne says it works) so we'll see. Found another directly beneath the entrance stone at the labyrinth (THANKS, FAYE, for the stone). Yesterday I had a delightful lunch with Lori at Kickers in Greenwood. What fun it is to have a monthly lunch with a girl friend. We have yet to repeat an eating place. So far, Kickers is the winner by a landslide. Great salmon salad - not quite as exciting as the salmon I had in Ireland, but a pretty good substitute. I'll certainly go back there. What's really nice about lunching with Lori is strange - it's fun lunching monthly with someone with whom you do nothing else!!! It's tempting to expand the relationship, but I think something precious would be lost. I'm not quite sure what it is - maybe the rarity of seeing each other adds spice? And, the simplicity of it makes it "comfortable"? Relationships. When I get right down to it, relationships are what define my life.

Nothing Much Worth Reading

I just reread the last couple of posts and realized I've really been on a deep track. Time for a bit of lightness. The air conditioning went out two days ago. Took me one whole day to be sure I wasn't doing something wrong with the thermostat control. Fortunately Dale came out yesterday and pronounced the intake fan motor is dead. So, until tomorrow, Monday, when he can get a new one, I'm using fans. And, I finally opened two windows in the kitchen (have new storm windows with screens) and tickled pink to be adjusting to no AC! It truly is fun to see how cool I can be under a fan -I mean directly under it! - about 3:00 in the afternoon when we are in the high eighties! But, the timing is perfect - we're going into the nineties this week. By then, I can shut the windows again and rely on the AC. What is occurring is going down memory lane when we lived without AC all the time - it hadn't even been invented, or at least it hadn't arrived in SC, when I was in school. I'll always remember writing essays in ink, resting my arm on the paper while thinking of what to write next, and picking it up to a ruined sheet of writing - the sweat from my arm washed out the writing! And, it wasn't even July yet. Probably early June or late May since we were still in school. I've been drinking lots of iced tea and not doing a whole lot of motion but still yoga in the evenings. Fortunately the Yogatorium AC works. Enough.

Oneness

Sammy on "Weird Dress" Day (Notice different shoes, shirt and pants worn backwards, and the final touch: Backpack turned into a Frontpack!

I'm going to try to write clearly about a few Yoga sutras (1-4) I am studying. It has to do with Oneness and "modifications of the mind-stuff". That is, underneath all the self-identification words we use, we are all indeed one. I began a list of words I use to identify myself (to myself and/or others). What we are getting to is that we are our thoughts. But underneath all of that (ego self), is a self that is at one with others. (Forgive me if this is not clear - I'm still working on clarification and often clarity comes to me with writing.) What you might be interested in is some of the words I wrote to identify myself: woman, mother, grandmother, etc. Then fat, blond (neither of which is true)! tall, teacher, student, organizer, manager, different - different? that one was a surprise. But I realize that I think of myself as being different - I'll have to do a self-inquiry about that today. What do I mean? When and why did I assign that term to me? I know immediately I think of it as a "good" trait. What makes being "different" attractive? Why does "attractive" matter to me? Enough. Now, what photo can I possibly find to go with this writing? (I usually, but not always, select photos after writing and then insert them. Still don't know how to "place" them.)

I like me - Metta Meditation Works!

This is me at my happiest - at Folly Beach with my Pod sisters.

Good morning! It's foggy this morning - when I first looked out the window, a blank white wall over the Pond - then it broke and things were relatively clear - now it's coming back in again. Glad this is a day at home and not one to need to be somewhere else early - or for that matter any time today! It has been an interesting experience - the Art of Nothing personal retreats offerings. Only one couple has attended so far. I had hoped for 3 or 4 days to spend with others doing nothing, and I will, as time goes by. But the real value has already been realized by me - the preparation for it. I have developed four "self-inquiries" and will spend some time doing them myself. Meanwhile, just the development of the questions and the background information that led to them has been revealing of myself. After all, that is my work - finding out who I am - and any way that can be enhanced is GOOD. For one thing, I have settled in to a healthy eating routine (ten days now) with basically no sugar and a balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fat. I have been doing things that make me smile - knitting, sewing, walking the labyrinth, doing yoga, meditating, reading, a pottery class, and contemplating what might be next in my life. Getting back to the crafts I love has been a fun thing and who knows what that might lead to? This year I have been doing dreamed of things - maybe a "bucket list"? - things like a pottery class, committing to living a month in the Southwest (Santa Fe) this fall, making more women friends, going deeper spiritually, becoming comfortable with Christianity, beginning to be able to connect my spirituality to Christianity. This last is an ongoing mission - not even on my list of "things to do before I die" until about 5 years ago - but my study of Celtic Wisdom and the blending of it and Christianity so readily so many years ago has been a major factor. And, with all of this occurring, I am happy with myself. I like me. And, that's been No. 1 on my list since I was a child. It's been my experience this is the most difficult of all learnings.

Second post on Tuesday

Here are some Doing Nothing photos.

Back at the window. Things have been very busy but now I foresee many days here just being. Of course, there will be lots of doing also - but unscheduled and mostly unnecessary. I've settled into an eating routine that follows a pattern involving almost no cooking and no decision-making which relieves the mind of something that tends to take lots of room and time. I have no scheduled away-from-home time until June 19 which also tends to free up mind space. My usual yoga sessions at the church and the Yogatorium will continue. It has been raining beautiful rain for several days and showers are predicted for several more days. So? What now? On Saturday I spent a day with Dan and Lois practicing Doing Nothing and that helped jump-start my continuing in that mind-set. I'll share some photos of doing nothing. Well, maybe I won't. Can't seem to get the "add image" icon to work! Maybe later. You might recognize, that I am in a rambling mode - a journaling, free-writing mode. That's a wonderful sign of being free. I hope that you get that relief occasionally if not often.