People Power: the three key paths

Posted in Change the World, Opinion, People Power, Uncategorized by

My People Power series has been dormant for a while, though often in my thoughts,  On one hand I keep feeling there’s perhaps another piece to add to the mix.  And on the other it feels like it’s ready for a conclusion.  The conclusion is at the forefront for me these days as I watch the push and pull between democratic forces and right wing autocratic forces around the world and I’m feeling some urgency on the “what to do” so I’m concluding while holding a door open for more 🙂

I’m seeing three main arenas for our attention, which I’ll summarize here and then give each its own post:

The “be-ers” — going inward

Maybe I should say, “the woo woo crowd”…  I believe so completely in our interconnectedness and how the vibration of each of us impacts the whole, that I actually think our most likely source of salvation will be having enough people consciously clearing their issues and raising their vibrational levels — ’til we lift the consciousness of the world.

The do-ers–going local

The biggest enemy I’ve seen to democracy and equality is global corporatism and the best answer I see for breaking their power is a large-scale movement of local co-ops creating small-scale manufacturing, banking, farming to supply jobs, goods and services at the local level.  The best way to beat them is to stop participating in their businesses but that means we need other buying options and jobs for those who will be displaced.

Many current issues like police brutality and water supply problems are best dealt with on the local level as well and need serious organizing and action.

Everybody change government

Most people in many movements are still looking to the government for change.  I think the government in most countries is too broken and too tied to corporate interests for that to happen.  In the U.S. the most hopeful thing I see is multiple candidates raising their campaign money through crowd funding which will leave them unentangled with corporate interests.

At every level of government we need to concentrate on electing people who are completely free of corporate influence  Both be-ers and do-ers can contribute to campaigns, volunteer to help elect good candidates and GO VOTE!

Previous People Power Posts:

Recognizing Love When It’s Offered

Posted in Spirituality, Uncategorized by

After re-posting an old holidays post yesterday I started looking through some of my old offerings and thought I’d add this one:

The year I went to Nine Gates Mystery School (1990) was the only time Angeles Arrien taught a piece and I have always been so grateful I got to experience her. One of her teaching stories touched me deeply and I’ve pulled it out of my memory bank to reconsider many times.

She told of sitting in a rose garden when a mother and her little boy came by. The little boy pointed to a rose and said, “Mommy you’re just as pretty as this flower.” The mother looked pained and replied, “Why can’t you ever tell me you love me?” Of course he just had, but like many of us, she couldn’t receive his gift because she could only perceive love expressed her way.

More and more through the years I’ve realized how very many people in many ways fail to hear the messages of love that come to them because they’re so focused on some exact phrasing or action (or too focused on looking for unhappiness to notice anything good) no other phrase or form is perceived.

Sadly, a lot of people only know how to express love through criticism or controlling and those are very hard messages to hear. But if you know who people are and what they do, as discussed in the last post, you can sometimes see loving intent behind even those otherwise inappropriate forms of expression., Or how their fear of not being loved is behind it.  Or sometimes you’ll see malice really is the intent and have a decision to make.

During the holidays it seems to me that among many heightened expectations of magic, people most want to feel the love of their families and friends. The huge let-down so many feel often comes from the failure of those loved ones to provide love in the expected or desired way. What if you go through the holidays trying to understand how the people around you show their love instead of looking for love to arrive the way you want it?

Do you know how to recognize love when it’s offered?

Revisit to People Are Who They Are..

Posted in Communication, Personal Growth, Uncategorized by

I used to do a series of posts during the holidays with tips on negotiating some of the emotional minefields many of us have.  I think I’ve skipped a few years now, and thought I’d revisit.  I originally posted this in 2011 (hard to believe I’ve been blogging this long!):

One of my all time favorite teachings came from Serge King when he taught the Huna segment for my class at Nine Gates Mystery School (he doesn’t teach for Nine Gates any more): “People are who they are and they do what they do.” The more you know about who somebody is and what he does, the less you will ever be disappointed because you know you can’t expect him to be or do something else. When Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements came out some years later I found his “Don’t take anything personally” to be aligned; if you know your friend is being who she is and doing what she does how can you take what she’s doing personally?

That piece of advice has been so incredibly helpful to me and some of my friends have found it life changing too. One friend had a really unhappy relationship with her dad. She was a great believer in communication to heal relationships so she kept writing him letters in which she explained how upset she was by certain things he did. She was disappointed every time because her expectation was that he would change because of what she told him and he never did.

This had been going on for years when I described the concept and said, “seems to me he’s just being who he is.” As I explained it her eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped. As soon as she looked at it from that perspective the whole situation changed for her.

I don’t have a personal anecdote that’s as dramatic but in many subtle ways it has changed relationships and kept me from a lot of hurt feelings. It doesn’t mean you have to stop liking people or to judge them, it means you can make decisions about relationships based on knowing and accepting who people are.

For me that sometimes means creating a little distance and sometimes feeling more trust or closeness. I was always a little oversensitive and I’m so grateful for reducing the hurt feelings factor; I get it that almost everything other people say and do reflects everything about them and nothing about me.

In the holiday season when lots of people are dreading events that involve spending time with relatives, I think it’s a good time to take a breath and remember, “People are who they are and they do what they do.” Don’t expect that anybody’s going to be different and know that whatever is being said and done is not about you – don’t take anything personally.

The meaning of faith?

Posted in Opinion, Personal, Uncategorized by

Lately I’ve been observing how very fearful a lot of people who say they have faith are.  It’s had me thinking about faith as I experience it and wondering how fear and faith can reside together.

Long time readers may remember I’ve mentioned previously that faith has two levels for me.  Consciously I have a lot and have been able to pursue a fiscally risky path of healing in large part because of my faith that it’s the right path and that I’ll be okay if I follow it.

As I dig into my unconscious, I periodically realize there are old issues that led to a lack of faith and on certain issues I struggle to get past the inner child who doubts.  But because my conscious thoughts include faith and I work pretty hard on transforming those old beliefs, I spend quite a lot of time in “the faith place”.

When I really center and check in, allowing myself to feel the divine presence and the energy of All That Is, I am in a space of calm and security.  In this place no fear exists nor does fear have a reason to be.  The only times I feel fearful are when I move out of the calm secure cloak of faith and into my issues.

So I keep looking at the folks on the right who are so vociferous about their great faith but nonetheless fearful of immigrants, of people of other races and/or religions, of new ideas, etc. and wonder how they can possibly be living in faith and at the same time be so afraid of so much of the world?

And since their faith is allegedly Christian, why do they believe in Christ, who taught love for all our brethren and yet exhibit so much hate for so many others? In that calm center where my faith dwells, I can’t find or feel hate anywhere.  Just can’t be there.  So I really don’t understand this.

Why does faith not bring them peace?  Why does faith not leave them feeling secure that all will be well?

I keep having a corollary thought when, say, a tornado strikes and some of these “believers” point fingers and claim it was because God was mad at the gay mayor –who was completely unharmed– or the liberal congresswoman, etc.

So it seems they have faith in a God who gets mad at a gay mayor and decides to aim a metaphorical thunderbolt but is so incompetent he hits 20 other people and misses the mayor?  I struggle to understand why anyone would ever believe in a god that inept.

I’m quite sure if the ultimate being of my faith decided to smite someone She’d hit the right person…  Or should I say, “I have faith in Her and Her aim?” Although I don’t really believe She’s so much into smiting.

Just stuff I’m thinkin’. No expert opinions or answers, just wondering…

Over too soon

Posted in Blog, Personal, Uncategorized by

I’ve so enjoyed this more relaxed version of national blogging month, I’m sorry it’s over.

As much as we reduced the requirements, I still didn’t manage to meet them.  I think with this one I’m two short on posts.  I did read blogs almost every day but commenting was sporadic and, since I’m only on FB and Twitter and fairly carefully curate what I put on each, the share on social media requirement was unlikely to be met from the get go.

But the last couple of weeks have been a rough go on the face unwinding/then not sleeping issue so I’m fairly pleased I managed to be in it at all.  Though I’m also sorry I didn’t hit the requirements, the pleased part mostly wins.  For a lot of the miserable years this has been going on, I’d have just disappeared from the challenge.

It’s been a treat re-connecting with a few folks from the past, finding some new people to follow, reading new and different things, etc.  I’m wishing we did this more often.  Not too often 🙂 … but more

Mashed Cauliflower and Parsnips with Spinach

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized by

Normally this would just be on the Scribblings blog, but since I’m participating in the blogging month with the Cheer Peppers and I only signed this blog up, you get to see it here too 🙂 A healthy way to have “mashed potatoes” for Thanksgiving

yogaleigh's avatarScribblings from the Bluegrass

Cooking in water

Several years ago I saw a Rachael Ray episode on Thanksgiving for which she prepared a dish with mashed potatoes and parsnips with spinach and parmesan stirred in.  It sounded so good but I wanted to try using cauliflower instead of potatoes to make it healthier.

Substituting 2 cauliflower heads for the potatoes, it turned out great but was a lot of work. Since then riced cauliflower has become popular so I hunted for a recipe for mashed cauliflower using the riced version–so much easier.  Then I used aspects of both recipes to create this one.

Mashed Cauliflower and Parsnips with Spinach

  • 3 Tbs unsalted butter
  • 2 16 oz packages riced cauliflower (I used Trader Joe’s)
  • 2 cups water
  • 4 parsnips
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup reserved water from cooking cauliflower
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 6-8 oz fresh organic baby spinach or kale or 10-12 ounces fresh spinach…

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Just fillin’

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized by

As we get closer to the holiday, I’m spending more and more time on groceries and early prep (since i have trouble standing for long periods, I’ve worked out a plan for fixing things that can be frozen ahead, etc. so the dinner comes together in increments) and finding myself so tired I can’t think well enough to write.

I ran back into this video from the Voices of Service audition for the last round of America’s Got Talent.  I so LOVE their rendition of Katy Perry’s Rise — I’m only sorry that the time limits for the audition meant we don’t get to hear them sing the whole song!  Have fun:

What voices can tell us

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized by

In a long ago teaching — one of the teachers at Nine Gates, but I no longer remember which — mentioned a quote about never trusting a person whose laugh doesn’t come from their belly.  It was about the sound and feeling the energy in it — if it comes from the belly there’s a difference resonance.  One of those moments that struck deep for me and I’ve remembered it and pondered and listened to voices with more care ever since.

The listening has helped me be aware that you can learn a lot from voice resonance and, if you’re really listening you can hear if there is sound coming from the lower chakras and/or the heart or only from the top.

I’ve been noticing a trend in which more and more people’s voices are high pitched — shrill to me — and come only from their heads.  It started with hearing lots of women on House Hunters whose voices made me wonder how their spouses managed to live without earplugs.

Increasingly I’m noting it as a spreading phenomenon.  Now I’m hearing these voices all over television, in public places, etc. and it’s men too though their naturally deeper pitch makes it a little harder to catch.  To me they sound like they’re 5 and just took a suck off a helium balloon.

A voice pitched only in the head is the voice of someone cut off from their body, cut off from emotions.  This doesn’t mean you have to make some kind of judgment, but when you hear it and understand there’s a disconnect it’s an important piece of knowing who someone is.

It tells me this is someone who’s likely stuck at some childhood stage with buried emotions.  This kind of stuckness usually has impacts on behavior and can make it much easier to understand what’s going on when faced with sudden withdrawal or fury or tears, etc.

I’ve also, to the best of my ability, followed changes in my own voice, from tiny and only in my head to generally feeling vibrations in my heart and solar plexus when I talk that I — at least to myself — feel have changed the quality of my sound.  A few long-time friends have commented a number of times that my voice sounds different from one time to the next and often there’s been a round of emotional release or body work opening muscles in the interim.

In another direction, listen carefully to the voices of people who’ve meditated deeply for years or, even more notable, pay attention when someone you know comes back from a week at a meditation retreat.  Their voices hold many more vibrations and tones, a fullness and richness.

What I’ve been contemplating is what it means in our spiritually disconnected society that we have such growing numbers of people whose voices are only in their heads. Who have buried traumas so deeply they’ve created blocks that separate their heads from their bodies so they’re always living in their heads.

The epidemic of people with neck issues is a major symptom of this — one of the big ways people cut themselves off from their bodies and from the tones of the root, second, third, heart and, often, throat chakras.

Don’t have any answers or suggestions for government intervention 🙂 , just noticing and wondering…

 

Falling behind

Posted in Blog, National Blog Posting Month, Personal, Uncategorized by

Even with our reduced/easier schedule for NaBloPoMo this year I’m struggling.

Deepak Chopra chose this month to start one of his 21 day meditation events and I signed up. I’m only a day behind at this point, which is highly unusual for me.

Then a friend recommended a free on line video course called Time of the Sixth Sun.  The videos are around an hour and-a-half each and stay up for only 24 hours, so it’s been a bit of a dash to keep up.  Watched the final one today then found out they’re going to make them available again this weekend and, as I found out too late to see the first two, I now have more to watch.

Another friend passed along yet another free online video course exploring Eastern medicine and cancer.  It started while the “Sixth Sun” was still going so for a couple of days I juggled watching two long videos and doing the meditation while also, you know, having a life. And I’m about to juggle both a couple more days.

An abundance of good stuff, but sorry, it has sidetracked my attention from blogging challenges.

Pioneering women

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized by

Not long ago I suddenly thought of my grandmother’s friend, Sunshine Sweeny.  I only knew her in passing, but I loved her name and she lived down the street from the home on Third Street to which my grandmother and aunt moved when I was 12.  I wondered whether the house there had been passed down in the family or whether she purchased it later.

A couple of months later my friend Cecy came to town.  I met her when she had just turned 13 and I was still 12 because my aunt knew her mother and they lived down the street  We decided to take a nostalgic tour of Third Street (pictures of each of us in front of “our” houses are going up on the Scribblings blog), so I took the above shot of the house I recall as Sunshine’s — across the alley from Cecy’s old house–while we were there.

Then I started doing some poking around.  I didn’t find out a lot about Sunshine but one main item was that she took over the family farm, which I thought answered the question about the house.  Her sister, Mary, however, was well enough known there’s quite a bit of info and Sunshine is mentioned here and there.

Neither sister ever married and both had levels of education and held positions that were very unusual for women at the time.  Their father was a doctor and I’m thinking both parents get a lot of credit for raising such independent and aspiring girls.

Sunshine shows up in the 1907 University of Kentucky yearbook as being on the “classical course”.  Somewhere after she began to run the farm and I found her in a KY gov publication as being on the executive committee of the Kentucky Sheep Breeder’s Association in 1917.

In 1914, she directed a group of women conducting a campaign against illiteracy in Lexington. It was part of a movement across the state.

Also in 1917 Sunshine and Mary went to Europe to serve food in canteens for troops in WWI under the auspices of the YMCA.

MARY SWEENY

 

Mary graduated from Transylvania University in 1899 (Transy for folks elsewhere, is a highly regarded little liberal arts school here in Lexington, founded in 1780, the oldest college west of the Alleghenies), received a Masters from University of Kentucky and then another Masters from Columbia in 1912.

She taught physics and chemistry at Campbell-Hagerman College, during which time she introduced hot school lunches to western Kentucky. Then she taught Home Economics at University of Kentucky, becoming head of the department in 1913.  In 1917 she was appointed chair of the U.S. Food Administration in D.C., where she trained citizens on rationing food in wartime.

Next she became dean of Human Ecology at Michigan Agricultural College and then the Merrill Palmer School in Detroit, where she worked with the American Red Cross on nutrition in the inner city, creating a program that later became Head Start.

She also spent time in India, starting in 1939, won a citation for bravery in WWII and was a consultant in China on child welfare.  In 1965 she was named to the hall of Distinguished Alumni at University of Kentucky.  The citations in her Wikipedia article lead to some pretty interesting pieces about her.

Since neither of the sisters had children and I’m not sure if there were siblings, I don’t know if there’s anyone to remember their contributions so I wanted to produce this little reminiscence in honor of their pioneering lives.

Another fun aspect of the research for me was running into SO many prominent Lexington names.  People who were friends with my grandparents, whose children my mom and her sister knew, whose grandchildren I met.  People who owned stores downtown.  Louis Hillenmeyer was in the Horticulture Society in 1917 and a couple of generations later Hillenmeyer’s is still a major name in the nursery business here.  So cool to see the history.

Anger in the air

Posted in Healing Journey, Personal, Uncategorized by

Screaming it out

In a recent post I alluded to experiencing some irritability lately and the first couple of days of this week had me at such high levels of feisty and cranky I’ve been doing some contemplating.

The orange man held a rally here in town on Monday and I’m pretty sure some of it was me picking up on the great numbers of angry people who converged here to attend and the angst of those who opposed and gathered outside in protest.  Now that the election is over, I’m much calmer so I’d say that was a lot of it.

But since anger was a big issue in my early inner explorations and a lot of the processing work I did during the Fischer-Hoffman Process* involved releasing huge amounts, I try to stay aware if I think another issue seems to be surfacing.  I did the Fischer Hoffman 1992-93 and for I’d say 10 years after, every time I unearthed an issue with angst attached I used “the process”, identifying the source and pounding pillows, etc.

Without intending to, I drifted away from doing it and most of the release in the last 15 years or so has been at the agency of body work therapists and/or me using the triggers of release work and opening something up.  When I first encountered Ellen, the F-H facilitator, at Nine Gates during third chakra work, we used some techniques Gay Luce added, which she called “emotional hygiene”.

I used to do those off and on as well, my favorite being one where you take a somewhat wide stance, clasp your hands, inhale and hold your breath, and then raise and lower your hands while bending forward as if you were chopping big logs with an axe.  You keep swinging for as long as you can possibly hold your breath.  Then exhale and repeat as necessary. It’s a great way to shake some of the daily irritants of life and, if something is bubbling up, it is also really effective at getting it to the surface.

Remembering the work has me thinking it would be good to incorporate the chopping on some regular basis and also exploring whether I feel a round of the process is in order.  I know that besides picking up on community energies, the current round of muscle releases in my head is off-loading some old and/or ancestral and/or past life issues locked in for most of my life.

Most of the time I try to look at this long healing road as a good thing, both (1) from the standpoint of being freed of physical pain and problems and (2) especially for healing the emotional issues lurking beneath.  But I’m realizing there’s a level on which I’m pretty angry about the huge disruption in my life this has caused for YEARS, especially the precarious financial situation in which it has left me.

So I’m thinking it’s time to dust off the process tools — as best I can remember them now 🙂 — and plan a session.  And some chopping.  Definitely some chopping.

The return to lovingkindness chanting is definitely also helping but since these bouts of temper keep arising in between rounds of chanting I’m feeling the anger needs to be addressed.  Disappointing to be back to this, yet I also know every bit of clearing any one of us does contributes to lifting the anger out of the Oneness, so I feel committed.

*Ellen, having been a facilitator for many years had devised a deeper and longer version.  The original process, now called the Quadrinity Method, is still around but not the same as her work.  Since her death, as far as I know there is no one doing her variation.

The Ah in God

Posted in New Age, Personal, Spirituality, Uncategorized by

Contemplating the divisiveness these days on many issues, especially religious, I’ve been thinking a lot about some teachings I received long ago.  Late 80’s into mid-90’s I had several different teachers who talked about vowel sounds in ancient times and how they relate to chakras, meanings and to modern language.  There was a gem about the sound and meaning of “ah” that has always stuck with me.

The two teachers I can recall most specifically are David Patten, who is a Druid descendant and teaches about ancient Celtic practices at Nine Gates, including the alphabet– the “oghams”– and Paul Ray, who taught Sufi at Nine Gates (long ago, when I went through…).  I lived in an apartment connected to the home of my friend Gay and David, so I also got to hear about oghams at the dinner table while he worked on a book.  This many years later I don’t remember which other teachers and much of what I learned is a bit of a jumble.

For all these years, though, a teaching on “ah” as the sound of God has always stuck.  Many of these ancient concepts provided layers of meaning to each letter — things like, a type of tree, a mineral, a bird, a divination interpretation, etc. — and those ideas were often incorporated in later alphabets and languages though the underlying layers are no longer known in general.*  So it turns out that the “ah” sound, if you look carefully, is in every name for God.  Krishna.  Allah.  Yeshua (Jesus). etc.  And of course the way we pronounce “God” there’s an ah in it…

As I studied with teachers from different traditions and increasingly realized every major religion has the same principles at the core, I would come back to the sound of “ah” and realize the name is not only there in each place, but the sound that conveys all those principles and shows up in each one is a unifying piece.

The name may look different in each language, but the spirit of love in the “ah” is always present.  The same principles of the Eightfold Path — right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration — are within all of them, they just use different words to express them.

So I look at all the division and discord about this religion versus that or this denomination versus another and I wish everyone could take a breath and feel the “ah”.  For many, if the words are different for some reason they can’t see the heart is the same.  I just feel the love at the core and keep wishing we could all find our way back to the heart and the love and compassion.

This is my first post for this year’s Nano Poblano — a version of National Blog Post Writing Month.  The group decided to change it up, so this year participants are committing to 30 days of blog activities–  10 days of posts, 10 days of reading/commenting, and 10 days of sharing posts through any other platform. You can see posts for the event here.

*David has been able to translate some obscure modern languages without having ever studied or spoken them just by applying his knowledge of the meaning of letters.

Disruption

Posted in Healing Journey, Personal, Uncategorized by

When I launched my plan to shift my schedule I knew the muscles in my face might prove to be a hindrance, but hoped it might not get that bad again.  The last few weeks have been back to high levels of activity, interfering with sleep, etc.

The good news is I’m still getting up and going to sleep quite a bit earlier than before, but instead of progressing further toward the goal, it’s instead moved a little in the other direction.  And I’ve just been stupefied with fatigue a lot of the time.

This spell has coincided with a time when those who observe energy patterns have been saying we’re undergoing a big shift and a lot of releasing.  Yup.  I think I could vouch for that.

Along with the yanking, sleep problems and energy shifting there’s irritability, particularly around politics.  Some of that is probably part of the general energy, some to do with the energy shift, and, frankly, when I’m constantly badly sleep deprived I’m just cranky.

But I’m also noticing. Wondering if there’s a deeper issue unfolding with the muscles.  I know in general the muscle patterns in my face have been connected to anger, whether mine or ancestral or past life and sometimes I just don’t know exactly what the underlying story was.  Or maybe there’s something to explore.

The other thing I began to note as irritability grew, is how long it’s been since I did the lovingkindness chant, singing chants for heart, love, etc. I instituted long ago.  It wasn’t really purposeful, I just got into doing Steve Nobel’s meditations after about a year of chanting and gradually shifted to doing those exclusively.

As soon as I noted it, it was also clear those practices helped keep me centered and calm in the midst of the chaos swirling around me.  And the longing to do them again arose with those thoughts.  Did the lovingkindness chant yesterday and felt the shift.

All in all, these recent weeks have felt like a disruption of the path to a new and better schedule but I remind myself every day I’ve managed to hold onto most of the shift already made.  Weeks like these last few had much to do with the crazy late sleeping and waking times I’d become accustomed to keeping and it seems like a victory just to have held it at bay.

Of course the price of holding to it has meant even less sleep, so life feels pretty disrupted anyway.  The other cool piece is the muscles squeezing my left eye have loosened enough that vision is noticeably improved.  Quite a journey.

 

Making that one cup of coffee

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Having posted about my “sacred” coffee time in my last post, I thought I’d include this Scribblings post about how I make it here

yogaleigh's avatarScribblings from the Bluegrass

Morning Coffee

Over on the Not Just Sassy blog, I recently posted about  coffee and how the one cup I fix every day is a special moment.  Thought I’d describe here how I make the one cup — along with some rambling about my history with coffee.

In a sense my coffee adventures began as a small child when tasting my parents’ coffee left me in love.  Continued when summer visits with my grandmother developed a ritual of her, my friend Cecy and I hanging out in the kitchen savoring coffee ice cream on hot afternoons.

The real development that changed my coffee world arrived early in college, when coffee stores with whole beans and varieties from around the world entered and my friends and I dipped into the land of Melitta cups and French Roast.

A summer studying in Paris and sipping “cafe creme” all over town honed my…

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The one cup of coffee

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized by

 

Coffee Love

I’ve loved the taste of coffee since I was something like 4 and used to jump over to my parents’ cups before the table was cleared to take a sip off the last remaining drops.

In early adulthood I was introduced to fresh roasted coffee and beans and blends from many places.  Melitta pots then espresso machine and then stove-top espresso pots worked their way through my repertoire.  And I drank coffee all day, not knowing at the time that I was using it to ward off the growing fatigue born of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.

Around the same time diagnoses and treatments began, I switched for some years to decaf.  Back when decaffeinating and reducing stress were in instead of trying to prove how hyped up and busy you can be…

Eventually I slid back to caffeinated but reducing the amount of coffee.  I refuse to give it up and I believe in the anti-oxidant boost of a freshly brewed cup but I also accept the down sides so I have been holding to a one perfect cup plan for some years.

On the Scribblings blog I’m going to put up a post that goes into more detail about the kind of coffee (La Coppa) and the preparation, but here I’m just contemplating that one cup each day and its sacred place in my day.

Some years back a post on the old Bardo group blog suggesting people find a “check-in partner” to text each day and say what you’re feeling and what you intend, led me to post about it.  A long-time friend immediately got in touch to say she’d like to do it.  Since I hate texting I said yes, if we could change it to e-mail.

We soon added “three gratitudes” to the daily check-in.  After a few years, in the midst of lots of suggestions about joy, I asked to add that, differentiating it from gratitude as a more vibrant emotion and one I have trouble accessing.  She felt the same, so we added an unspecified number of “joys” noted each day.  (I highly recommend this check-in practice, btw)

My daily cup of java almost instantly made the list and, contemplating it, I soon informed her to expect that one every day.  Having just the one cup of this beverage I LOVE means I look forward to it.  When I wash all the components of the pot and cup, etc. each evening I smile as they hit the drying rack, knowing they’ll be ready to go for that so-loved mug in the morning.

I wait until breakfast is over to fix it so I can sit and sip it as its own separate moment.  Each drink is savored and I’m never mingling in bites of toast or other flavors to sully the exquisite taste of the coffee.  It’s a moment in my day set aside from others.

To me that one cup each day is a sacred moment.  I really feel the joy and gratitude and mark the moment.  Simple, special, just one cup.