retreat or, like the foot behind and the foot before in walking hey, some hours of sleep tonight but up by 2 and slinking around in the dark. but i’m not complaining, i really love this time, just wondering if the lack of sleep will catch up with me. last night was my mother’s 70th birthday. we really did it up for her. she’s in very good spirits and health and i am very grateful for that. my birthday is this monday, 43, but 21 according to my retreat roommate, she swore i was 20, then, and really brightened up my whole year ahead with that. she, morgan, had her 50th birthday in silence on the retreat. i think it was our last silent morning, and i was crying on the sofa in the tea room, and people gathered in silence and didnt really notice but i found their presence comforting, then, morgan passed me cold-eez, or tylenol cold or something like that, she must have heard me sniveling, that was most comforting as well, kinda funny. anyway, i really enjoyed the retreat experience. what a way to pass the new year with the cold showers (i dont think i ever really figured out how they worked), the industrial carpeting, the branch of pink dogwood blooming on the altar, the most excellent coffee, the howling wind in the trees, and the full and bursting orange moon. i left there feeling that things were slightly more possible - things that seemed not so possible before…am i being vague…i guess i felt less fearful or something. there were dharma talks every day and interviews but the words i will aways remember most, came from the shuso one late afternoon while we were sitting…the wind was howling wildly and the trees were dancing and the shuso said, “listen!..does the world breathe you or do you breathe the world?” it just really struck me…those words combined with the chant that says the light and the dark are like the foot behind and the foot before in walking just really struck me. it made me think of my touches of insanity and what a thin boundary there is between the sane and the insane sometimes and how maybe even this is not so scary. kip, sydney and i drove to maine after the retreat, in the snow, and the three of us walked the beach there in the snow…it was so beautiful and cool, snow on top of sand and fluttering all around in the air, like this whiteness forever. and the ocean - so black and blue didnt freeze, it even melted the snow and ice as the waves came in to the shoreline…it seemed like the warm and the cold were meeting and some kind of tension was making beautiful strange patterns and textures. we walked in this strange land almost stunned, (sydney walked more like she was on some kind of mission). kid a, it was a while till we wrote again, xxc **** youtube/watch?v=pmgZ2EcXCz4 cliche’ - todd rundgren ****
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:05:09 +0000
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