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Originally prepared for 100 th session of SHELTER in GRACE – a Sound meditation for your ONE WILD & PRECIOUS LIFE July 10th, 2020

The NEW by line is attributed to Mary Oliver in her most well known line from THE SUMMER DAY.

ATTRIBUTIONS:
1)    The best dancers by EM Claire – Silent Sacred Holy Deepening Heart
2)    Hafiz I got Kin – the GIFT – translation Daniel Ladinsky

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I learn my own critical lessons at my patient's bedside each day (which I already knew...but  apparently keep forgetting). 

Life reminds me as watch over them. I find this curious. Frankly, it both sucks and is lovely in equal measure. And it's, for sure, humbling.

As a hospice and bereavement chaplain, I  support people who are near the end of their term here...and those who are reconciling their lives after the loss of a dear one.  The edge of life and death, reminds me about how to keep my own life, well-lived by those very small and powerful habitual methods...each day.                 

Practicing the small powers...
I am seeing the power of dailiness in beneficial habits and rituals. Those little daily tasks that are almost automatic for us can be grand boosts to our lives taken on the whole.  What do I practice daily?

In my life, I have more commonly used grand efforts, all-in ventures, and dramatic grabs at the success ring du jour. For example, my body's illusionary capacity for long hours and hard work is one, and my wilfulness in forcing and pushing things and people (ahem...usually politely) along on my prescribed path to the promised land of Secretariat-like wins.

What I practice accumulates and compounds rewards. My personality is quite a bit more artistic than methodical, so this revelation does not come naturally to me. By 'methods', I mean that I/we/you do NOT have to be original in everything, but the benefits of PRACTICING the proven and even ancient paths reap for us exponentially.  I can, effectively, renew me, and not get depleted in the first place.
Focusing on my own sustainability, and modeling self-care-as-a-circle for others, I need to be wiser...and more methodical in the dailiness of my own life. 
The even better news is these small ancient methods are at hand. They are both always available and simple. 

Breath and death is mother to us all. Right?

Modeling self-care-as-a-circle
Your breath is your first task, which it was the moment you were born. It was, literally, the first thing you ever did. It will also be all our last tasks on this Earth - pretty much by definition. But do we think about the quality and power of it, daily? A Good life in our /this middle passage depends on it.

Breathe like a Diva is our first method of power.  This is, of course, not new information... The other usual suspects are here:

• Self care - (ahem...is not selfish)
• Self Inquiry - (A life unexamined life Is not worth living." Socrates)
• Service to others - There are so many thing that need doing, which actually heal me/ us in doing them.

• Self expression - "It is of upmost importance to the Universe that we be in play and joy.  It is the ultimate use." - Dr. Megan Wagner,

Meditation, journaling, volunteering, exercising, yoga, resting and ...play daily are the medicine and the antidotes for the speed and stressors of our modern world.  These methods taken daily bring us back to our own center and from this place we can see again our best life from the opportunities right in front of us.

But I propose a re-framing here... 
I suggest some more inspired 'habit' categories, which might help us/me think about them more creatively... yet still in methodical ways.  How about these?

• Sacred Play - What thought stream or activity transfixes you so you delightfully that you lose track of time?  Be curious about that. What is nudging you ? What is patiently waiting to be (re) discovered.
• Spiritual Mischief - Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty... make the world anew.
• Embodied Joy - Walk around in nature's beauty. Pray. Dance. Massage anyone?

These categories are my new inspiration. Of course, I have known their power and how to be / do them even when I was a kid.  I did know this, too, as a young person but I have drifted away from me, in my work-a-holic grasping.

The good news is this innate wisdom is at hand.  It may seem to drift away but it only settles in deeper.  It is waiting for me/you/us, patiently in our dark, as we drop down to our heart centers or (in a more Judeo-Christian framework... to our kingdom of god within).  How we fill up these categories will light up our lives - daily.  Do that. (Paraphrased from Howard Thurman...).  Make it your method, your new small habit. No time?  Do it for 5 minutes. See where it takes you. This spark will light you up. It will breathe life back into all the days we have... 

Heart, tell them what you came for
Heart, tell them what you came for
Heart, tell them what you've been daydreamin' about
                                         - James Blake, Tell Them

Care to share your categories, methods or daily habits that inspire and renew you?  We need your spark and voice because sparks begat sparks...

I have started a daily practice of gathering serendipitous wisdom from the day.  I have a plan to create something more public–perhaps a video or audio daily live chat called "The Good Enough Daily". It is on a long list of possibles: TBD.

But until then, let me tell you about them on the hopes that it may inspire you to do the same. Here are some I use...there are so many card decks out there...

• (various) Unity's card decks - link Amazon
  
• Louise Hay's Power Thought Cards - link Amazon
• Cheryl Richardson's Grace Cards - link Amazon
• Self Care Cards - link Amazon

I draw cards as part of my waking up process...usually with coffee.  They are part of my own spiritual practices each day to help me taking care of myself...and keep my inner balance as I take care of many each day as a hospice chaplain.

This is also for the fifteen MILLION unpaid caregivers who are doing the daily, chaotic work of caring for their infirm loved ones.

Much like my weekly sound meditations in San Francisco, I listen for what is 'in the room'.  There I ask people to <quickly> check in:

• How was your week? Your day?
• What came up for you? What is troubling you? Sticking to you?
• Any celebratory events or challenges?

Then I paint the watercolor of what the sound, silence and poetry might be of support to those and what is 'in the room'.

It's a form of meditative improv in service of love. So is drawing cards every morning.

Improv 'What is" is one of the rules in the Fieldguide. Any of its many forms of implementation is a good practice for me. You see my (prairie, bootstrapped) inclination is to want to get 'it' perfect and over prepare for whatever... 

Life is not that way. All I (and you) have to do is show up knowing we are enough...and worthy to be participating in what is in front of us.  Then we do the best we are able. Both (preaching) ministers at my Unity Church in San Francisco are stellar at improv on the stage...but for me it is a learning edge.

Because we all have our edges.  At last Sunday's meditation, several people spoke about the edge between what shows up in the world and what shows up inside us...and then there is the pause.  This is the place of choice...do we choose to react, respond? Are we triggered?  Are we needing to be right?  This is the same edge for us all.

Reading the Day
It is in same way that I draw several cards from my various (and lovely) spiritual card decks each morning and take a moment (but not too many moments...) to see if there a pattern to the cards drawn.   I then read this wisdom and speak about it for eight minutes, because who has a lot of time in the mornings?

...and I have theme music, too.  "Good Enough" by Karen Drucker.  She is awesome, if you are not familiar with her as both a songwriter and a performer.  Check out her song if you want a lift to your day.