Beth, the burial of your mother's ashes sounds heartbreakingly beautiful, and funny, and right. Imagining the scene and sending you so much love.
Lorianne, I love your image of your inner Buddha taking over when you lead the meditation group. I'm sure it'll go really well. And I'll try thinking of my inner Buddha when next faced with a challenge my heart volunteered for and my mind has doubts about.
I'm trying to maintain a regular schedule on weekdays, which means I'm up early today even though it's one of my work-at-home days. And I just sat for 5 minutes even though I'll be sitting at noontime: I figure if I get into the habit of sitting first thing Mon-Fri, I can sleep in & take a break from my cushion on the weekends. Decadance! :-)
And yes, Beth, your account of burying your mother's sounds just as Jean said: "heartbreakingly beautiful, and funny, and right." And it strikes me that this is a microcosm of what life is: heartbreakingly beautiful, funny, and right.
I guess one thing I deeply appreciate about meditation practice is it helps strengthen us so we can withstand life with all its heartbreaking beauty, humor, and right-ness.
Oh, and yes, Jean, it's all about the Inner Buddha! :-) Inner Buddha is better than auto-pilot because rather than allowing you to zone out, Inner Buddha allows you the luxury of zoning in.
Beth, I can't say what your writing of interring your mother's ashes did to me, but it did something. Acute loneliness, warm togetherness, never-forgetting, and humour, climbing in the back of the church to get a Prayer Book was unreal. I'm sure your mother would have enjoyed that very much.
The process of carrying, placing, burying your Mom's ashes brought back memories of my Dad's ashes, which we scattered in nature as he had requested, but from a heavy bronze engraved urn that will be used by other family members so that it becomes a kind of 'nomadic gravestone.' His name & dates are on it; one day, mine will be, and both of my brothers; perhaps my children...
Lorianne, with lucid dreaming we could train ourselves to meditate in our sleep! That idea just came to me. Heck, you probably already do that. :-) I should think sleeping in on the weekend is ideal and to be striven for. :-)
Thank you Jean, you are so sweet, but I think a long cycle is coming to an end, of perhaps 9 years, but really since 1992 when I left editing, and I am now working at the local Korean Learning Centre 3 days a week (or as soon as we add some morning adult courses) and beginning to find a life again that has a small paycheck I can count on. I can't say how much I enjoy tutoring/teaching kids; it's a gift, really. Coming out of too many years of unbelievable uncertainty, this is a relief. And now I find I can talk about those difficult years more openly too. Don't regret any of them... taught me so much about the irrational underside of life.
Off to the Andy Warhol show at the Art Gallery with my massage therapy/architect friend - he's been utterly wonderful treating me to foreign films (I swoon - actually 'House of Sand' still haunts - anyone seen it?), dinners, cappuccinos, I'm not used to this attention. His girlfriend of 4 years broke off with him...
Beth, thanks. Memories of strewing my mother's ashes into the sea, singing on the boat and the waves increasing every time we got to "dance, dance"...
Stray — great to see the photos of you & Natalie!
Struggling with feeling unloved, empty. Difficult to speak about. But I've been here before. Doing my damnedest to take care of myself, which includes a focus on reining in my tendency to procrastinate on meditation. I'm so slippery.
(((MB)))) You're so generous and loving, I can hardly bear to think of you feeling unloved. And only slippery, I bet, in your own hands. We're all behind your damnedest.
What Jean said. Ten thousand hugs to you. I know they're not quite the right kind from quite the right quarter, but possibly they have some exchange value? :-) xoxo
Still here but - not unexpectedly -life is getting very hectic and unsettling and disjointed.... but I am sitting each morning. And trying to remember to keep things in the present moment.
(((MB))) adding my hugs to everyone elses. Much much love.
Beth: What a vivid and wonderful account of the burying of your mother's ashes.Thank you for sharing it with us.
oh mb! Do you know, when I read your latest blog entry earlier I knew how people could fall in love with a person just from reading a poem they had written. Seriously. Now, if you're about 35, female, gay, don't mind dogs and could just move to the Guildford area ... of the UK ... ? No? Worth a try eh?
Seriously though, I felt pretty lonely earlier, and when I read your poem I felt a bit less lonely. Which often happens when I read your blog. Perhaps it's the communal loneliness or something? Happens when I read here too. Even when it's very ouchy.
So much I want to say ... to everybody who has been so supportive recently. And Beth, my friend's ashes were buried today, just with her husband and children present, and I read your post at just the time they would have been doing it, and laughed / ached / cried along with you and them. You write about it so beautifully.
It's a weird time here. Time itself seems peculiar. Dates and months have dissolved as markers, replaced by stranger bookmarks. Today, I looked at the grapes, red and ripe and edible for the last few days ... and I thought "She died before the grapes were ready ... ", and for some reason that seemed both more comforting and more painful than a calendar date. Weird.
And just as a life gets off my roundabout, another one appears. Meeting Natalie yesterday was just the tonic I needed.
So, cuddles to all who need them. I certainly do, and they've been so precious and felt very very real, even over the interwebymajig over the last week. Thanks all,
10 Comments:
Beth, the burial of your mother's ashes sounds heartbreakingly beautiful, and funny, and right. Imagining the scene and sending you so much love.
Lorianne, I love your image of your inner Buddha taking over when you lead the meditation group. I'm sure it'll go really well. And I'll try thinking of my inner Buddha when next faced with a challenge my heart volunteered for and my mind has doubts about.
Stray! How great to see you on Blaugustine! Sending big hugs to your photo on my computer screen!
g'morning, everyone!
I'm trying to maintain a regular schedule on weekdays, which means I'm up early today even though it's one of my work-at-home days. And I just sat for 5 minutes even though I'll be sitting at noontime: I figure if I get into the habit of sitting first thing Mon-Fri, I can sleep in & take a break from my cushion on the weekends. Decadance! :-)
And yes, Beth, your account of burying your mother's sounds just as Jean said: "heartbreakingly beautiful, and funny, and right." And it strikes me that this is a microcosm of what life is: heartbreakingly beautiful, funny, and right.
I guess one thing I deeply appreciate about meditation practice is it helps strengthen us so we can withstand life with all its heartbreaking beauty, humor, and right-ness.
Oh, and yes, Jean, it's all about the Inner Buddha! :-) Inner Buddha is better than auto-pilot because rather than allowing you to zone out, Inner Buddha allows you the luxury of zoning in.
Beth, I can't say what your writing of interring your mother's ashes did to me, but it did something. Acute loneliness, warm togetherness, never-forgetting, and humour, climbing in the back of the church to get a Prayer Book was unreal. I'm sure your mother would have enjoyed that very much.
The process of carrying, placing, burying your Mom's ashes brought back memories of my Dad's ashes, which we scattered in nature as he had requested, but from a heavy bronze engraved urn that will be used by other family members so that it becomes a kind of 'nomadic gravestone.' His name & dates are on it; one day, mine will be, and both of my brothers; perhaps my children...
Lorianne, with lucid dreaming we could train ourselves to meditate in our sleep! That idea just came to me. Heck, you probably already do that. :-) I should think sleeping in on the weekend is ideal and to be striven for. :-)
Thank you Jean, you are so sweet, but I think a long cycle is coming to an end, of perhaps 9 years, but really since 1992 when I left editing, and I am now working at the local Korean Learning Centre 3 days a week (or as soon as we add some morning adult courses) and beginning to find a life again that has a small paycheck I can count on. I can't say how much I enjoy tutoring/teaching kids; it's a gift, really. Coming out of too many years of unbelievable uncertainty, this is a relief. And now I find I can talk about those difficult years more openly too. Don't regret any of them... taught me so much about the irrational underside of life.
Off to the Andy Warhol show at the Art Gallery with my massage therapy/architect friend - he's been utterly wonderful treating me to foreign films (I swoon - actually 'House of Sand' still haunts - anyone seen it?), dinners, cappuccinos, I'm not used to this attention. His girlfriend of 4 years broke off with him...
{{hugs}} everyone
Beth, thanks. Memories of strewing my mother's ashes into the sea, singing on the boat and the waves increasing every time we got to "dance, dance"...
Stray — great to see the photos of you & Natalie!
Struggling with feeling unloved, empty. Difficult to speak about. But I've been here before. Doing my damnedest to take care of myself, which includes a focus on reining in my tendency to procrastinate on meditation. I'm so slippery.
(((MB)))) You're so generous and loving, I can hardly bear to think of you feeling unloved. And only slippery, I bet, in your own hands. We're all behind your damnedest.
{{{MB}}}
What Jean said. Ten thousand hugs to you. I know they're not quite the right kind from quite the right quarter, but possibly they have some exchange value? :-) xoxo
Still here but - not unexpectedly -life is getting very hectic and unsettling and disjointed.... but I am sitting each morning. And trying to remember to keep things in the present moment.
(((MB))) adding my hugs to everyone elses. Much much love.
Beth: What a vivid and wonderful account of the burying of your mother's ashes.Thank you for sharing it with us.
And belated hugs to Stray.
And everyone else.
oh mb! Do you know, when I read your latest blog entry earlier I knew how people could fall in love with a person just from reading a poem they had written. Seriously. Now, if you're about 35, female, gay, don't mind dogs and could just move to the Guildford area ... of the UK ... ? No? Worth a try eh?
Seriously though, I felt pretty lonely earlier, and when I read your poem I felt a bit less lonely. Which often happens when I read your blog. Perhaps it's the communal loneliness or something? Happens when I read here too. Even when it's very ouchy.
So much I want to say ... to everybody who has been so supportive recently. And Beth, my friend's ashes were buried today, just with her husband and children present, and I read your post at just the time they would have been doing it, and laughed / ached / cried along with you and them. You write about it so beautifully.
It's a weird time here. Time itself seems peculiar. Dates and months have dissolved as markers, replaced by stranger bookmarks. Today, I looked at the grapes, red and ripe and edible for the last few days ... and I thought "She died before the grapes were ready ... ", and for some reason that seemed both more comforting and more painful than a calendar date. Weird.
And just as a life gets off my roundabout, another one appears. Meeting Natalie yesterday was just the tonic I needed.
So, cuddles to all who need them. I certainly do, and they've been so precious and felt very very real, even over the interwebymajig over the last week. Thanks all,
xx
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