Pam White

Today was one of those days when I felt like this:  a disgruntled, over-wattled bird.  Maybe it is the backwaters of the out-of-control turbulence that I have experienced this summer – the feeling of having been taken off my feet again and again until I simply could not find a footing.  Sort of like the sad silliness of the Republican convention, or Hurricane Isaac, or some terrible confluence of both along with a really ugly Mercury retrograde.

In any case, I could not get it right today.  What to do? My favorite disembodied spiritual guru, Abraham, says that s/he would do anything to get into a state of appreciation.  Sometimes appreciation is eel-like – slippery and elusive.  What I find is that I cannot push into appreciation, or make a nice little appreciation list, or should myself into appreciating something, anything.

What is working as I write this is just sitting for a moment, quietly, and letting something find me.  Something simple.  Something small.  Starting, right now, with that I can take a full, deep breath.  Then noticing my cat, Obadiah’s ears flick as he sits like a bread loaf and studies a fly on the floor.  And so on.

Where do you start?

My post on duty and devotion has sparked some interesting conversation. From my friend Suzanne, “I often think of that koan about the Big Rocks — making sure you get those big rocks in the container before adding the little ones or the sand. I’m sure you know it, yes? I do that (actually physically) with my students and do it periodically with myself. But — trouble is — I have so many Big Rocks — and some of the Little Rocks seem important!”

This raises a question for me about scattered-ness and spreading myself so thin that my days seem a jumble of identities and doing, rather than the more peaceable (seemingly) statement that my friend Jon Katz makes about himself:  “I am a writer. That is my heart and soul, my identity and work.”

I am a choreographer a dancer, a writer, a rider, a somatic movement therapist a horse therapist.  A mother a lover.  Too many Big Rocks.  Maybe I need a much larger container or (yes!) no container at all.

Last fall I taught an online class called Breaking into Blossom.  It was about bringing a more improvisational spirit of play and engagement into your life.  I learned a lot.  Now, I think that there is another layer of investigation that I want to do that has to do with feeling the heart; with letting yourself be moved;  with allowing and intuitive knowing. It is a little like what I call horse dancing, which is about learning how to listen, to feel and to respond soulfully in the moment.

I think that when I am in the spin cycle of duty madness, I have come untethered from the stillness and attention that is at the heart of good horse dancing – the heart of stillness that is needed before making a true move.

I am feeling the seeds of another class here.  Stay tuned.