Spent the afternoon Sunday with Jon Katz and Maria Wulf.  I am so appreciative of friends who push into life with as much gusto and deep inquiry as these two (and Pammie, of course).  It reminds me not to waste an opportunity, not to hold back.  I feel more vibrant for time spent with them.

There are common threads in our lives at this time.  We are both selling our homes and moving closer to what feels important, essential.  Even though both of us are moving into smaller spaces, it feels to me that we are getting bigger, because our desires and priorities are more honed, more clear.

There is a tendency I hear in friends when things are stressful to pull back, pinch in, hold on for fear of losing something irreplaceable.  It takes courage to climb out on the edge and look over, take the dive.  I love having friends who are divers, who leap every day, from their hearts into mine.

Photo:  Pam White, of Paula Josa-Jones in “Frogs in a Well.”

We are born and live inside black water in a well.
How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don’t
insist on going where
you think you want to go.  Ask the way to the spring.  Your
living pieces will form
a harmony.  There is a moving palace that floats in the air
with balconies and clear
water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained
under a single tent.

From The Glance, by Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks

Many years ago I choreographed a solo that I called “Frogs in a Well.”  It was inspired by a book of the same name about the fate of Muslim women living in purdah, who saw the world as if they lived at the bottom of a well.

Presently I am noticing that the uncertainty, the current anxieties – about selling our house, about money, about our pregnant daughter  (I think I wont go on) – that these stresses are pushing me into the black water in a well.  That I am losing sight of Rumi’s “open field of sunlight.”

Today I began my day with a swim.  Many years ago, my sister made a beautiful image with wild flowers that she had gathered that read, “Lie back and the sea will hold you.”  In the water, I could feel myself surrendering, softening into that embrace.

Inside, I lit a candle and washed out the water bowls that surround the Ganesh in our living room, refilling them with clear water.  These small rituals remind me to be here, to soak in the pleasure of the moment, to love what is here now, and not to wait.