day 10: future – sonnet (or something)

Flying forward into fall, falling forward flying

seen from above away afar

the fears the doubts scurry busily like ants.

Ants have belonging

that we all long for and share if

only in the sad notion that we do not belong.

End this longing and fall into this fear and see it is shared.

It is sometimes the source of a new found belonging.

You too? I’m not alone?

I can be broken, imperfect, unfinished and you’ll have me just so?

No other way. Let’s go together.

We are never alone, although at times we do believe it.

Fly forward fall in

Fall in fly forward.

Thank you Lori for taking the photos and a coming along for the road trip to Wanderlust and driving us when my car acted up and listening to the story of the ants I have known. Thanks to my family who supported me as I took off for the weekend without them on this mini-adventure. Thank you Kate for the tickets that landed in my inbox as I was daydreaming about Wanderlust. Thank you Blaire, Katie and Lori for hosting the hooping hoopla, the slackliners, DJ Taz Rashid and all the yoga teachers (Eoin Finn, Myrah Penaloza, Kate Potter & Dirje Childs ) who led us in a the fantastically celebratory yoga practice with hundreds of yogis under a warm sun and this time ending with a beautiful savasana and meditation – the one and only Canadian Wanderlust 108 Mindful Triathlon that had great weather throughout. Thank you Steve and Acro Muse in Edmonton for the thrill of flying. Thank you Noah for kissing my injured finger. ( He’s the two year old playing with a hoop in the first photo. ) What a lovely encounter with a soul who is a pure expression of belonging, love and empathy.  Thank you Donna for climbing trees with us. Thank you Dirje for telling me exactly what you think. Thank you dinner companions and fire side friends for a delightful end to a charmed day.

You might not know it, but the ride up to wanderlust in Edmonton was certainly less fun, but equally valuable to the day of play and contemplation. I was sleep deprived and just sitting with my chaotic week and telling the stories of all my past doubts and fears that seemed to be welling up in face of things I really want to do. I saw them, felt them and I let them go, finally knowing with clarity the way to go is still with the heart even with the risk of falling. I have always found Wanderlust 108 a bit goofy, but I change my mind. Maybe it still is goofy, but I love it. It is a celebration of practice and a confirmation to keep doing it everyday and an invitation to start. To keep playing and being on the yoga mat to move and sit and then take yourself into the world to do what you need to do with a “calm clear version of you” as Kate says it on the four contemplations CD in the ‘reset and refresh’ short meditation. Since life is not always calm and clear we do need to reset and refresh often, daily. Perhaps your means are different, but it’s a big dill pickle. I recently read a recipe for dill pickles and picked up a great tip. Sort your cucumbers as you wash them by size. It will making packing them in the jar a lot easier. Start with the big ones.

Trying to put it down on paper this ridiculously fun day and the feeling of flying I have been left with even weeks later, I wrote and wrote and got distracted and then just before having to leave to attend a workshop last Saturday, I scribbled down this poem. My only changes were to add some periods, influenced by hearing the story of Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese, coming about as an illustrative example of a form of poetry with periods at the end of a line. 

Thank you Ben Huberman for putting the Writing 201: poetry course together at The Daily Post. This is the last poem of this series. I find it astounding that some people did the course in 2 weeks. Thanks again to Kate and Dirje for the inspiring “four contemplations- the alchemy of stillness” CD. After hearing it through the first time, it gave me a little nudge to start this poetry course that had arrived in my inbox in February. My first poem of the series captured my response following the first time I used the CD. I am using it more and more and it works for me.

To end, I will share with you the beginning of my mindful triathlon. I did not run this time, but I did walk the labyrinth at Providence Renewal Centre and the words of Mary Oliver came to me when I reached the centre of the labyrinth.

You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

-Mary Oliver from Wild Geese

Here is Mary Oliver reading her poem Wild Geese and an interview with Mary Oliver. Thank you Tamara for sharing your love of Mary Oliver, and for encouraging sangha and so much more.

A little encouragement (for me) and you to sit every day…

(“What I have learned so far” by Mary Oliver read by students from Marquette University)