Riding the Wave
Late, Late Summer, or, Chasing Shadows, 30 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas (detail) by Rami Schandall, 2020.
Autumn is in full swing where I live in southern Ontario. The weather is bright and cool and the trees are generous with colour. Summer flowers persist, so far, and I am grateful for their tenacity, the seed-making energy that will go on until the frost comes.
Many feel this season and the next will be long ones. I hear resignation and some dread. I feel these things, yet, I also experience a glimmer of excitement for the deep inward turn that will come with winter. A time to dig deep into rich material, dream-time, integration and quiet creation time.
It makes me think of shadow work* and the way difficulties, well faced, can lead us toward integration — the way outcomes we did not wish for can be in some ways a gift. The greater the mara (obstruction) the stronger the dharma (wisdom), perhaps!
I do not advocate looking for the harder path—obstacles come all by themselves, and in this year in particular, we see how efficiently life does this for us! Can we welcome what we must face, what we are given to work with? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's good to connect to the resources available to us.
Meditation practice and spiritual practice, are, in practical terms, about building tolerance for life. As we deepen our awareness of our experience and develop familiarity with our inner landscape, we must simultaneously build tolerance for what we find there. It might be uncomfortable. It will be painful at times. This is the material of our own precious lives, and it is worthwhile to make friends with it — to burnish our innate resilience with self-compassion and steady self-care.
Are you building a cozy den for your winter hibernation?
Or, can you be the surfer that rides the giant waves?**
Feel the feelings, and steady your course.
Resourcing resilience:
• I offer Tuesday Sangha, a weekly meditation at 7:30 pm, ET. (Contact me to learn more and register for the Autumn session.)
• I will run a second mini-meditation retreat in collaboration with Chameleon Yoga, October 26-30th, 8–8:30am each morning.
• Unwind & Restore yoga class with Breathe Yoga Studio,
Saturdays 11:15 am to 12:30 pm.
• Contact me for one-on-one yoga or meditation sessions.
* I recommend this articulate and thorough article on the shadows that show up again and again in spiritual communities: spiritual bypassing, self-righteous judgement, toxic gurus, privilege, racism, essentialism ... the whole human mess AND a way forward: "The Spiritual World Must Face Its Shadow"
"Healing comes from meeting our wounds, patterns, mistakes, and other points of pain with tenderness, generosity, love, and compassion."
** See Maya Gabeira's masterful ride of the largest wave recorded in 2020, also a women's world record. "The thing I remember the most about this wave was the noise when it broke behind me. I was quite scared to realize that intensity was so close to me!"
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