This day’s dawn comes on the heels of a dark night. Actually, every day’s dawn does.
Last evening we took John to my primary. She agreed with the medicine list. She encouraged patience and confidence in the specialists he will be working with, along with his primary. I was almost in a heap when we left. I was in search of relief.
Aaron’s thought for today from Deep Spring Center for Meditation expresses it this way: Each of you is walking right now through dark valleys, unable to see what the future will hold. But your heart controls that future. Hold that dream of love, of an earth in which all beings cherish every other sentient being and the earth itself, knowing we are one and we love. We love, and we are love.
Awareness sees so many gifts in all of this, not the least of which is how John is navigating the perfect catalyst for my overcoming habit energy of fear around medical stuff. It is not easy, but it is rich with opportunity.
The Empty Circle Zen Group’s Mindful Moment for today refers to the raw truth — Everyone we cherish will, someday, get sick and die. If we don’t practice the meditation on emptiness, when those things happen, we will be overwhelmed. Concentration on emptiness is a way of staying in touch with life as it is, but it has to be practiced and not just talked about as connectedness.
For example, while Stacey and I were working on the jigsaw puzzle a couple of days ago, waves of emotion would wash over me. I would swallow the threatening tears and observe the thought. After several close encounters, clear seeing allowed me to notice the delusion. Once stable with it, I was able to speak to Stacey, starting with the caveat I did not even believe it. I said, “You have always been closer to your dad more than to me. If one of us had to get sick and die, I wish it could have been me so you would still have your dad.”
As Stacey’s initial loving heart instantly began assuring me that isn’t true, I interjected immediately, “I am sharing this with you because I absolutely agree it is not true.”
Waking reality does not exist in as concrete a manner as people might think.
Following my foray into the darkness last evening, on this day’s dawn Stacey sent me some wonderful words of wisdom:
If you don’t feel your best today, allow yourself that space. This is hard. You don’t have to process this all at once.
