Word of the Week - 72

Words of the Week:  GRACE AND GRATITUDE

Today is Day 8 of a free, on-line meditation program from Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra, the theme of which is "Manifesting Grace Through Gratitude."  This is the second free course of theirs in which I've participated.  I can't explain why there was any gap between programs.  I will chalk it up to my tendency to wander off.

Here is the link that is sent to participants.  Even though the first days of the 21-day program are no longer available (though they may be found through the purchase of the course), there is still an enormous benefit to be gained from the remaining meditations.  You will need to register if you want to take part.  I hope that information is easy to find.  On Sunday I had difficulty connecting to the page, sent a FB message about my difficulty and received an almost immediate response with ideas for solutions.  Excellent customer service for any sort of program, especially one that is free.

These Seven Myths of Meditation may help to assure you, as they did me, that imperfection of practice is no obstacle to meditating.  In each of the sessions, led by Chopra with a mantra to repeat as a means of focusing, I have found an almost instant stilling of the chattering mind and a sense of what I assume to be the grace of which he and partner Oprah Winfrey speak.  That the road to this enlightened space is through gratitude makes it a good match for me.  I have so much for which to be thankful and my days include conscious expression of gratitude for all things, to the best of my ability.

In discussing the Seven Myths, Chopra speaks of working with a trained teacher to learn the practice of meditation, something which had me believing I was doing it wrong (!) as I had only the teachings of CDs and books before finding these courses.  I know people who have nearly life-long meditation practices which seem to ask more of them than I can give, being unable to sit in uncomfortable positions as my legs no longer bend that way, yet to find the quiet mind and optimism that I have here seems to tell me, as with so many things, we start where we are with what we have and do the best we can.  Chopra is an excellent guide and teacher.

Unless one has already developed a rare sense of peace and stillness, the world is too much with us most of the time.  In these roughly 20-minute sessions I become unknotted, calmed and restored, as in made more whole again.  There is nothing to sell here, only a gift to bestow.  In this practice or another which better suits your needs, meditation offers a respite from overload and my own tendency at times to become a bit wound up, to forget what I know and lapse into jabbering.  It is lovely not to be jabbering, either out loud or in my own head.  Surely that is grace.

Grace follow-up

As I remained at a loss for the appropriate yet less obvious song, my brother suggested "Into White" by Cat Stevens.  The shared idea and the song itself only strengthen my suspicion that each of our definitions of grace is something intimate and unique.

Grace

Because my mind is acting rusty, pretending to be the yard furniture left out all winter so that it no longer adjusts to more comfortable positions, the only song I could think of to speak of grace was Amazing Grace.  Maybe by the time this post is finished, there will be more choices.

To begin, any grace, all grace, is amazing to me.  This week it found me gnawing over an annoyance I no longer remember, feeling ill-used and unheard.  Living in anything close to harmony with another human has tip-toe moments, self-silencing even if it means using duct tape moments, this isn't what I signed on for moments.  One example of grace is the fact that my most control-driven years seem to be in the past.  Since I really can't remember what caused this specific disquiet, I will just call it that, a wide sweeping gesture of my right arm showing you it went from here to here and made me uncomfortable and messed with my optimism.

I started poking my snout into old closets where past disappointments have been folded until they fit in empty Nike boxes.  Everything seemed tainted, even high-altitude sorts of possibilities that were, at most, just a few days old. In antidote mode I sat down to work on the Sunday crossword.  Maybe the clue is there:  cross word.  I rassle just enough with the LA Times puzzle.  I no longer see the NY Times but might have gained skill if I worked it every week.  A crossword focuses me, even more than drawing or coloring, for the way the mind has to play along, has to - help me - remember.  Names, things, Roman numerals, older models of automobiles, rivers, vice presidents, extinct brands of fruit juice.

When absorbed in harmless trivia, my mind can relax, put down the sharp objects and blunt instruments it gathered to defend the realm.  It makes room for grace, which falls over me like a blanket tucked around a sleeping child.  It lifts a weight and replaces it with peace.  It sweeps away annoyance like a crime scene cleaning squad.  Not a trace remains.  It comes without being summoned, as though it is an unknown state.  It staggers me with its precision, its timing.  I know the meaning of awe in being aware it exists and that it comes for me.

This was, in assessing the magnitude of life so far, a tiny matter yet one that caused the wind to rise and the whitecaps to threaten small craft.  Sometimes my long-practiced capacity for stillness is as close as I come to a reliable state.  When it is jostled, I feel lost.  Only grace restores equilibrium without contortion, without the necessity of fixing something beyond my ability to repair.

Still no song except the obvious.  You may sing it to yourselves.

Weather prompt

Following two days of record winter heat, Los Angeles returned to the sort of overcast morning that reminds us the beach is not far away.  Mornings that others proclaim gloomy have never seemed that way to me.  The sun will be back.  Soon.  Thoughts brought on by the low ceiling,  the deep marine layer - our weather people apparently delight in the naming of things - and a cottony quiet interrupted only by the local parrot flock have Karla Bonoff's bittersweet tunes spooling among the mental trees.   The following has always been my favorite, supported as she is by James Taylor and Garth Hudson of The Band on accordion.



Grace and luck, the difference between them, are playing kick the can down the fog-dimmed street.  Angels, with the Heaven Can Wait image of Warren Beatty symbolizing how, in our earthbound forms, we may be called to deliver messages from ineffable sources,  have sidled into the auditorium, wanting to see how I explain my way around this theme.

I subscribe to a daily email message called Notes from the Universe, offered "...to remind you of life's magic."  Today it was suggested that I steer my imagination toward what I DO want, rather than what I don't.  Since right now I seem to creak as though my joints were made of wood, I HAVE been giving energy to the unwanted, neglecting visions of success or triumph or the simple accomplishment of, say, a page of illustrated letter forms that might become something.

Lucky is not the first word I would choose to describe myself or my life, nor am I anything approaching unlucky.  What I feel has been a continual presence for me is benevolence, grace by its many definitions, which does not mean life became something other than what it is, fraught at times to the point of seeming almost too much to bear.

Duality stares back at me, no matter where I look.  I walk around with my hands doing the dance that indicates balance, half this, half that.  Seeing the bigger picture, if only occasionally, tips things into grey areas that match today's sky.  The circular path brings me back to where I began but this time with an idea of what unconscious connections were formed between weather and angels.  We'll call Karla Bonoff a bonus, for I can't tie her precisely to the murky theme.  Perhaps it makes sense to you.

Thank you to Beth for her comment yesterday about making herself write - in spite of all that is missing or present.  She helped kick my ass into action this morning.