Amy @ Generous Wisdom | Spacious Heart – Page 24 – Generous Wisdom

There’s a Transformation Happening. (Not Just Right Now. Always.)

An Announcement

There’s a transformation happening over here. It was in the works long before this moment (as transformations always are), and I know the pandemic has hastened its arrival. I’m thankful for this. This strange year gave me time. To sit, to feel, to wait, to think; to let go, hold on, cry, decide.

That long pause in the writing was reasonable; the tentative and shaky entrance into Advent, appropriate. Signing my recent posts with “The Universal Yogi,” necessary.

A few months ago I asked a friend and fellow seeker if she’d consider taking over The Catholic Yogi. It was the only way forward I could see, and I could not think of a better person to steward the mission of this online space. She said Yes. With enthusiasm! A few weeks later I texted another friend to share this life-changing news, the only person outside of my immediate family to know, and her response totally surprised me. She said she thought it was amazing that I was taking this “step towards healing.” This was crazy to me – I had no idea I was in need of healing until she said it.

There will be much more to come regarding the transition, which won’t be complete until July or August, 2021. In the meantime, Incarnation!

Being in a Body

The Christian feast of Christmas is a celebration of the birth of divinity in a human body. I love this. What a sweet joy to know our sacredness in this way. I am divine because Jesus Christ is, and so are you. And so is every last one of us. The problem is that I forget this a lot. This is why even though it is always Christmas (God is always coming to us in a body) it’s helpful to celebrate it with intention.

December 25th doesn’t matter, of course. We can intentionally celebrate our embodiment any time we want. Every time we dance, bow, run, cook, build, carve, paint, sweep. Every time we perform surgery or a piano solo. Every time we collect the trash, address an envelop, hit send on an email, fill out a form. Every time we bring our attention to the sacredness of our being here, now, as part of the whole environment that surrounds us, it’s a chance to celebrate Christmas.

For Practice

The next time you decide to celebrate the sacredness of your humanity, try any of these suggestions for practicing embodiment:

Stand close to someone side by side and notice the energy of your own body. Then notice the energy of their body. If you like, hover your open hands close to each other without touching. If no energetic sensation is noticeable, each person can rub their own hands together vigorously creating some heat and then experiment again. My kids love this.
Do something that will truly help someone else (cook dinner and drop it off, spend and share time connecting on the phone, through text, zoom, or in person?). Notice how it feels in your body to do all that is involved.
Teach someone else how to do something for themselves (knit, bake, start the laundry, write a poem, practice yoga?). Notice how your body feels when teaching, listening, and learning.
Rest quietly and feel your breath coming in and going out. Let your hands rest on your body where the movement of your breath is the most obvious.
Think of something you do and then do it as a celebration of embodiment(!)

Practicing embodiment can feel like a transformation, like an “Oh! This is what it feels like to be alive. But transformation is a tricky word. Sometimes I think I actually mean an uncovering of what was always there, of what was becoming, what was waiting to be born, waiting to crack through the shell or to split open the chrysalis.

Wishing you many moments, happy or something else, of noticing that you are alive, being in a body. And not just today, but all the days. There’s a way of thinking of God as the Eternal Now, or, one of my absolute favorites, The Everlasting Instant. Implicit in these names is the concept of always. They scoop up every moment that ever was and every moment that ever will be and places them here, now.

Keep transforming,
Keep uncovering,
incarnating,
embodying,
celebrating,

Amy

The Universal Yogi

For further reading, visit the Center for Christogenesis and the article by Diarmuid O’Murchu, Incarnation as Embodiment of Spirit.

Joy (?)

My family has chosen “Joy” as the theme of our last week of Advent (even though it really doesn’t matter). For years my intention in practicing Yoga was to find, manifest, exude, realize “my true nature,” Contentment. And then one day on my first silent retreat, which happened to fall into the virtual zoom world of the 2020 pandemic lockdown, I had a realization – maybe I should be going for Joy. Seems crazy, but in my efforts toward living a contented life, I had employed non-attachment to the degree that (maybe) I had (unwittingly) crossed joy off the list.

Joy Isn’t Bad

Not that I had already experienced enough joy and so I didn’t need to experience it anymore, but that it had become a thing I thought I didn’t need because I was content. (Such an interesting turn of events!) It’s possible that aspiring to a joyful life can seem indulgent, privileged, or naïve, so, not necessarily a “good thing.” However, during a period of journaling on that silent retreat, it occurred to me that perhaps I was selling myself short, barring myself from some real sweet moments. It was like – Hey, why not Joy?!

Striving

I think it’s in the striving that I get caught. When I effort after everything, that’s when I get tired. This includes the “good stuff,” like contentment, children laughing, time for rest and being together. When I allow life’s moments to come to me, and I experience them without judgement to the degree that I’m able, there’s a peacefulness present regardless of the negative or positive flavor of what’s happening. The peace is there because I’m not striving or “efforting,” willing everything to go the way I think I want it to go.

A Spectrum of Emotion

As an observation, I don’t strive toward despair or “alone-ness,” and yet these emotions come my way. I practice non-attachment for a little space between myself and them and as a way back toward balance. So, why don’t I let joy come the same way, and instead of using non-attachment to create separation, I use a little savoring to create union? As human beings we are able to experience a full range of emotions to varying degrees, so I might as well embrace the good ones and let them make a lasting imprint. I can choose when to employ non-attachment and when not to, right?

For Practice

To round out this Advent season (though I feel myself wishing for just a few more days, just a few more days!), and to usher in a celebration of our divine-human nature, consider being “extravagant.” Here are some questions for self-inquiry. Use them if they seem supportive. Skip them if not!

What positive emotions seem elusive?
Which do you shy away from?
Has your focus been on contentment or somewhere else?
What are you tired of striving after?

The “Yoga” Practice Part

How does this show up in your yoga practice?
What are you tired of practicing?
Are there postures you don’t spend time in even though you’d love to savor them?
Are there breathing practices that really feel sweet but you don’t make them a priority?

Encouragement

Note what your inquiry reveals to you; then, instead of striving after whatever you’ve noticed, let it come to you with any amount of peacefulness.

Happy Practicing (a little, a lot, in new ways, and in old),

Amy

The Universal Yogi

Advent Doesn’t Matter.

Yes, I admit it! I could give this post a million different titles, and I choose this one. I’m hoping somebody somewhere wants to read the next line:

Unless it does.

Truly Advent doesn’t matter. And truly it does. It depends.

It’s the circumstances and the details of our lives that decide it. I’ve written about Advent in the past, as have countless others over the centuries, because it’s such a valuable practice. It has a great capacity to hold us, nurture us, remind us, and strengthen us. It gives us guidance and rhythms just like Lent, and my personal favorite, Ordinary Time.

I’m admitting another thing now – I’ve been wanting to write and post for the last five months, and I didn’t . I felt like I couldn’t. I even had ideas and inspiration, notes, and time! And still, nothing. I wanted to write abut my favorite liturgical season and how it wasn’t in any way – by any stretch of the imagination – ordinary. Indeed, it had become extraordinary. And I was keenly aware of this, checking in with the calendar, marking the days – how many do I have left before Advent? How many days…??? And then it was Thanksgiving and I knew my time was up. The kids wanted “the tree!” and “the lights!” And I…I just wanted a little… more… “ordinary time…”. Ya know?

But, since I had discovered the advent wreath and acquired the appropriately colored candles, squished them into the holders with tin foil and found a church sanctioned guide, I stepped into Advent anyway, begrudgingly, unwillingly, miffed that I hadn’t the energy to put as much thought and visual aides into it for the kids as I had in past years. How will they practice if I don’t have a practice-thing set up for them?? I worried. You know, a practice-thing, like something tangible, something they can put their hands on, move around, something that is a touchable representation of how they are readying their hearts for the Christ child. (If you’re a teacher, you’re thinking, or shouting out, “Manipulative! You mean, manipulative!“)

Yes, a manipulative. But I went with memories instead. It’s all I had. So I sat at the table and lit the first candle, forgot to open that church sanctioned book and asked the kids, “Remember when we used to put the stars on the heart? At the old house?”

“Do you mean the ornaments on the tree?” the little one suggested.

“Oh, we’ve done that, too, here at this house, with a poster on our wall under the crucifix. But I was thinking about how we decorated our hearts for Jesus. Every time we did something kind we glued a gold star on the big heart by the kitchen. Remember?” (For your visualization, these are all cut out of 20-year-old-faded construction paper.)

Blank stares.

I patted myself on the back at this point for not dropping into despair about how all my efforts were for not. I comforted myself with the knowledge that seeds had been planted, and started talking with them about love, faith, peace, joy, and how lots of people think of the candles and the weeks of Advent in a variety of ways.

Amid answering questions like “Why purple? Why’s only one pink? What’s Gaudete?” I asked them, “What would you like the theme of this week, the first week, to be?”

In the gap, my husband called out, “Hope. Hope.”

And so it was. We talked about ways we can be hopeful, which is hard, and we came around to creating a bit of positivity. We’re in the house together a lot now and sometimes things get pretty grim, so practicing a positive attitude seemed hopeful.

No need to wonder how it went because I can’t even remember last week. However, this week is Peace and it occurred to me to send two of my bickering children to “The Peace Stairs” and find peacefulness together. (This is one of the many gems I received from our short years in Montessori school.) It was successful.

Personally, I struggled with some pretty difficult emotions the last three days and instead of fighting them, ignoring them, or diving into them, I chose to let them be. Yeah, I gave those emotions some peace from my judgment and shame. I allowed them to be there, and I stopped telling myself I shouldn’t have them. Instead, I acknowledged that these challenging emotions were present, and I spoke these observations out loud to three other people, my husband and two oldest children, who noted that some days feel heavy and some light. There was a great peacefulness in this experience of being seen and seeing others. So, some more success.

I’m not sure, of course, how the rest of the week will play out, or the following weeks either. But it doesn’t matter. The whole aim of liturgical seasons like Lent and Advent is to develop positive habits that continue after the season has ended. There can be a lot of pressure wrapped up in figuring out what one is going to do or not do for times like these, but I’ve thankfully worked in room for transition time and ease and not really caring about what day we start on and when (or if!) we finish. We just keep trying, keeping pressing on, keep practicing. These positive habits are a Life Thing, not an Advent thing.

And beyond all of this, both can be true at the same time – Advent does, and does not matter, which is why I love Ordinary Time so much. We practice these things in ordinary time, too: Hope on Tuesday? Yep! Peace on Thursday night? You know it. Faith, Love, Patience? Wednesday at 4:16pm. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail, and the failures are successes when we look at then in the right light. So turn on the light!

For Practice

Contemplate what you enjoy or appreciate about Advent, and also what you don’t.
Create your own Advent practices that resonate with your truest self or express your inner light – something that you want to stay with you throughout the year.
Drop the stuff that creates negative energy, which might be a particular perspective, not necessarily a tangible thing.
Remember that Advent is here to serve you. You are not here to serve Advent.

Happy Advent-ing!

(Or Not!)

(Or A Little!)

Amy

The Universal Yogi