I give Thanks

Thanksgiving for me this year has been wonderful! The whole weekend has been absolutely filled with a lot of peace and joy. I have been very present to all the activities I have been involved in and in absolute equanimity! I owe a lot of this to the spiritual work I have been doing and the almost three straight weeks of meditation.

What follows is an excerpt from an email I wrote to my best friend on the Friday morning following Thanksgiving:

We had out Thanksgiving party last night and it went wonderfully! I was in the moment the whole night and for the most part did not feel the twinges of "what's missing". Even when the table was discussing different kinds of potatoes! =) We actually had a very nice meal with lots of flavor - I say that only b/c it is much different then the Thanksgiving food from my youth...

Anyway, I have had a nice couple of days including meeting a very nice librarian who helped me pick out some books to read for the Thanksgiving weekend. Beth and I are just hanging out cuddling today and are thinking we might go out and do something but we are just not sure what. However, I spent almost a full day (1/2 day Wed and 1/2 day Thursday) prepping for the party so it is nice to just relax. I actually enjoyed all the work I got to do for the party, cleaning and doing yard work. Tomorrow, we are going sailing with Greg and Lisa and on Sunday going to the Botanical Gardens with Beth's mom. It has been and will be a fun weekend! I hope yours is going the same.

I am reading some Rumi poetry...he was a Sufi poet from the 12th century. The librarian did not suggest Rumi, I was looking for that - someone mentioned in our Enneagram class that he was a good type 4. Although some of his stuff is so metpahored I don't get it all, much of the other stuff is clicking given where I am right now....I am in a very positive space in a relaxed way =) I mean when you spend 20 minutes a day meditating on your holy idea it is hard to not be happy =) Anyway, the other books he suggested were a Demian from Herman Hesse and Lake Wobegone Days from Garrison Keeler. So far Hesse is winning.

On another note, I went for a swim in our 50 degree pool yesterday. It was SO cold I actually kind of sank into it, lost myself and meditated a little bit. It was very pleasant and not something we would be doing with Thanksgiving anywhere else!

To follow on to that email I spent all of Friday relaxing in the moment and reading. Typically on a day off I would be itching to run all over and get stuff done or exercise. Not this weekend. It has been great to take things as they come and enjoy things in the moment. I continue to have wisdom in the moment and I continue to not focus on what is missing. It has been quite wonderful! Sailing on Saturday was an absolutely great time and Greg B even let me take the tiller and sail the boat for quite a while.

I guess the last thing I will add is the direction of my meditations has changed slightly. I have been meditating on the holy idea of the state of holy origin. When i began this meditation a couple of weeks ago and imagined an image that represented holy origin I imagined images of me as an infant and that image spoke to me of being born perfect whole and holy and I realized in that moment of meditation that I am still perfect, whole and holy. Recently the meditative image has popped up as a being (me) of perfect white light, floating in a background of that same perfect white light. And although the being is defined within that white light, within that holiness, it is a diffused definition. It is part of that holiness, made up of that holiness and connected to that holiness, yet a separate being within it. That is me, existing within the state of holy origin. It makes me smile. It brings me equanimity and balance. I am no different than anyone else, we all exist within that holiness. It is just part of my path to remember that and know it and feel it. There is no need to look for what is missing when I am holy and you are holy, b/c everything I need is right here!

For all these things, I give Thanks!