Trust Your Practice

Description of Practice:
The teacher, Pattabhi Jois said: “Practice and all is coming.” With these words, he encouraged us to practice and also to release our expectations for great progress. We can trust in our meditation practice. By arriving to the moment, breath by breath, day by day, we will change. We need not rush the timeline or aspire to specific results for our transformation. This practice includes guidance for cultivating awareness of the present moment, explores a breathing technique/pranayama, and offers a long period for silent sitting and poem by Rumi.

PackRat Arrived and My Home Began Dissolving
I've never sold a home before. I had no idea of the obstacles to sharing a property that I have fallen in love with, but must leave. Staging a home is an entirely foreign concept - making it look like it's lived in by an O.C.D. family who never leaves coffee mugs in their sink or not-quite-dirty-enough-to-wash shirts on the rim of their laundry basket. ​

But we did it. For two weeks during the not-so-hot end of May, we put half of our stuff in a shipping container and sent it to a warehouse in Glen Burnie, MD. We won't see it again until we find our next home. With our current home under contract, Bobby planning to live on his sailboat, and me planning to rent a furnished room in a condo south of Amherst, MA, it will be awhile before we see that stuff again.

It is WEIRD to be winding down the life we've created here. Our home is dissolving before my eyes. This house showed up in my dreams years before we moved to Maryland. I woke up from these dreams and described the house to Bobby. He remembered it when we started looking for our first home. In our seven years here, we've sheltered family and friends in our upstairs suite, planted enviable vegetable gardens, and watched each other grow up and older. We are systematically dismantling the evidence of this. Sitting in a staged living room, watching Tig Notaro's "One Mississippi" on Amazon Prime, I am very aware of empty space around me and being in limbo.

I don't believe in endings. I watch nature and I believe in cycles. But there is this part of every cycle that feels like an ending. It's the part when the leaves decay and the flowers die. It's not the pretty part of the cycle. It's kind of sad and muted. And that's where I feel like I'm sitting these days.

I've got a few constants here. Daisy dog predictably wakes me up at sunrise with two paws on my stomach. Bobby still teases me when I take two sips of his chicory coffee. And each morning, I enter into my practice space, set a timer, and give myself a chance to breathe consciously and fully. Thank god for family. Thank god for practice.

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