Peace Within...

Sometimes it is hard to find, but it always there.  Always.  I know there is a place within me I can retreat to or access that allows me to bathe in the peace.  Sometimes, for reasons I am not completely aware, I have trouble accessing this space within me, even though I know it is available to me all the time.  

It is like sometimes in life, I get lost within myself.  The clamoring of others and life circumstances gets so loud that I am unable to think clearly.  Without meditation practice every day, I would be lost to myself.  This time I take daily to sit with what is, whatever it is, is absolutely vital to me being able to find that calm within myself.  Without the daily practice, it is like I lose my way, becoming lost to me and you.

I think, for a long time, the deep well of peace was clouded and hard to get to so I kind of stopped trying.  I allowed the dysfunction of others and then myself to obscure the path to this inner sanctum.  I allowed the daily grind, the sickness of others to derail me from my quest.  I didn’t prioritize me so I became lost to me.

Today, I know where to go and how to get there.  I have done the recent work to clear the path and to maintain the trail that always takes me to the place of compassionate understanding and love.  And I have a desire, a deep desire to make this journey to the peace within daily.  I don’t always hit my mark, but I set the intention and now it is a daily quest.

I didn’t know that returning to a daily meditation practice would prepare me so well for what was to come in less than a month.  I began again in earnest on November 24th after being sporadic and mostly absent for about two years.  My own conduct in a relationship becoming the bar to me being willing to sit with God, myself and my actions.  I was ashamed of myself and the people I allowed into my life and all the attendant fallout we caused me.  So I found it nearly impossible to sit with myself.  Then on my mom’s Big Sur birthday trip, she invited me to sit with her.  At first, I said no. Feeling like I had better things to do, but half way down the hall, I realized there was literally nothing more important than to sit with my mom that morning.  And so it is now most mornings.   I bring all of myself to this practice and in return, I am granted peace and understanding and compassion and a surety about my purpose in this life even as the sands shift swiftly below me.

I didn’t know my dad was going to be dead by the year’s end.  I didn’t know my job would be gone too.  I didn’t know that I would begin this cycle of deep loss and grief.  I couldn’t have known, but the universe did.  And no accidents, I was returned to a daily mediation practice without my knowledge, assent or really any real thought.  I just said yes this one time and then, here I am many days later.

And I absolutely know that I would be a fucking mess if I wasn’t sitting every day.  I would think that I needed to do a whole bunch of stuff that would be unproductive in the long run.  Instead, sitting every day, just gives me access to an ever increasing ability to be still amongst the chaos and confusion.  I am here, living, breathing in and out as the world kind of falls apart around me and I am ok.  I am peaceful and content.  And present and it is all ok in all its unokness.

Like anything in this life, attention directs our energy and path.  My time sitting every day provides me strength and depth and access to parts of myself long locked away in some sort of misguided self flagellation, for things I didn’t do well or people I allowed access to me that I should have never allowed to alight my path for 20 seconds.  I am still learning that the people who want you are not always pure in their want, or sincere with their intentions.  A great number of them just want to use you for their own gain, with little to no regard for your well being whatsoever.  I have allowed people like that access to me.  And I have paid dearly for that decision.

The lessons repeat until we learn them.  And I pray I have learned them sufficiently at this time to alter and adjust course so that I may become a different, a more whole version of myself.  And I will waste no more time with people like this who take and take and give only the hollowest of substance in return.

I am learning what grows me and what almost kills me.  Slowly, so very fucking slowly.  But I am here, living, breathing in and out, meditation accomplished for the day.  Loose plans for a lovely day and another shot at living peacefully amidst the chaos and confusion.  I am grateful.  I am alive.  I am present.  And for today, that is enough to live within the peaceful abiding within me...

Again, still...