Squirrel Acrobatics....

I am working on beginning a meditation practice. Hard to understand why setting aside fifteen or twenty minutes each day just to breathe and be still seems like such a challenge, but for me it is. I wake up, lie in bed and think "hey, rather than get up, I could just meditate right here. who makes the meditation rules anyway? lying here, I can count my breathes....zzzzzzzz." That's how it frequently works. Then there are the days when I do get up, devote my time to meditation and spend the greater part of it thinking.."how do I know if I'm doing this right? if I'm asking this, I'm probably not doing it right because aren't I supposed to not be thinking and clearly I'm thinking....how would I even know if I wasn't thinking if I couldn't think that? I'm clearly missing something...." But there have been a few times in my admittedly brief (okay, just about a week) practice, when I've felt (not thought, mind you) a loss of distinction between me and the world. I can't describe it, but it is just a glimmer of the sense of being that is what is bringing me back in the hopes of feeling that again. This morning was not the morning. BUT instead because I wasn't closing my eyes (like I think I'm supposed to) and was looking up to the window and out to the woods behind my house, I saw some AMAZING, EYE-POPPING, GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH type acrobatic moves from one amazing squirrel. He was LEAPING great distances from tree to tree, limb to limb - all in the same area, so it did not seem he was trying to get anywhere as much as he was celebrating the day and his ability to fly and being alive. So no, I didn't get a sense of oneness with the universe today, but I was reminded how everyday should be a celebration of the life we have been given. This meditation thing - I'm a fan.

Sunday Afternoon

Skip this one because it's going to be a gripefest. Even more reason to skip it is it's going to be a gripefest about something I should be grateful for. Arrgh!! A Sunday afternoon with ambivalent weather - too cold and dreary to go out, but shots of sun that occasionally make an appearance to highlight how much I need to wash my windows, which reminds me of all the other things that I NEED to be doing...such as writing general comments to distribute with graded memos this week...which are making it impossible for me to come up with something fun to do that is not completely guilt ridden. I'm giving in to a cup of tea with milk and sugar and the book on my bedside table. Everything else will get done. Just not today.

Calling an end to winter.....

I don't get to create the calendar, or choose the weather forecast, or even always pick the channel that the weather forecast is on in my house. (Dave Murray, I've had a bone to pick with you ever since I was in high school and I saw you at McDonalds and complimented you on the weather...I think my words were a giddy "Nice day, Dave!" and you responded with a snort. I've never felt the same about you or your unreliable forecasts since.) But I am calling a halt to my own personal winter. An end to my days of not being able to get out of bed followed by days in anticipation of returning to bed. Hibernation is no longer an option. Admittedly, I am writing this from bed, but I am sitting up in bed, rather that trying to simply adjust my head so that I can see whatever crap is on tv from my pillow. This is a step in the right direction. Time to bloom!!

Pile of papers.....

Nothing inspires me to do things I've been putting off like a pile of papers waiting to be graded. Organize my bookshelf? Check. Catch up on missed episodes of Project Runway? Check. Scrub the grout in the shower.........well, grading papers is better than some tasks. Time to dig in. But first, I need to go to Art Mart and get some of those "Le Pens" I like to grade with. At least it's a step in the right direction......But even before that, I may have a few photos that need to be "stachetasticed".....love that app!