Return

The past three or four months have not been easy.  I have been overrun by busyness, and longed to return to the joyful communion of last summer and early fall. Attempts to begin again have been short-lived; I have lacked the discipline to sustain practice.  The end result:  some high points and some real low points, fluctuations of mood dependent on which way the wind blows.  The hurricane has tossed and swirled and I have not found center. I am a sailboat tossed at sea, without equanimity to keep me afloat.

And now I have come full circle-- approaching Ash Wednesday this week.  It was Lent of last year when I began the practice of nightly writing, following meditation. I credit my dedication to regular contemplative practice with the fruit that blossomed in my life last year, the fruit that continues to ripen and sweeten on the vine.  I must return.  Return to sitting, to writing, to train rides and morning woods, to slow conversations and deep listening, to healing circles, to synchronicity and aliveness, to hope.  I must return to worship on street corners, to warm mugs at coffeehouses, to waterfalls and crowded stations, to mountain hikes and marshes, to long hugs and long letter, to hearts held in love and hands held in prayer. I have fallen away from so much in frustration and despair, and I must lift myself from these dredges and return to the river that brings me life.

Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  I begin again in centering prayer, in the silence of a red room.  I begin again to bring words to the page... and to bring my soul back to life.  It will take discipline, and the heart is lonely...the spirit is willing, the flesh weak.  Memory and will suffice.... I will do my best.