Living Woke

Wake up, raise your level of awareness. It’s a real, physical thing you can do. How do we do that? Why do we do that? 

We wake up when we pay attention to what's going on in the present moment. When we wake up, we experience our lives completely, through all of our senses, with all of our beings.

When we’re sleepwalking, we’re still paying attention, but we’re spending it carelessly. We’re not paying attention to the effects of our thoughts and actions. We’re playing along, but we’re not aligned with our purposes and values. We’re only using parts of ourselves and letting the rest go along for the ride.

Attention is all we have. How do we want to spend it?

That is the question. Whether in quotidian concerns or in the development of a grand vision, we spend it. When we spend it on activities, we become better at them. We shape our physical realities by what we pay attention to (and what we don't). We take care of the things we pay attention to and neglect the things we ignore.

I play the viola episodically. Most of the time it sits ignored on the top of the piano. I spend my attention elsewhere. I get better at other things, and my viola-playing hangs out at the barely literate level. If I wanted to play the viola publicly, I'd need to step up my game.

The dreamer imagines success at something, but doesn't spend attention actually doing the thing. The dreaming takes attention, but it's not the kind of attention that actualizes anything. 

I’m not happy with some of the things I’ve spent vast amounts of attention on. My attention went nowhere or it fed an end I didn’t want to realize.

It’s hard to wake up! It takes effort and energy, a willingness to question and shake things up. It risks much, and doesn’t let us hide behind our facades.

Waking up, recognizing the truth of our actions, how they actually affect ourselves and the world around us, is hard work! Paying attention to meta issues both makes us pay more attention to our daily existence and analyze it. Analysis always requires paying attention. Whatever issues we choose to work on get the juice. They grow and progress.

What will I spend my attention on today? What thoughts and endeavors do I most want to realize?

Humility is Endless

I was doing some stretching and mild exercise.  My body told me to get down on the floor and crawl around. As soon as I did it, my body reminded me that it's really good to crawl around on and sit on the floor. Stretches things out, limbers things up, gets the juices flowing, uses muscles in different ways.

I did a lot of that when I had young kids (and I had young kids for a long time). My back loved it. Worked my leg and butt and belly muscles in all sorts of useful ways.

I want a tatami mat room set up like an adult play space. Come to think of it, I want an adult sized jungle gym to go with it. Why aren't there play grounds and play spaces for adults where we can just hang out and do physical things with our bodies?

Be humble. Get low. Maybe it's as much about the postures as the social or spiritual meaning.

turtles all the way down

As a child, I was taught to face adversity head-on, to be brave and cheerful and do the best I can. If I was brave enough, and maintained a positive outlook, and meticulously did what I could, I would be given  enough strength and faith to face whatever life dished out.

My grandmother told me that, matter-of-factly, with a Depression-era story of her mother patching the family's shoes with construction paper.

My grandmother came from a long line of strong, capable women. Her niece eulogized her sister by saying that she did the best she could. She faced up to her life with courage and a smile, gave her daughters a good start in life, and took care of the work before her.

That particular teaching holds the core of my faith. It's what makes it possible to do the best I can and trust God (or whoever's on duty that night) to take care of the rest.

Many times, facing some dark night of the soul, I've scraped the bottom of the barrel for the dregs of my faith. Sometimes, I can't come up with much, but there is always just enough. Just enough to get through the night. Just enough to see me through to the next helping hand, the next oasis, the next spiritual pit stop.

Broken-foot nights can be bleak. Dark thoughts of my uselessness, my restlessness, my intense boredom cross over and tinge other areas of my life with despair. As I try to get my body comfortable, my heart tosses and turns as well.

And yet, the dark nights have gifts, if I wrestle long enough with them.   After I've traveled through the alleys of despair, I discover that I've carried my faith and my courage with me all this way. They're what kept me going at my bleakest moments, what wiped the tears from my eyes and the snot from my nose and told me to get on with it.

Suddenly, a flash of gold in the gloom: the grandmotherly kindness that insisted I learn to be brave and cheerful and do my best.

When you are down to what you can carry in your heart, it's good to know you have something that can carry you through the night.