The bottom line:
”…opening the spirit within us to the spirit of what is.”
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, for October 26.
Blank.
Woke up.
Boiled some water, while doing a Seven with pelvic focus. Jiggling around, back, forth, a spine-wiggle or two. Or three. Side to side, in eights and in circles. Wakes my body up. Slowly and gently, I move on lighter feet to the bedroom.
Drag the covers from the bed, lie down on my sheepskins, with my butt up against the bed, feet on top, as if sitting on the side of the bed, back against the floor.
Do my Wim Hof breathing exercise, three rounds, simultaneously doing the Walkfeeling starter-move, opening up, aligning, getting hips and legs and back all working together.
Get up off the floor, drag the covers back into bed, bunching the pillows behind my back, I sit down, with iPad in hand.
Getting ready to write, I space off into the distance, not knowing what to write.
Nothing really comes to me.
Drink my now-lukewarm water, picking up The Book of Awakening, to read the entry of the day.
Blank.
So I do what I have a habit of doing.
This.
Writing down where I am, what I’ve done to get here, and all of a sudden.
There I am. (Or here?)
The fingers start to fly across the keyboard, dropping words upon words on to the screen.
Is there value in this?
For me? Yes. I think so. No.
I know so. Letting it, whatever it is for the day, flow out of me, holds value.
It’s an acknowledgment of being here. Of being present to what is. Observing myself, my surroundings, my emotional and mental state, I at once land here. Grounded. And at the same time, it’s freeing. Opens a door for my mind to go walk-abouting, skip-skipping along like a little child, uninhabited by the shoulds and musts of the day, of life. Simply being. Showing up and noticing what shows up. Responding to it. (The blankness. There. Here. And me, dancing with whatever and whoever comes knocking on the door.)
For others? Yes. I think so.
And No. I wouldn’t presume to say I know so. I do not k n o w if this is or can be useful to anyone else. What I do know is that me sharing what goes on within me, within this quirky brain and body of mine, often seems to resonate. Not with everyone (never my desire. I am not for everyone.), not even with many (how do I define many?) but most definitely with some. A few. (And those few. I do write, ship, share, for you. For me, yes. But also for you. Because this is another dance that I actively choose to engage in. The dance between me and the unknown. The unknowns?)
I have a few different Pages documents available to me when I plonk down in bed, ready for my morning writing. I have my so-called Morning Pages (which have never been what Julia Cameron describes, not for me. Most of what I put in that document shows up on my blog. Not ’for my eyes only’, because writing ’for my eyes only’ doesn’t seem to work for me. It’s not where the magic lies. For me.), a practice I started in 2016 (opened my Morning Pages from 2016, scrolling through parts of it. Oh my. There’s stuff there, unfinished stuff, snippets of me, that I never did return to, as intended. All of my Morning Pages documents are filled with them. Always thinking I’ll get back to them, ”finishing” it all. Never have. Never will?). There’s The Depth(s), containing my deep dive into shame, created on August 22nd, 2020, and at the moment, most often my go-to-starting point for my morning writings. Then there’s a recent addition, a document containing writings for a blog I just started, another blog. (An anonymous one.)
Sometimes, I know just what document to open, because I know what wants to come out fits specifically into one or the other of these documents. Other times, something comes out onto one document that doesn’t belong there. Like this.
I opened The Depth(s) today, and upon putting finger to keyboard, when blank came to me and I kept on, I knew, this text needs to be moved to my Morning Pages of 2020 because this text isn’t a part of the deep dive.
And I like that.
I even love it.
How I am adhering to the practice of writing, but not to having to write something specific, if something specific doesn’t come to mind.
Being open for what is, what wants to happen, what comes out of me. Through me.
A recent addition to the writings of my Morning Pages is the bottom line, which I can never write beforehand. It comes when all is done, all is out, and I look through it, trying to find the essence of the post. This is a practice that challenges me, in more ways than one.
First, to remember to do it.
Second, to actually find the essence. Not always easy.
Third, to capture that essence, in a sentence or two. Not always easy either.
Aaaaah.
Deep inhale, exhale.
Picking up The Book of Awakening, reminded of the entry of the day, I find it. The essence of this post. And with that. I am done. With writing. For now.