What Am I Forgetting?!

In all my frenetic sabbatical planning and jabbering over the last few days -- both virtual and actual -- I’ve had the nagging feeling that I’ve omitted some agenda item.  I couldn’t stop the monkey mind for long enough to recall.  Something inconsequential, I reassured myself, while reviewing paper scrap lists and rewinding mental tapes. Probably nothing, really. Then, ah yes, it came to me as I surfaced into wakefulness this morning.

I need to learn to be still enough to hear god’s voice.

Either you saw that coming a mile away, or you think I’ve lost my mind.  Those who know me well may get the unstill part, though I insist on being at least a hopeful contradiction.   In some ways I see myself as a sluggish teddy bear of a girl, an airy-fairy sort of naïf.  And while others acknowledge there’s a pinch of that in the batter, they also tell me I am hyper, sometimes scarily labile, a little high-maintenance.  I do not dispute:  I am the former, wrapped in the latter.  Or vice versa.  I ruminate, overanalyze, emote, wring hands, and then tunnel stealthily (joyfully!) into Oprah marathons with Malomar backup.  I sleep with the radio on at night because I cannot turn my thoughts off long enough to rest without distraction, yet I am the first and most enthusiastic sunrise witness, shouting rooftop, "King of the world!!"   I am fundamentally a peppy Pollyanna, knotted up in a pretzel of frightened cynicism. 

I need to learn to be still enough to hear god’s voice.

Of course, I define god broadly, catholically with a small c.  I mean the hum of the universe, things as they are, the unjudgable here and now.  I’ve always been attracted to the spirituality of Buddhism:  who can argue with the idea that no matter how hard or beautiful or fleeting life is, calm attention followed by open-minded acceptance is likely to make the band-aid rip less painfully?

I have read a number of books about Zen, downloaded the best meditation tapes, devoured Eat, Pray, Love, and just appreciated the hell out of the whole darn dharma.  I am a confirmed yogi manqué, but it is time to get out of the armchair and onto the yoga mat.  Those of you who suspected I have lost my mind are premature:  that is the hope, the plan, but I need practice. 


I need to lose my mind.

So where to begin?  There are yoga schools galore, but, meh.  The Zen meditation classes at the Unitarian church we used to attend are on summer hiatus.  I want something NOW and more dramatic.  I know, I know, I am not unaware of the irony and need expressed…so is a week at an ashram on a work-study plan overshooting the mark, as is my worrisome wont?

Perhaps, but this is my journey and it will, by definition, bear my smudgy fingerprints.  Sarah and Susan may come with, which would be lovely.  Solo seems not inappropriate, either, so I will flow.  And I promise, I will follow up with the meh, because that is the root of medicinal and methodical.  I will practice and become perfectly imperfect.

The ashrams that beckon:

http://www.anandaashram.org/workstudy.html

http://www.kadampanewyork.org/

http://www.sivananda.org/