A Moment of Order?

A prayer of words in words for words…

This piece will likely reflect the order of the moment, tender, reflective, cool and subtle.

I’m well off my patterned habit of regular disciplined writing and sharing; even now this Sunday afternoon is long in the tooth, not 10 minutes from the 6 o’clock hour. Still, I have a little energy left and while Stephanie explores whether chicken is on the menu (birds available that don’t break your heart for their care) for our salad this evening, I’ll make a little gesture in hopes that I’ve something to offer to the page.

I wondered about today, and invited comment from my friend the I Ching…

It’s a cool San Diego summer day, a little overcast, but with flowers blooming and airflow into the house. My body is a little fragile feeling with antibiotics fending off a possible UTI. Diet and appetite have been soft in accordance. I’m feeling subtle waves of intensity across the spectrum, from personal, practice and wellness, to relational with care and correspondence, and functional fit of economics, all of this through to the global uncertainty of looming intensity in 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 years…

It’s a Sunday afternoon and the coming week’s calendar is already full to brimming. Much feels like it’s “almost behind,” and my endurance a little trepidations due to the factors mentioned above.

My heart feels in general open and awareness reasonably crisp, but will look to this throw of the virtual coins for some insight on context and dynamism…

The coins respond, a Moment of Conception changing to Final Order.

I like this pairing; two sides of a coin, poetically close to the truth of things. Each moment our last, each moment born again, fleeting doesn’t begin to describe. Agape we are in the very mouth of laughter, a shivering body invisible in unbroken perfection.

Songs of metaphor dazzle the senses, but what senses what, awareness crisp and filled with life and the breath stops there. Breath beyond breath.

Meanwhile I continue to drink in, drinking in the people, drinking in the shuddering body, drinking in the world and the water of life.

“Dragging the adversary about when there is no adversary will cost you your inner treasure.”

A quote from the reading at Café Soul, and an answer to my question of doubt in the practice of meditating on the view.

That last bit may be a little esoteric for some, let me try to give it some ground.

From the point of view of meditation, and perhaps particularly, of non-meditation meditation, The View simply refers to the totality of ever present experience. Realization is all that arises and recognizing this with an open heart (nonattachment) and the spirit of generosity (being an expression of that very arising) in service of beauty to that profound and unspeakable majesty, is the very heart of practice.

My dear beloved teacher, Daniel P Brown would put it thusly, “you’ll recognize it by the conduct.” At another time he said something perhaps even more pointed; “it’s profound freedom, but it’s freedom to serve all sentient beings, which is a lot of responsibility.”

I aspire to embody those teachings perfectly.

Perhaps this is just one of those moments, a moment of order. Periwinkle blue dances off my retina as I gaze to the flowers in the yard just outside my window. I drink in those colors now, they say through this page what I would wish all beings to know.

The evening crows dart about, the light is flat under hazy white clouds with little flecks of clear sky beyond.

My wheelchair creaks. The backrest has been giving me a bruise for a few years now, the skin there is a little rough and frayed. I tried to solve it when the chair was newer, but to no avail. I’ve added the “seating specialist” to the list of medically related appointments I’ve ought to make when schedule and mobility allows.

It’s the lone sound in a quiet house, the backdrop to my voice speaking these words into software into words. There is an evening breeze moving the trees that line the street.

Tender. Reflective. Cool. Subtle.