waiting

Once upon a time I attempted to bake bread ~ crescent rolls, actually. I meticulously followed the recipe, unlike my maternal grandmother ~ an instinctively gifted baker, but the perfectly golden rolls that emerged from the oven were inedible. I'd adhered to the prescribed times for the yeast to do its work and the dough to rise, but evidently it wasn't long enough. What I was left with were rock-hard, empty shells.

Forgive me if you've heard the story, but it seems to be a recurring theme in my life.

Today I listened to Kim Rosen, featured guest on New Dimensions, a Sunday morning staple with my tea. Kim, "poet, spoken word artist," discussed her new book, Saved by a Poem, an exploration of ~ and testament to ~ the power of the written and spoken word. She shared her story of losing everything in the Bernard Madoff scheme and the timely discovery of Kindness, a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. That poet's words resonated with Rosen, shifting her perspective and experience of all that followed.

Typically I have pen and paper handy ready to capture whatever resonates with me as well. Today's list includes: Kindness (Naomi Shihab Nye), alchemy, breath, rhythm, embodiment, poetry as ancient form of prayer, Emily Dickinson's Nobody, the "marriage of inner and outer,"Against Certainty (Jane Hirshfield) ...

In them I hear echoes of my journey away from the corporate world nearly two decades ago: letting go, a leap of faith, willingness to risk losing everything to be true to what I knew was right for me. In them I hear elements of the life I've felt compelled to live since. However, I've been experiencing a familiar reluctance during the past year or so. Still drawn to what called me to my work, it's the how that confounds me now.

I consider "can do versus want to" ~ a basic tenet of motivation from my corporate incarnation ~ when contemplating my own moves and opportunities. Just because I can and have done something doesn't mean that I want to repeat or continue it. There's a flashing yellow light at the intersection of opportunity and motivation that warns us to slow down, to proceed with caution.

A few weeks ago I was taken with a New Dimensions interview with Anne D. LeClaire, author of "Listening Below the Noise, A Meditation on the Practice of Silence." Last week it was using feng shui principles to create a room that soothes and inspires. Today it was Kim Rosen and the power of words. Silence, substance and self-expression.

Perhaps what I've been calling reluctance is waiting.

Waiting requires willingness and patience, but more aware of the inner workings, I trust them. To rush runs the risk that what seems perfect is hollow.

My word for today: Education

yin

So far so good on the feng shui front. Even the plant is responding well. It only occurs to me now that this impulse and its results might been due to the influence of yin.

A few weeks ago a friend signed off her email: Hope this finds you enjoying the Fall colors and beautiful transition period of yang to yin. That got my attention ~ introducing yin/yang as a way of viewing the seasons. It's a more pleasurable, meaningful way to view the waning light and winter's approach.

That stayed with me and, as yin will do, must have found a home in my subconscious. Some of my most serendipitous surprises have come in the simple course of events, words following to explore or explain them. While I'm not knocking yang and its role as necessary complement, it doesn't invite contemplation or reflection. That's the role and gift of yin.

This interpretation makes sense to me. Much of my day is spent expending energy albeit in often productive ways, but I also need times and ways to withdraw. Yin is receptive. It is home to inspiration, insight and calm. I'd seen the feng shui DVD mentioned before, but perhaps what I responded to this time was the invitation to calm, to peace.

Healing sleep ~ among other things ~ does that for me.

My dreams had been filled with memorable images of living spaces a week or so before I redid the bedroom. All different, what they had in common were open expansive spaces, light, and room to move easily. Ease. If yin had been whispering to me, I'd been too preoccupied to hear or understand the subtlety. It spoke of peaceful surroundings.

Curious but my dreams' meaning still eluding me, it took a TV screen filled with images to move me closer to what I needed. Put another way, could it be that yin gave me the dreams and yang showed me the way?

My word for today: trust.

peace

I spent the other day rearranging the bedroom. It was a seemingly spontaneous act preceded only by having attempted to sort and de-clutter a bit the day before. Quite unrelated, later I had watched a DVD about feng shui* before returning it to the library and suddenly could imagine my space-challenged room in a different way.

So I embarked on the next stage of what was quickly emerging as a grand experiment -- shifting furniture, dusting and vacuuming as I went. (Notice that I hadn't said I'd really cleaned the previous day.) And amazingly everything works in the new configuration. Full disclosure: a good third of the room still needs attention, but baby steps... One feng shui premise is not placing your bed directly in line with the door. Duly noted and corrected despite my skepticism that it would fit elsewhere.

However it appears that I'm on a slippery slope. I just quickly Googled feng shui + bedroom to see if I'd correctly stated that point about bed position, having already returned the DVD to the library. Now it seems that I should not have put a plant in the room. It looks great to my eye, but presumably plants don't work well unless the room is large. Hmm...

This all started because the DVD promised peace and harmony and my word for that day was... you guessed it, peace. I hoped that the bedroom might actually feel more peaceful and my nights more restful, and that has been the case so far. So I think I won't let my blissful state be shattered by too much precision and nit-picking. Still, I just added the plant this afternoon and if I'm restless tonight, it's outta there tomorrow.


* Feng shui: creating environments for success and well-being / Feng Shui Productions ; Wellspring Media ; producer Deborah Gee.