June Transition

June is a transition month - the end of spring and the beginning of summer. June’s element is fire, which purifies and gives life. It’s a highly yang time of movement and power, the season of completion, abundance and fulfillment. I have a hope that in summer I will reach the full flowering of my self and my dreams. 

June has a different pace, less scheduled though more active. It’s a time for fine-tuning, and for decisive action. June is when I like to energetically climb to the top of a hill, survey the landscape and climb down again, to put myself in context, evaluate my progress, see what I’ve accomplished since January, and make careful adjustments in my goals and priorities. 

My aim this month is to stand still and calm in the center while I am playing, cleaning, writing, socializing, teaching, digging in the garden, swimming, traveling, and painting. 

"Only when there is stillness in movement can the spiritual rhythm appear which pervades heaven and earth." -- Taoist text

Agenda:

1. Journal queries

2. Word #8 - Submission

3. Ray of Sun Meditation

1. Journal query: 

Summer’s question is “What is ideal?” 

Today I made a list of idyllic, peaceful, expansive, and exciting things I long to do this summer, including some I loved to do as a child and young adult, including:

• Go to the ocean
• Paint in the garden
• Hike at Three Sisters or Fall Creek
• Summer adventures and pool time with a preschooler
• Lazy baby-holding days
• Pick berries
• Reduce computer time and committee obligations
• See my family and celebrate mom's birthday together

2. Word #8 - Submission:

We have reached the end of the Pendle Hill pamphlet called Marking the Quaker Path: Seven Key Words Plus One, by Robert Griswold. This pamphlet has spoken to the condition of many Friends in my Meeting, who are ready to go deeper on this journey. Last month I wrote about Beloved Community and this month the final word is Submission.

"Progress in the life of the Spirit requires everything from us. It is not one aspect of our lives; it is our life. ... Early Friends were submissive so that their lives could be a reflection of the Divine Reality they had come to know within."

This final chapter seems to say if you aren't feeling faith, then you must not be doing it right. If you are not patiently submitting to God, but are trying to exercise "speculative wisdom", then you won't find God. "Pride and stubbornness keep us blind to all that doesn't fit our notions ... If our submissiveness comes from a deep humility, we will see more of Divine Reality and will act more wisely."

I find I far prefer the word yield to the word submit ... maybe because I'm a woman, and submitting seems forced on us, whereas yielding is a choice? 

He lists out how submission is required in each of the steps along the Quaker Path (but I've replaced it with yield):

1. We become aware of our condition - and yield to this reality.
2. We become open to an experience of the Divine - and yield to this experience.
3. We promise to keep our covenant with what is holy - and yield to the promise.
4. We take up the disciplines that keep us on the path - and yield to the disciplines we need for growth.
5. We trust the process of discernment - and yield to the process and what it reveals.
6. We accept and act on our authority to love - and yield to being faithful to our authority.
7. We find we can love unconditionally and belong in the beloved community - and yield to the power of love."

3. Ray of Sun Meditation: 

Today I will sit where I can feel the rays of the sun on my body. I will relax, be still, and soak up the light and heat of the sun. As I sit I will:

• Explore the sun’s inner qualities of warmth, light, clarity, and power. 
• Extend this awareness to all parts of my body, through each cell, my heart, mind, and spirit. 
• Radiate the sun's energy outward into the environment, in all directions. 
• Return to an awareness of my body, thank the Sun, and take this energy with me throughout the day.