March Sabbath for Action

March 2022

The month of March is filled with a riot of color and activity. It’s a fresh, youthful, quick-flowing month - the start of something new.

In March I do the work; I tend and nurture my family, my garden, and my projects. March is a month for being a physical creature; for feeling all sensations, and being really present in my body - playful and young-in-spirit.

In the winter I dreamed dreams and made plans, but as spring approaches, it's time to get into action. Today I have a wide-open day to fill with the work of creating my vision here on the earth. 

Agenda:

1. Keeping the Sabbath

2. Read "It's a Meaningful Life" 

3. Make a quilt square

4. Plant greens

5. Take a bird walk

1. Keeping the Sabbath:

Keeping a sabbath day is a personal thing. For me, it's a day with a slow pace, and everything I do has a flavor of peace. I schedule some work, but it's work I find fulfilling, or uplifting. Simple is a great word to describe my ideal activities for the Sabbath: Simple tasks, simple foods, and an undemanding schedule.

My Sabbath might be on Saturday or on Sunday, or part of both days. My perfect sabbath is a celebration, a holiday. I keep it holy with my attitude: I do not rush, complain, or worry.

Today my theme is action, but each task I plan to take action on is a creative offering to the universe.

2. Read It's Meaningful Life: 

This last Christmas Eve I began to re-read Bo Lozoff's book. When I first read this book I was in my mid-40's, and I now realize how foundational it was for me.

I'm up to chapter four, It's Not the Top, It's the Climb, which is about that oddly Western way of trying to get the reward with the least amount of effort. Of course, it is your struggles and the efforts you take that give you the big rewards. There is no easy way to develop courage without actually facing your fears. And we must "look at the possibility that some of our fears are with us for the purpose of overcoming them."

The practice that goes with this chapter is to face fears. I know this idea informed many of my adult decisions: Going into prisons to work on non-violence training, getting back on my bike just weeks after being hit by a van, and (my biggest phobia) speaking in front of the city council.

What fears are still weighing me down? Some tips:

1. Breathe steadily and calmly whenever you face fear or stress.
2. Let a friend know that you are intending to face a fear, so they can bear witness.
3. Once you've faced a fear, keep at it so it doesn't sneak back in on you.

"Life is merely the vehicle for the awakening of our souls."

3. Make a quilt square:

I've been working on a quilt for my grandson (which might be completed by next Christmas!), and I'm finishing up the first block, which is an image of his favorite cartoon - Trash Truck (If you don't know this show, I highly recommend it).

4. Plant greens:

Today is dry enough to work the soil a bit. I will loosen the bed with a fork, plant spinach seeds and kale plants (near the collards and beets), then mulch with duck poop straw and compost.

Anka is patrolling the edges.

5. Take a bird walk:

I've been reading Brian Mertin's fantastic post: How Does Animal Communication Work? 

Since animal communication is primarily non-verbal, it’s extremely important to focus on what your senses are telling you. This is all about observation, body language, tone of voice, eye contact, and being tuned in with how your own body language is affecting the comfort level and behavior of animals around you. This is pretty subtle stuff if you’ve never trained your eyes to spot these cues! It means you need to have really good sensory acuity.

His formula for animal communication is sensory awareness + intuition (but it's a kind of common-sense-informed intuition), and you can develop both of these. Brian suggests that these are both important, and as you work on systematically developing your sensory awareness, you should also keep an intuition journal, to record whenever you get a gut feeling, or a flash of an image in your mind.

...keep 80-90% of your focus external, and 10-20% internal. This seems to be the best ratio of staying connected with your senses, while also tracking the information coming from your instincts. Sometimes it might come in the form of a mental flash or insight, or you might get a gut sense of being pushed or pulled in a certain direction. ... You can’t really explain it, but if you take an attitude of curiosity, I think you’ll see there’s actually some useful information here.

Today I'm going to the nearby creek / water drainage and practice these two skills.