Days of Passion

I began a Slow Passion Project last July, working to SLOW DOWN and GO WITH the FLOW, and INVOLVE MY WHOLE SELF in my Nature-Culture project. It went pretty well for a while, and now I want to recommit and reignite!

Agenda:

1. Read "The Art of Simple Living"

2. Clarify my passion plan

3. Ongo journal

4. Four days of passion

5. Flow plan

1. Read "The Art of Simple Living":

I'm re-beginning this little book by Shunmyo Masuno (2019), subtitled "100 Daily Practices from a Zen Buddhist Monk for a Lifetime of Calm and Joy". It's a compilation of many small habits we can adopt to bring us to inner peace, and feel less stressed. 

I'm starting with #1: Make time for Emptiness. Be with yourself as you are, but without haste, without impatience. He suggests I take just 10 minutes a day to sit and think about nothing, let my head clear, and notice the present moment.

#2: Look out the window. Just like that, you create space in your mind, and liberate yourself from busyness.

#3: Savor the morning air. Each day is not the same. He describes an orderly morning routine - the habits of your morning - that takes you outside each day to breathe in the air and notice the season, the first sunlight, the touch of the breeze, the color of the sky. "...everything is constantly shifting. Morning is the time when you can thoroughly experience these changes in nature."

2. Clarify my passion plan:

The parts of passion are drive, commitment, concentration, clarity, and flow.

Drive: I intend to manifest my courage, harness the power of productive obsession, and engage slow passion, a kind of simmering energy that keeps me focused on my priorities; 

Commitment: I intend to let go of caution and involve myself wholeheartedly (brain, body, and soul) to the service of this project that I love; take a vacation from my usual way of being, stretch (my whole self) beyond the way I’ve always done things;

Concentration: I intend to strategize about how to self-regulate and manage my emotions, and learn how to extinguish distractions (such as phone games and worrying) so I can concentrate; simplify my thinking, and conserve the use of my neural resources;

Clarity: I intend to maintain clarity of purpose, keep the end in mind, monitor my energy level and feeling of successful meaning-making, and recommit often to my ideals, intentions, and efforts (I'm doing this, damn it!).

Flow: And I intend to work the parts of this project into the flow of my day (flow in and out of it easily and smoothly), plan when to say yes and when to say no, and let it reach into all my roles - teacher, grandma, activist, writer, artist, home and garden - take it slow and let it grow organically.

3. Ongo journal:

I'm going back through this book by Catherine Madden and Jesse Weiss Chu (2022), focussing on the solo practices. Day 5 this week is Self-Empathy Meditation. 

"It is a radical shift to embrace any reactivity we experience and not make an enemy of it. Rather than saying, ... 'I must heal this', we ... see it as our life force expressing in us 'see me; allow me.'"

The practice is an in-the-moment process to use whenever I notice something I'm reacting to, or obsessing about. 

1. Stop: When I notice something on my mind or heart that needs compassionate attention, stop what I'm doing and breathe. Feel my body on the earth.
2. Touch my head and say "I'm telling myself", then name out the thoughts, charged stories, judgements, interpretations, and beliefs about the situation as they arise. Go slow and stay connected to the earth.
3. Touch my heart and bring awareness to my body sensations and feelings. List these out loud, without trying to change them. 
4. Touch my belly, and list the Needs that these thoughts and feelings are expressing, and take time to feel how these needs feel in my body. Do this until I feel connected to them. (If I can't rest into a connection, I might need to go through the process again.)
5. Anchored in this connection, shift my perspective to view the original situation from this new angle, and consider if there is an action I want to take.

4. Four days of passion: 
I'm committed to experimenting with passion through this whole month, but I'll take it week by week! The next four days (Friday through Monday) are the best block of time I have to obsess.

Tips: 

1. Wake up thinking about my project.
2. Make a flow plan for how I will explore my project throughout the day and in many roles.
3. Block out 1-2 hours for research and writing, plus 1-2 hours or other parts of the project: Artwork, photos, and hands-on projects.
4. Let my thoughts wander to my project often.
5. Carry a yellow pad with me to write down ideas that come to me.

5. Flow plan:

On Fridays I make a plan for Nature-Culture flow and writing through the next week. My Nature-Culture theme this month is winter regeneration and awareness. Today I am brainstorming the next topics in my Winter chapters, and also some garden, advocacy, and community tasks to support that work:

• Attend second "Return to the Earth", and write about how de-colonization connects to Earthcare.
• Write Awareness: Study soil health; Celebrate Imbalc
• Write Sanctuary: Support urban wildlife in winter
• Bird care schedule.
• Order new grow lights? Get new seeds.
• Attend Superfund story workshop.
• Attend Interfaith Earthkeepers planning session - advocate for legislation and faith events.
• Write Give Back: Advocate for clean air and a safe climate; A simple community climate awareness ceremony
• Design a Quaker climate awareness ceremony, with poetry, silence, testimony language, photography, and theater (Enlist Liz to help with the theater or story part) Include a very simple offering ceremony - stones? a word?
• Prepare for next Earth Action Meeting: Agenda, event plans and schedule; Legislation, climate ceremony...
• Begin to plan how to print a sample book to share, and or blog.