My perfect sabbath is a celebration, a holiday. I keep it holy with my attitude: I don't rush, complain, or worry. 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.
This is the time of the waning crescent "balsamic moon" - the final yin phase, a pause that marks the end point in this phase. Now we can ease off a bit on actively pursuing goals, slow down, go within, and attend to inner work, renewal, and self-care.
Agenda:
1. Read "Your Heart Was Made for This":
2. Surrender, rest, recuperate
3. Renewal brainstorm
4. Expressing Needs in the World
1. Read "Your Heart Was Made for This":
Part One explores six core qualities, and the 4th is Mindfulness, about training my mind to stop endless habitual thinking, feeling, and reacting, and instead become wakeful, alert, receptive, and engaged. I can become awake to each experience moment by moment, feeling the air and my clothing, and really listening to what people say, in a balanced and curious way, without bias or need for control. "We're not judging what's happening, waiting for something else, or trying to get something. Thus mindfulness has two parts: Awareness and equanimity."
Practice being aware of the sensations of my body as I move: How my breath feels, my hands, sensations of walking, what I hear and see - and sustain this through my day. It will bring vibrancy to the world.
2. Surrender, rest, recuperate:
This next few days is a time to be empty; the time for striving is past. As the moon’s light fades into darkness I get to relax and surrender to the universe.
Today I will plan some "Beingness" into my days: A walk just for the sake of walking, a visit alone to a coffee shop to savor a latte, a few moments to sit in the sun and listen to the bees. And also time to reflect on the past month.
Some things will always be out of my control. As the moon's appearance dwindles, I let go of useless beliefs, unreasonable expectations, grudges, defensiveness, projects that don't fit into my life, and anything else that isn't working for me. I turn these all over to the Divine and give thanks, my way of opening to receive new intentions in the new month.
3. Renewal brainstorm:
Every month before the New Moon, I take some time to think about self-care, renewal, and "sharpening the saw"; that is, I look at my whole Being, and how I can live with more balance and resilience.
I try to renew all four dimensions of my life (body, mind, heart, and spirit), as Stephen Covey taught: I spend about an hour each day on a combination of physical, mental, and spiritual regeneration activities, plus work to improve my social skills and relationships. Today I will review how I'm doing, and make note of new ideas for the month ahead.
My ideas:
Body & Discipline:
- Stand Strong work out every morning;
- Plan and prepare healthy lunches, snacks, dinners;
- Drink 4 glasses of water daily.
- Daily hygiene, including moisturizing
- Doctor, dentist, and eye appointments
- Research and write about Nature-Culture;
- Study foundational qualities (mindfulness, concentration, wisdom, curiosity)
- Habit-building (for mindfulness, health habits, equanimity skills; beingness; finish things, and preparedness);
- Practice watercolor skills;
- Enjoy nature daily with photos and grubbing;
- Beingness routine: After a pause to reset my awareness, shift into active BEING, moving through 5 tasks with mindfulness - aware and awake, listening to my intuition.
- Keep a "new narrative" journal, as a tool for creative shifts in awareness;
- Balance theme: Connection to Spirit and inner self; equanimity; creating parameters for social life; being alone with flare.
- (Ongo) Expressing Needs in the World (weekly);
- Living with parameters for social life;
- Be in the moment with my grandsons;
- Anger management journal and practices.
4. New narrative for Beingness:
One of my weekly Creative Perspective tasks is to define a new narrative, today for the habit of Beingness.
After my nap I will take a brief Beingness reset, and then shift into active BEING, moving through 5 tasks with mindfulness - aware and awake, listening to my intuition.
5. Expressing Needs in the World:
On Sundays I often go through this Ongo practice to define the Needs I want to express:
1. Sit for a couple minutes and then invite in three questions, and write the answers in my journal:
- "If I knew this was the last week of my life, what is one Need or quality of life I'd like to be or express more fully?"
- "What's one quality of life I'd like to contribute more to one of my relationships?"
- "Whats one quality of life I'd like to contribute more to my community?"
2. Consider each of these Needs, one at a time, and feel the surge of this energy in my body.
3. Invite myself to take one action each day this week to express the energy of one of these Needs, or bring it alive in my relationships. Be sure it's done in the spirit of invitation, not demand, and that it is specific and doable.
4. After doing the action, be sure to take a minute to visualize the happiness or fulfillment I experience, and extend it out to all beings.
The Needs that come to me today are self-expression, reassurance, and aspiration. After sitting with the energy of these, I've listed some ideas for action:
- Aliveness in the moment: Practice 5-4-3-2-1; practice heightened listening..
- Empathy for individual needs: Moderate my voice and actions.
- Responsible contribution: Organize better, and fulfill my responsibilities.
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