Sabbath for Receptivity

Today is my sabbath - when I step out of the fray and regroup. We are nearing the end of summer, with an active week ahead, and I want to take time to prepare myself - body, mind, and spirit. I want to open to awareness, wisdom, and curiosity.

This is the yin time of the waxing crescent moon, a phase of growth, when I am planting my intentions and caring for them. I'll take time to discern and create clarity. 

Agenda:

1. Read "Your Heart Was Made for This"

2. Journal challenges and needs

3. My Receptivity Project

1. Read "Your Heart Was Made for This":

I'm reading this book by Oren Jay Sofer (2023), with the subtitle, "Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love". It has 26 short chapters on innate qualities we each have, that we can cultivate and develop as inner and external expression, meant to be read and practiced in order, one every 1-2 weeks.

Part Two explores patterns of energy: Rising and falling energy, flowing like a wave (cycles of vitality and rest); Expanding and contracting energy (broadening awareness and focussing); and Yin and Yang.

Chapter 7 is Curiosity, the gateway to understanding. We must nurture curiosity about the realities of injustices and unhealthy patterns if we want to understand and change them: Try getting curious about personal habits of control, harshness, and avoidance, and dynamics like racism and internalized oppression. "...we need to grow interested, recalling that awareness is the beginning of transformation."

"Curiosity guides us to look deeply into a single moment, and flowers in a process of sustained inquiry." Curiosity opens me to mystery and to new ways to connect; it informs my strategy, and urges me to explore with direct experience; it encourages me to question my assumptions and biases; it aligns me with my values.

  

Reflection: Try meditative inquiry - letting a question arise from a deep place and then reframing it until it settles and opens. Try to experience the question fully without needing an answer, then consider what I received by the experience.

Action: Try listening to conversations with curiosity; be interested in the world that others live in.  

2. Journal challenges and needs:

My theme this month is receptivity and holding, which requires me to be open to incoming information, ideas, perspectives, and emotions without immediate judgment or resistance, and also holding and caring for what I receive, and being willing to grow and change.

I remember that for each opportunity in life there is a challenge. The challenge to receptivity is defensiveness and judgement. If I shield and protect myself I will close my heart. Practice creating a space for something new.

From my journal: I'm beginning to get a handle on my anger and also moments of anxiety and overwhelm - I'm mindful of when these arise and how they feel now. My growing edge is to hold a space for the truth: Curiosity about why I am feeling what I feel and an openness and courage to explore it further. 

3. My Receptivity Project:

Receptivity is the ability to be open to incoming information, ideas, perspectives, and emotions without immediate judgment or resistance. It's the skill of creating space to truly accept what is flowing in from others, from spirit, or my own heart, becoming a vessel first; but an active vessel, holding and caring for what I receive, and being willing to grow and change. I open to new perspectives and possibilities. I open to inspiration.

Some areas to apply receptivity are in my studies, my communication, my writing and creativity, and in how I receive criticism. I ask these queries each day:

What is the something new I'm waiting to receive?

What have I recently received that needs nurturance?

Today I open to being close with people in worship and in sharing - listening and receiving each offering with interest and no judgement. I will notice my body and soften it to become like fertile earth.