When I saw the widget, I was well into my day. Eating bacon mushroom, more likely running my mouth.
It was just some random day marking how many times I’ve brought my ass to the mat, the cushion, of lie in bed focusing on anything from a mantra, a KEY! instrumental, to just sitting at the altar.
What do I want to say about this milestone? It wasn’t that I was looking for it. I came upon it. Like meeting the curve a road sign warned you of. Inside the warning is a promise. It’s built in. Meeting the curve can be dangerous but it continues the road. With care and a little caution, you get to the other side.
Writing this at 2:19am, on a day that is literally comical to be writing this, I can confirm I have made it.
It’s not a location per se, but it’s a realization, a recognition. Actually, it’s a rebalance.
The moment when the work I put in across 1500+ days, culminates to the moment where I recognize–this is the fruit of my labor. The moment the shoot comes out the ground.
I did this all for this. To be able to look back at the self who clawed at anything to follow heart, to rebel against forces that nearly extinguished me, to look at fear in it’s eyes and remember the practice of chod. I practice the five whys. I practice practice. Shoutout to motherfucking Pauline Oliveros.
1500 days of practice meant that I did it even when I saw no results. I grasped at it in my darkest moments and even more impressive, when times were good.
1500 days, not counting all the early morning and night bed moments I couldn’t be bothered with hitting the timer.
Practices from a balcony in Hawaii, the ocean in Puerto Rico, at shrines in Japan. They came on MARTA trains and subway seats.
In those moments I learned I don’t have to be repulsed by parts of myself that no longer serve me in this phase of my life. I don’t have to deny I’m tempermental, even with having a heart that is so full I cry from gratitude I have the opportunity to choose this.
Meditation reminded me of a choice I always had.
I remember burning my first sets of tarot cards. My dad was elated lmao. Southern christianity with a background in Catholicism, it is what it is.
He didn’t know that I had chosen to go direct. To sit with myself, to see what was there without any other person’s voice pointing into the right direction.
god I stumbled, I still do. But that moment brought me back to the tarot and tools I put down to sharpen myself as a weapon. (Shoutout to my girl Jayfoxx) Now, tarot is one of the many delicious ways I talk to myself nowadays. That I share with my friends when them motherfucking cards TALKING lol.
One article can’t tell you what all I learned. Words fail. I can only say what I told an old coworker when I was working at Savannah Bee, selling honey, figuring out UX design.
“You got 5 minutes?”
The point was, you can’t cheat your way to this. You gotta do the sitting/standing/however you get down. You gotta become your own reference point. Get your own experience.
That’s the only way this works. That’s how we get juicy conversations and questions. Take 5, hell take 3! Just practice your practice.
Perfectionism isn’t the name of the game. It’s building the muscle to know you can always come back to practice.
I would be remissed if I didn’t thank Ms. Brenda and Geoffrey, two black elders in Atlanta facilitating the Shambhala BIPOC sangha.
It was the first time I saw black elders honestly share their inner world. Their invitation to sit, hold silence, and hear changed my life.
In church, our devotion is outward. In sangha, inward.
Turns out the basic goodness, when cultivated, can’t help but pour out to others. Omg, Mr. Phil! I get so happy when I see him on the zoom room because I love his perspective and humor. So hey y’all lmao. Oh and Ms. Joan!
I was a grandma baby, and one thing imma do is love an elder lmao.
Things have moved online since COVID, but it allows the sangha to expand beyond ATL. If you’re interested hmu and I can email you the link.
Let me end with a 2018 poem, EARLY in my practice. Shit I just realized I’m about to be practicing for ten fucking years.
DAMN. I gotta go on a tangent. This is what I mean. I’ve gotten to this point where what’s behind me is shrinking in comparison to what’s before me.
I got new proof points. New ideas. New results. Expanded love. You don’t get that from a few weeks of intensity or perfectionism. You get it step by step, moment by moment. Over time. The fuck ups are the point. They give you perspective, a reason to keep going. You’ve seen it get better.
That is why I loved Shambhala too. You meditate with your eyes open. You’re called to practice within the world around you.
I had it fucked up lol. I didn’t have to go in some cave and isolate to get myself together. I just had to sit with what is, what was, and let natural intelligence–that innate intuitive kind–grow until I can’t deny anymore.
Baby gets loud lol.
When the nudge comes, baby gotta move. When it lay heavy on my heart, I gotta speak it.
Let me tell you the alternative? Ignore it. Suppress it. Shut up. Let fear keep you from the freedom of your own truth, the fruits of your own labor. Bury your talents.
I can’t do it chile lmao.
So as promised here’s the poem !!2018!!
ON THE MAT
I wake up to birds sharing with me innate things their ancestors brought with them
Their words, gently force fed
For they could not conceive the hunger they were so feeling
Pink skies disappear into lilac and periwinkle
I step outside feeling crisp air on my toes
My head cocks for food from those same ancestors
Feeding me before I knew of hunger
Because I am me, no one tries to hide away
They tell me,
My pain and discomfort are not valid
My truth is a gross distortion of the reality one wishes I would assume
My body devalues my words, my thoughts
Unconscious resoirvoirs of prejudice eat up my flesh
Eat my words like stew
And spit out the flesh
Because it is too tough to be digested
It is too seasoned to this world to feel pain,
Is it not tender enough?
But I am so tender
My honesty is tender
Yet my flesh is spit out
Too tough to be digested
Too seasoned to feel pain
That is what they say
I send love to this version of me, because fuck she was a brave bitch, emo ass random writing and all lol.
much love, big joy
-an