Speaking My Prayers to The Winds of Spring

"When I was a boy I used to think that strong meant having big muscles, great physical power; but the longer I live, the more I realize that real strength has much more to do with what is not seen. Real strength has to do with helping others."
-Mister Rogers 

"Practicing open awareness is a gradual process of continually going back to seeing what we're seeing, smelling what we're smelling, feeling what we're feeling. Whatever happens, the method is to keep letting go of the extra stuff and return to just what's here." - Pema Chodran

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March 19th, 2020

Dear Community,

Since last writing to you less than a week ago, I have shut down my office. The very next day after sending out my newsletter about staying open, I decided to close shop! It feels very indicative of the current state of affairs -things shifting quickly and being asked to adapt at lightening speed. I brought home my singing bowls and tuning forks, a few stones, and the one ivy that has been the same size for three years now, holding on with the minimal light it gets.  I am hoping that amidst all of my other house plants, it will feel inspired to have a growth spurt. I sure feel I am in the midst of one and maybe you feel the growing pains too. 
 
While I was closing down my office, I decided to take with me a small book I keep in there - "The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember".  I opened up the book and came immediately upon this - "In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers." This has become one of several mantras for me - feeling into my heart space, breathing into all the waves of strong emotions which are washing over me, over the collective, and sitting with my questions.  When possible, stop bullying myself to find a fixed "perfect" answer. To not rush myself in this process we are navigating. To fortify the scared girl (and woman) inside with gentleness and trust. To practice this with the people I pass in the grocery store, on my morning walks, with my husband and my family. To catch myself before I run off too far into an imagined future...or into the past.  To stay intimately with what is unfolding right here. Now.

I feel the profound and quickly shifting circumstances of this moment viscerally in my body, in my nervous system.  It is challenging and disquieting to abstain from offering what I know and rely on to unwind and calm the nervous system - touch.  Touch is not something that can be switched to an online platform and so, often this past week, I have sat and walked and danced with the question, how do I show up for you, my community? I have come to this, sharing a bit of my experience and welcoming any of you to share some of yours. As one of my clients reminded me, our voice and our words are touch as well. We affect one another profoundly through our words and the vibration they carry.

This morning, as the first day of Spring arrived with wind and snow, I walked behind my house talking to the wind. I shared my prayers with her, prayers of patience, of resiliency, of dissolving the rough borders and walls within myself, of letting more compassion and kindness direct my actions, of us as a people waking up and uniting and healing ourselves and our precious home, Earth.

in gratitude and peace,

Kara

Kara Duval