GSW - Living the Rhythm

There didn’t appear to be any specific grocery store wisdom today, except for this nagging awareness that I am not living in rhythm with “The Rhythm” – the felt sense of the Inner Rhythm that animates my being. So maybe this doesn’t qualify as “Grocery Store Wisdom”, but this is what emerged today, that evidently wants to be written. I felt strangely out of sync with the Self today, out of sync with Life. The requirements of living seem to be taking over and taking me out of rhythm with “The Rhythm” – if that’s even possible. I ended up feeling like I was schlogging through the grocery store with someone else’s goulashes on – at least two sizes too big and very heavy – like schlepping through mashed potatoes and gravy… Clean up on the Deli isle please…

As I schlogged through the store I felt only vaguely aware, as if the glow from Saturday’s realizations had dimmed. Where was the excitement about living “The Mystery?” I had hoped to see how “The Mystery” would reveal Itself today, instead I kept getting tripped up on the stories I tell myself about the way life is going, and how I’m tired of schlogging through life, having to be so focused on the mundane, rather than riding the rhythmic waves of Oceanic Awareness. But I told myself that it’s okay, life continues as it does – chop wood, carry water – keep going. We can’t always be floating in the ecstasy of “awakenings.” Things need to be done. And so I do them. Like we all do…

As I went from isle to isle in my mud sucking boots I pondered: How do I *live* “The Rhythm” when the mundane seemingly weighs me down, taking me in directions my Heart doesn’t want to go, out of the necessity of survival. My Heart wants to create, flow, rest, but I get caught in the mundance - the dance of the mundane. This is not to say that the mundane *isn’t* “The Mystery”, but how do I honor “The Rhythm of The Mystery”, that internal Rhythm that wants to be expressed in and through me… How can I be true to That - *living* “The Rhythm”…

While I realize now that *everything* is “The Mystery,” that there is no separation between the mundane and “the Mystery” - that it is only the *thought* that they are separate that makes it so – my experience of it feels different. It’s as if my whole being is trying to free itself from the confines and constraints that it is experiencing – the roles, the identities – and just BE, fluidly living. But this mundance that I’m caught in seems to suck the heat from the embers of the creative fire that wants to burn…

So - How does one “live life as it is” with its domestic demands and still find the energy to also do the life affirming, creative activities, when ones body lacks the stamina to do it all... I know a lot of you are doing this out there – you who are artists, mothers, writers, contemplatives, caregivers & working women… How do you *live* the excitement of “The Rhythm," of “The Mystery” that rises up from within? Seriously, I want to know! Some days I find it hard to just sit in open-ended meditation without thinking about what needs to be done, or to focus enough to get any creative momentum going, while still keeping the home fires burning – like Hestia, goddess of Home and Hearth: keeping the meals made, the laundry done, the general upkeep, the lists of things to do, and still fully engage in creative, life affirming endeavors. Where do we find time to just BE? Is it just me, or have you noticed that most “gurus” are men?! :) Is there a reason for that? Maybe they have the uninterrupted time to devote to a more contemplative life, to living a mystic’s life in sync with “The Mystery.” I don’t know. And I don’t mean to sound whiney here… but… something is pulling me to live differently, to express in a different way, to see in a different way… And yet, the tune of the mundane keeps pulling me back into the same old dance – the mundance…

And so as I did my domestic duties today, I reminded myself that it’s all “The Mystery” here, breathing me, living me, dancing me through the mundane duties and obligations… I reminded myself to rest in the Embrace of “The Mystery,” that the “mundane” is merely the surface movement that I *identify* with as a problem, an obstacle to the flow. I reminded myself that beyond the roles and identities of “self” we *are* abiding Presence, “The Mystery” – “The Rhythm” - experiencing life.

Shall we dance? Can you hear “The Rhythm?” You take the broom and I’ll grab the duster…