Simply Sitting With a Cold

This morning I woke up with a head cold. I haven’t had a cold in a very long time, so it *felt* like a “new” experience, although one I certainly remembered in a hurry – yuk. So – what to do… Well, nothing of course. Just simply let it take its course.

Fortunately my husband was away for the day, tending to business possibilities. So I had a reprieve of sorts to just relax and let the day be what it was – simply living – without having to be “up” for anyone or responsible for anything, not having to make anything “work” – including myself.

Underneath the cold symptoms I felt the usual sense of restlessness, my constant companion for several weeks now. I’ve been noticing how she seems to like to keep churning things up underneath the surface. I’ve just allowed her to be there. But today she kept me from being able to settle into the Flow of the Stillness underneath, so I decided to pay attention to her. I simply sat with her a while and noticed that she was really just mind clutter, constant mind distraction, constant thought percolating. So we talked and I asked her to go to the back burner, like that stew of life that’s been simmering there forever.

While she slowly and quietly simmered there, next to the stew, I was finally able to get a glimpse of the simplicity of Stillness. Not through *trying* to “meditate” – but simply sitting and allowing. Simply sitting provided a felt sense of sweet communion with Infinite Presence – just being with each other like old friends, feeling that comfortable familiarity - in silence. The more I go down this life path, the more I realize that this is how I want to live – in simple communion with Being, simply living, simply Being – just simple, simple, simple. But I am surrounded by “complexity!” – mine and others. My husband spends a lot of time in his head trying to figure things out. We engage in a lot of conversations about what is going through his head, the “business” stuff, life circumstances stuff, the financial stuff – stuff, stuff, stuff - and how we’re going to navigate the stuff. I am inclined to go right along with him in this mind stream, spending time in my head, trying to figure things out as well. No wonder I have a cold, I’m all “stuffed up!” But today I just wanted life to be simple, and simply lived. So I simply sat – with the cold, with restlessness, and with the inner Flow of Life.

At the end of my “sitting time”, I went to the kitchen to get lunch. As I did so, a phrase arose from within – “Simplicity has to do with the way you *approach* everything.” Okay – what does that mean?! See, the mind kicks back in and wants to complicate the answer by trying to find its meaning. I went back to sitting – just sitting.

The awareness from simply sitting today is that it’s this restless mind clutter that keeps me in a constant state of complexity and agitation, that stuffs up the simplicity of just Being. I’ve noticed that if I *approach* life’s questions, situations and circumstances through the mind, a downward spiral of complexity results – stuffing everything up. Evidently, as a society of seekers, we think that long, involved, wordy, mental “answers” to our questions are going to take us where we want to go. Instead they keep us mentating to the next thought and the next question and the next supposed “solution.” But it’s only a mind game of problem solving, coming up with supposed solutions – a mind approach that loses simplicity in the process, and creates more complexity and more questions – more things to figure out – more head stuff.

So, what if I my approach was to trust LIFE to take its course, like my cold; trust LIFE to show me how to move with it, to inform me, instead of constantly trying to swim upstream to the mind – seeking solutions. What if I let LIFE unfold the way it needs to – like a river returning to the Ocean– allowing that movement to carry me – responding from that space of Flow. What if I “decomplexify” (my new word:) my head and simply stay open to LIFE, not *needing* an answer or a solution, or to fix anything – as if it was “wrong” – just adapting to the flow of the River. What if I patiently wait for the answer to arise, to reveal itself, from a simple resonance with Being, rather than from the mind stuff… It’s not like I haven’t been here before, or haven’t felt that innate sense of “knowing” what was needed – through resonance. But once again I have “complexified” my life with head stuff, wandered off into the mind field, and am having to rediscover the simple approach – the *Essence* of simplicity – where wisdom just IS – where life gets unstuffed. :) All that from simply sitting with a cold!

Photo - Bill Kennedy

The Spice of Life...

Yesterday I got a comment from a blogger friend on The Stew of Life post that reminded me that one of the things I *love* is the smell of savory spices, which then led me down the path to where I usually go to experience those wonderful scents. In the Summer I can go out to my herb garden, swish around in the thyme, tarragon, lavender, basil, rosemary, and marjoram and smell those delightful aromas. And sometimes I bring the herbs in and dry them as aromatic reminders. But – I *also* have a favorite spice shop where I like to go and just inhale. Usually at Christmas time it is particularly pungent. It’s been two Christmases since I’ve been there. My mind wafted to the memory and I thought – YES! That’s where I need to go to experience the “spice of life” – to soothe the simmering stew – to make life a little more palatable. Sometimes I find serenity in the simplest of pleasures – aromatic spices is one of them.

So today, after cleaning the kitchen, I headed off to the spice shop near the Lo-Do area of Denver, tucked away on a side street. This particular spice shop is in an old building, with creaking wooden floors, and shelves and shelves of jarred spices and herbs – as I imagine an old Herbalist’s shop might be – a place for creating alchemy. There is also a glassed-in “spice room” where they grind the spices into powders. The shop has lots of ambience and atmosphere. It seems reminiscent of what I imagine the “old world” to look and feel like. When I have been there before, the spice shop, not the “old world”, the experience of the spices with their unique aromas has always soothed me. But today there was no person behind the glass grinding herbs, and no pungent odor of spices wafting through the air. A slight scent of disappointment arose within me…

In the back of the shop they have wooden bins where they sell small packets of several kinds of the crushed herbs - cheap. So I headed to the back and started sniffing, bin by bin – the financially challenged person’s cheap thrill… The aromas were delicious. My absolute favorite aromatic spice is Marjoram. The dried little pod-like buds - right after they’ve been crushed - create a very distinctive odor: clear, clean, crisp. If serenity had a scent this would be it – in my imagination. I found the Marjoram bin and sniffed and sniffed at the little package. But it didn’t give off that familiar fragrance. So I kept going from bin to bin. I finally found one that said: “Herbes de Provence.” Oo-la-la! Ahhh – a touch of “old world” - France maybe. The packet ingredients were a combination of several herbs & spices: French Thyme, Savory, Fennel, Rosemary, Marjoram (there it was!), Basil, Lavender and Tarragon… I knew I had to take this one home – open it up – crush it some more to release the savory scent, place small amounts in little open bowls, and set the bowls in my kitchen cabinets. Each time I open a cabinet door my imagination takes flight as I inhale the fresh aroma of “Herbes de Provence” – and pretend I’m in a country kitchen. I take a deep breath and feel - serenity…. My little reprieve from the simmering stew of life…

Imagination – the spice of life…

The Stew of Life

I am really learning how life is like a pot of stew these days. Some days you get the sweet meat and other days you get the turnips, depending on what bubbles up to the surface. It seems that “contentment” rolled her way back to the bottom of the pot and a variety of other morsels have rolled their way to the surface… It seems the “dark” and “light” are all in this stew together – floating around together – taking their turns, offering their savory tidbits.

Yesterday I was in a stew about many things and instead of just walking away from the hot stove I fell face first into the stew – splat. When I finally managed to pull myself out of the pot I had a lot of sticky gravy all over me and had to wipe it off with a rag of humility – and step away from the stove.

Such is life…

I keep dipping that big ladle in trying to find “contentment” again, hoping she’ll find her way to the top of the pot and grace me with her sweet aroma. So far no sightings in this deep, dark stew. I’m sure she’s still in there somewhere, but it seems in trying to dig for her she eludes me – jumping off the ladle just as I think I’ve caught a glimpse of her again.

So I’m skimming off the top… Not necessarily liking what has been dished up, but willing to sit and look at it a bit. Although yesterday I turned my nose up at it and was rather like a spoiled child who didn’t want to eat her Life Stew and stormed off wanting only the dessert – the sweet “goodies” of life… But that didn’t work. I still didn’t get what I wanted. And the pot of Life Stew continues to bubble up today – still simmering.

Last night as I lay in bed still awake at 1:15am it *finally* dawned on me to ask: What needs to be seen here? Ah – that diverted the mind off the “I don’t want to eat my stew” routine. *Something* is obviously being offered up here in this unsettled stew of life that keeps boiling and roiling with its potatoes, carrots, peas, onions, celery and yes – yukky turnips. And it appears I don’t get to pick what I want. Heh, heh, heh – Like I didn’t know that one already… I mean I didn’t fall off the turnip truck ya’ know… (sorry :) The sweet taste of contentment is not being offered on the menu this week so far, so it looks like I’ll need to chew on that piece of turnip for a while and see what nourishment it has to offer. Maybe I’ll add a spice or two to make it more palatable.

Am off to tend to the pot of life again and see what comes up – wish me luck!

I wonder where I left my cookie stash – just in case…

You notice there aren’t any turnips in the picture :)