Designed to go on being, even when I forget to trust

I know I am designed “to go on being.” And to “go on being” not just anybody. Not an idealized, cleaned up version of myself. Nor an aspirational version. But a plain and quirky, occasionally brilliant, more often ordinary and flawed Sara: one-of-a-kind.

Yet I forget. I forget to trust my design. 

Life itself provides the reminders, as well as the support and pleasures of “going on being” in the company of other one-of-a-kinders.

 

recommissioned in perpetuity

by Sara Eisenberg

 

a wisdom-mechanism within

moves inexorably towards wholeness,

around, over, through the

barriers I have erected

(put in place for the Highest Good at the time: survival.) I

 

study myself to know I 

am alive, have a place. I 

push myself. I 

push against myself

(prevent  annihilation) 

unforgiving towards my

self as a flaw in creation. I

 

move out of the center of my attention,

move towards you: I 

push against you or disappear

(Reb Nachman said, ‘All the world is just a narrow bridge.” 

Just so my bandwidth for connection.)

 

in my 02 Honda the check engine light comes on.

Gary the technician reminds me it could be nothing, again, or one 

of ninety-two possible malfunctions.

Brenda the healer reminds me I can bear the incompleteness I

am.

 

the battery of the loaner car, parked

in front of my house 

dies.

 

by evening,

Daniel and Leah bear witness to the day’s

recommissions: I trust

my existence, relax

in my skin, dance

as I wash dishes,

self-forgiven,

soft, tender,

a woman

of rank.

A Blessing Habit

Kwan Yin Goddess of Compassion

A siren wails in the distance as I head home from an early-morning stop for coffee. Not a police siren. Not a fire engine. Clearly an ambulance.

From behind the wheel, I send blessings. I have been doing this since my children were young, and taught them to do the same. I don’t think about it. The sound of the siren cues me to this. Pavlovian.

Its a good habit, a beneficial habit – it uplifts me, pulls me out of my pre-occupation with one worry or another, with one to-do-item or another. Pulls me out of isolation and into connection. And if you believe in the power of intuition and prayer, as I do, the blessing has some healing effect on the injured or ill one.

But blessing in this way is still a habit, beneficial only to the extent that I inhabit it. Bring awareness to it. Let the blessing live in my body.  Let the blessing draw from a well of compassion that is in no sense “mine,” but that I can access and share, from which I can partake and pass on.

When I hear a siren, I don’t have to remember to send a blessing.

I have to re-member myself.

I have to re-member connection, Source, suffering.

When I can be all this, I re-member wholeness, and the blessing is real.

The patient, the ETs, the ambulance driver are blessed.

I am blessed.

Read my guest story-teller piece, Dance Camp, about embracing limitations as opportunities HERE.

Read about this practice to break a common habit that doesn’t serve you.

At the Heart of Healing & Awakening: Honesty & Kindness

Is there anything we want more than to know ourselves and to be comfortable in our own skin? in our own life? to be ourselves? to re-member our wholeness?

Is there anything more difficult than to see ourselves as we are, to see life as it is, to persevere in this exhilarating and terrifying effort?

Most of us have a strong preference, even a habit, of relying on honesty, or falling back on kindness on our healing and awakening journey.  But unless we draw on both, we are likely to get bogged down, off track, or lose heart altogether, running from angry ghosts or chasing after angels.

Honesty without kindness is brutal.
We see our faults and limitations, act as judge and jury. We mete out penalties. Or we simply turn ourselves over to a taskmaster whose job it is to bring us up to snuff, into conformity with some idealized version of ourselves. We cut ourselves no slack. All while knowing we wouldn’t treat our friends this way.

Kindness without honesty leaves us complacent.
We let ourselves off the hook, unable or unwilling to see the trail of unhappiness our behaviors leave behind us. We strand ourselves in fantasy.

The truth of any situation is that we are mixed and mixed up, imperfect human beings.

Honesty roots us deeply into reality. Kindness waters the roots.

As we take the help of both honesty and kindness, we can cease shrinking away, turn directly into our life as it is, look directly into the mirror and see ourselves as the wholeness we already are. This is the heart of healing and awakening. This is the heart of  A Life of Practice. 

 

Repatriation

by Sara Eisenberg

no upraised arm,
no torch aloft,
no golden door,
no registry,
no frank welcome.
just me standing guard,
close by the only sign of vacancy:
a tent slit flapping in the night wind.

aerialists, beggars,
choosers,
medalists, losers,
the timid and the raging,
creatures graceful, one-eyed, or many-toed:
I might, from grudge or curiosity,
inquire into each one’s country
and allow in a likeness.

when I can bear to name
the Real,
grant it ground
that is not for rent, for sale, for land-grab;
permit it entry without
bath, deodorant, change of clothing;
give up my ragged belongings
and vain efforts to secure them;

then each dark distinction that longs to return
home
is belonging itself.

 

Honesty and kindness guide our inquiry into healing and awakening in every Nondual Kabbalistic Healing session with me.