Letter from Love: It’s still you
Dear Ones,
A writing prompt from Liz Gilbert is to sit each day and ask, “Dear Love, what would you have me know today?” and let Love answer.
As I do the work of inquiry and stillness and growth, I find an edge that won’t shift. So I asked Love. And the reply was a surprise and a gift and if any of you are growing and edging and yet limiting at the same time, may this be of use/service.
Dear Love, what would you have me know today?
You are vast, little flame. There is more to you than you know. As you grow, the agitation you feel is you coming up against the ‘size’ and territory you’ve known. At one point it was plenty to explore, plenty to be. Now you’ve grown and the ability makes new pace possible. Like a child sleeping in a bed that once felt perfect and safe, now the bed is cramped and the outlook after sleeping there is cranky and ill-shaped. Stand tall. Don’t fold yourself back into the space you’ve known. No need to expend precious energy to be less than you are.
Here, see the walls fall flat and the horizons are now new and distant. Still, still my disbelieving wunderkind, still this is you. This is your landscape. Now you are ready for more of yourself.
Imagine.
Imagine my simplest of stones, imagine how it will feel to outgrow this new capacity, because you will. For now, unfold, charge through the hills, get lost, run out of gas. It is big, bigger than the equipment you currently have. You’ll require more ink, march through tougher boots. A new sweater is called for with stripes of yellow and red from shoulder to hip. A hat. Equip yourself for new territory. Enjoy.
And know,
1/ It is still you. All of it.
2/ There is more beyond it. Again this will happen. And again. You will outgrow what you know of yourself and again there will be more.
3/ Some things will change. Be that change. Holding back to fit the old won’t serve the new.
4/ I am with you in you as you and I love this size and this expansion.
Thank you for your courage. In courage, go forth. Encouraged, go forth. You can’t fall out of you. You can’t run out of you. More of you in the directions that are truly yours will still be you. I am here through and through all of it.
All, Love.
The ethics of slowing down
Dear Ones,
You are vast. You are spacious. You are music & laughter. Be so. As you can. Be so. Ready?
Over the summer I heard about an ethics research project. Princeton Seminary theology students were taught about the Good Samaritan story Fromm the Bible and given the assignment to write their own sermon on the parable to deliver to classmates. In simplified form, a traveler from Samaria encounters a stranger in distress beside a road, stops to help them up, and finds them a room at a local inn. The students are to write their own sermon on this topic.
The day they are to present, they are to leave their classroom and go to the lecture hall in three groups. The first group is told they are 5 minutes late, the next group is on time, the last told they have 5 extra minutes. On the path to the lecture hall is a stranger, staged to be in obvious distress. The experiment was to note how time constraints affected ethical predispositions; what happens to our ability to see and assist each other when we are hurried. Most of the students who were told they were late reported they didn't see a stranger and didn't stop on the way. Those who were on time reported seeing the stranger but went past to arrive on time to the lecture hall. But those who were early, who had 5 extra minutes, over half of them stopped to see what was wrong.
This knocks me down every time I think of it because I can FEEL it in my home. I can feel how my half of the partnership wanes when I get 'busy'. I put it in quotes here to remind myself that it is a choice not a truth. I have often thought that running 5 minutes late only affects me and the appointment to which I'm headed. But this points out that my five minutes late affects my ability to see, to act, to help. This is not the character I would like to share with the world. And yet it happens.
Retreat is a chance to let the momentum of my day-to-day life slow, to allow myself to be cared for with great meals, great movement, great great big skies. I adopt a different pace. The little box of my assumptions and plans can loosen and allow in a breeze, the stars, and a perspective that I had forgotten - who I am here to be.
This is Magic Time.
So we will arrive and decompress. The first practices will be playful, helping to ease us out of the intensity and seriousness we can cultivate around Getting It Done and start to redefine Getting it Done Right. Later practices will become caring and replenishing, and then releasing, and then rebuilding. We will walk, lots of time for yourself, a great local chef will have us in her care. A different structure to our outer days invites a different structure inside.
When we feel full and tended, our generosity arrives.
Magic Time is something we inhabit and remember. iIt is something that is shared with us, and then something that fortifies our ability to share what we are here to do, to be. and this is the work we all seek.
“When we are involved in a task so fully that we lose track of time, that is when we are at our most God-like, immortal, outside of time.” - Stephen Mitchell
If you want more details, if you have questions, if you are undecided and want to talk it out, for these reasons and for more, I am here for a conversation if you like. Reply to this email and set up a time to talk to me. Maybe you've never gone on retreat and it feels intimidating. Let's talk. Maybe you've been on retreat but this seems different. Let's talk. I'm not here to sell you, I'm here to help answer questions and listen and be sure this fits for where you are and what you want.
Like nearly every teacher, I'm teaching what I need. I feel hurried. I feel busy nearly all the time. It feels as though my days are set on ‘gallop’. And so the chance to set time aside and reboot is important and I am going on retreat to reset to ‘walk’ for a while.
"Everything that's stuck gets better when you unplug it for 5 minutes, and that includes us." - Anne Lamott
If you would like to try a smaller version, a one evening-one day-one morning home immersion, try out this weekend with me. Details + registration.
Check your schedule. Check your heart. Check your pace. Check out the website. Set up a call with me.
Most of all, choose your pace with deliberation, and see who’s around you, what’s around you, what’s within you that requires attention. Slow down so your generosity can bloom again. I will.
I am ready to see what’s around me and how I can help.
All love, Martha
…
Retreat details here.
Home immersion here. This Friday PM, Saturday AM +PM, Sunday AM.
I will have free morning classes live on Zoom + YouTube MWF 8-9:30am Oct 16 - Nov 10.
Vinyasa for 50 minutes, breath for 10 minutes, and meditation for 15 minutes.
Leave when you need to. Zoom link will be on the front page of my website. Door’s open xx
…