Sitting

I am so grateful for the poets, and people, who inspire me. In choosing a new book of poetry to review, I found David Keplinger. I do not know how I had not read him before now; he has written several books and has won many prestigious awards, and has been teaching for decades. He also is a student of Tara Brach, whom I have encountered through classes taught by Rick Hanson. At this point, I am tempted to insert all sorts of links to the websites for these esteemed teachers. And I would say more about Keplinger's work, except that I want to focus that impulse instead on writing and submitting my review of Ice. 

Really, though, I want to write in response to the meditation that Keplinger led this morning as part of the Mindfulness Initiative at American University (MIAU). So that is one link I will include.  The meditations he leads each week include the reading and study of a poem. Today's poem was Milton's Sonnet 19: "When I consider how my light is spent..." and I am tremendously grateful both for the reflections he shared and where they led me. I am always so self-propelled to act, to be busy and "productive," when it can be very appropriate to be still and wait. 

November is coming, and with it Nanowrimo, which I have agreed to do with my daughter and a colleague. But is there anything that I think I have to say that warrants 50,000 words? The sky is lightening as I write, and there is one star or planet (is it Venus? I must check - see? the push to act, always) high in the sky, and very big and bright, even as the silhouette of the trees that remain surfaces against the gray horizon.

At the moment, I want only to rise before 6 every morning and meditate, to let my efforts be in sitting, in being and experiencing a deeper understanding and compassion for myself and the world, rather than in doing. Always doing.